June 2016, a wave of Filipino teens became the first students required to complete grades 11 and 12. As such, they are at the leading age of a major education reform effort that will bring the Philippines primary and secondary education systems into alignment with international norms. While aimed at the K-12 sector, the reforms are expected to dramatically affect the nation’s higher education system – and potentially Filipino students’ international mobility – as well. -Ashley Croddock.
Between the Kindergarten Act of 2012 and the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, both elementary and high school systems in the Philippines have undergone an ambitious overhaul in recent years. Together, the two laws extend formal education from just 10 years to 13, adding a mandatory year of kindergarten to the elementary curriculum, and extending high school through 12th grade. (Until 2011, kindergarten was optional, and just six years of primary education were compulsory.)
Education is considered as a powerful weapon to change the world. Everyone has a role to play in educating a child. For a developing nation, education is the key to keep abreast with the challenges of globalization. The challenge for the education sector is to turn these changes into opportunities for our learners to be competent and productive citizens of the future.
The generation today is being confronted with so many challenges. Few years from now, the world may be different. How do you think will our children respond to such changes? How do we prepare our children for this? We need to give them the best quality education they need. There is a need of transforming our educational system into an excellent structure that is adaptive to global changes. We need leaders who are empowered to make a difference in the educational system…Innovative leaders who are ready to embrace change, adapt change, and even initiate change.
The K-12 Curriculum and Senior High School Program provides a wide latitude of opportunity for every Filipino learner to compete globally. It offers meaningful learning that the future can benefit most. How we educate our children determines the future of our nation.
Changes to the education system are intended to better equip students for employment and further study, both at home and abroad. However, one consequence is the major and ongoing ripple effect they will have on colleges and universities. In particular, the reforms will spark a precipitous decline in higher education enrollments during the 2019/20 and 2020/21 school years, as the cohort of students who would typically enroll show up on campus instead continue on in senior high school. Despite the fact that numbers should recover the following year, the prospect has created widespread concern among university faculty, who, last year emerged as “leading voices of opposition,” said The New York Times. “Many are concerned that moving classes for 17- and 18-year-olds from universities to high schools will result in the firing of at least 25,000 university employees,” the paper noted. (The government argues that this lower figure, not the higher one cited in widely circulated petitions protesting the reforms, is correct.)
By: Elaine V. Cuadra Teacher I | Bataan National High School |Balanga, Bataan
