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DepEd pursues 12 years basic education

 

 

With regards to President Aquino’s agenda of increasing the basic education, Education Secretary Armin Luistro announced on Monday his plans that he referred to as the "enhanced K+12 basic education program."

K+12 meaning, "K" refers to "Kindergarten" and "12" refers to seven years in grade school plus five years in high school, thus making high school graduates of this program productive even without a college degree according to Luistro.

Currently, the Department of Education (DepEd) is working on the outline of the revisions that will be made to the public school curriculum and its implementing guidelines along with the budget needed. The proposal is set to be presented to the public on October 5, 2010 in parallel with the World Teachers’ Day in order to get feedback from all education stakeholders.

The aim of this reforms is to ensure that future high school graduates are competitive enough to be employed even without college degree.

"The current thinking and the current culture in the Philippines is that if you don’t finish with a college degree, there is something missing in your life. What should basic education be? To me, what is basic is that [high school graduates] should be able to live a meaningful life, they should be able to be prepared to start a family, and thirdly they should be able to be productively employed," said Luistro.

"The global standard for a student to enter the university is 12 years of basic education. In Southeast Asia, the Philippines is the only country with a 10-year basic education, followed by Cambodia with 11 years," explained PBED executive director Chito Salazar. "This is the reason why many universities abroad do not recognize our high school graduates because they are lacking in years here."

Amid all these, many parents, teachers and students disagrees with the plan. Shortages in facilities, additional expenses for tuition fees and school supplies along with the big question if the government can fund these project are the concerns of every Filipino.

Luistro acknowledges the budget constraint but he believes that these can help the Filipino youth to prepare them in real life.

"If we fix basic education, we fix the long-term problems of the country. And if we fix the country’s problems, we can build a truly strong society we can proudly call the Philippines," he added.

 

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Tags: basic education, DepEd, K+12, pbed
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