K to 12 Curriculum has implemented all over the world. According to studies, Finland is number one country that has the highest education value because of the K to 12 Curriculum. In Asia, Philippines is the only country that is using the 10 year Basic Education Curriculum. When President Noynoy Aquino has been elected, he proposed to change the basic curriculum from 10 year Basic Curriculum to K to 12 Curriculum.
Last April 24, 2012, President Noynoy launched the K to 12 Curriculum. “From this day on, we can provide the youth with better opportunities to acquire information, to learn. We have gathered to launch a program that will change the education system of our country: the K to 12 Basic Education Program. Can we not compare the 10-year basic education program to force-feeding? You are given ten years to take in, to chew on, and to digest the lessons. There is no time for the children to savor the knowledge they are receiving. You just keep feeding and feeding them. The result: information is not processed as well as it should be, context is not a given and thus not applied, and the implications on the greater majority of Filipinos are not explained. Which is why, sometimes, information enters one ear and exits the other, in a matter of days, what has been learned has been forgotten.” PNoy said.
The government promised that no one will be left behind on this straight ad progressive path. “My father once told me: Once you have imbibed the knowledge, it is yours for life regardless of what happens to you in the future.” he added.
One of the good thing about K to 12 Curriculum is that after you graduate from high school, you can find your work if you cannot continue to go college. And you’ll be given a higher quality of education.
But the Senator Trillanes IV said that this curriculum should be postponed and continue to face the perennial problems of our education system like school materials, low salary of teachers, etc. He also said that it would not help the declining quality education instead it would only worsen the school dropout rate and make the cost of the education in the country prohibitive. This K to 12 Curriculum is said to be implemented by Department of Education (DepED) for the next coming school year.
“With the severe shortage in our classrooms and teaching personnel, why is DepEd instituting a program that will further aggravate our shortage in vital resources for education?” Trillanes asked.
According to Trillanes, the budget for this curriculum will not only be suffered by the government but also to the parents and students who are burdened to the increasing price of rice, tuition fees, LPGs, etc. “For every 100 who enter Grade 1, only 43 are finish high school and only 14 would actually finish college,” Trillanes said. This proves the study of former Education Deputy Minister Abraham Felipe and Dr. Carolina Porio which showed that “there is no correlative relationship between the number of years of basic education and the overall quality of education.” He also added that due to government’s unpreparedness, 85000 college professors and employee would be threatened in 2016 when the program commences in 2016. Countries like South Africa, Chile, Palestine, Morocco, And Saudi Arabia that has longer high school cycles belongs to the group that has low quality of performing high school students. Implementing K to 12 should be reviewed precisely and the pending unresolved problems of the country’s education system should be solved to attain the high quality education.
By: Gina M. Manrique | Teacher III | Limay National High School | Limay, Bataan
