Recently, the government has implemented the K-12 curriculum. They said this was in order to improve education in the Philippines. Would the K-12 curriculum really improve the education in the Philippines? I say we are completely fine with K-10. The Philippines is one of the best countries in education, and we are not “noncompetitive with other nations”.
Rather than adding more years to improve the curriculum, why not just improve the curriculum there on the spot? That is what the DepEd should focus on. They must also focus on making education more accessible to the students in far and remote places in the Philippines. We should increase the literacy level to 99 or even 100%.
As I used to study in a public school in the US, I would comment that the education was terrible there. Most kids didn’t even know how to multiply or divide by 5th grade. There was even something called furlough Friday’s where you wouldn’t have school because of budget cuts. They were taking days out of the school and adding it to the industry because the government would benefit more from the industry rather than education. However this is just from the state of Hawaii, though I’m not sure about the other states.
I feel that the K-12 curriculum in the states just spread out the entire curriculum, with less subjects, quizzes, and exams. They have it too relaxed there. So what happens to the students? They learn at the same mediocre pace as the others, and the gifted students become bored. That’s what happened to my nephew who’s now in second year, studying in North Carolina. He’s the number 1 student in his class and also number 1 in his school. But there’s too little to the subjects that he becomes bored. He doesn’t need to study because there’s nothing to study. He wants a challenge. I think that’s what all of the students want. A challenge, a little more to their student life. And the thing with my nephew is that he used to study in the Philippines.
That’s what I worry about the K-12 curriculum in the Philippines. I fear that if we would have K-12, they would spread out the curriculum that’s already fine how it is. K-10 is basically just a compressed version of K-12, so the students would learn at a faster, more advanced pace. Private schools would endorse K-12 as it poses a new opportunity as they will make more money from the student’s parents. I imagine it as “sit in the classroom doing nothing for 2 hours”.
That brings up another issue that the DepEd has failed to address. The lack of teachers and classrooms throughout the Philippines. The lack of teachers leads to overcrowded classrooms. The lack of classrooms leads to teachers lecturing on the staircases and on the fields, preventing the teachers from giving the students proper education. That is one right of a child, the right to be given proper education. How do you expect the DepEd to hire more teachers, to teach more year levels?
If these are the conditions under K-12, I would oppose it. However there are some conditions over which I would support it.
I hope that the DepEd will not expand the curriculum, but instead compress it further and add more subjects to the space. If we would add more subjects to the extra 2 years, then the extra money would pay would be worth it. They should add college preparatory subjects, or electives which would capture the interest of students. I always thought that high school is the gateway to college, so why not let the student decide what path he should take?
To be continued on February 28, 2013.
It pains me to say this, but it is entirely true.