The challenges of basic education: dealing with K-12

CONJUGATIONS By Lila Ramos Shahani (philstar.com) | Updated June 15, 2015 - 12:00am

An astonishing number of petitions have been presented to the Supreme Court about a matter that, in the minds of
many, should have been settled years ago. Im not referring to the Bangsamoro Basic Law here or some other equally
momentous piece of legislation. Im referring to the implementation of the K-12 law mandated by the 2013 Enhanced
Basic Education Act (RA 10533).

And what is the issue being brought before the nations highest court? The question: should our country have the same
number of years (12) of basic education as virtually the rest of the entire worldexcept for Djibouti and Angola? For
people who love to roll their eyes and exclaim, Only in the Philippines! this puts basic education right in there with
divorce. And it would be bad enough if the situation were merely an embarrassment.

In fact, the downsides of our globally outmoded 10-year basic education program are all too real, dumping millions of
underage high school grads on our already bloated labor market, requiring three to four effectively wasted semesters of
remedial work on the part of our colleges and universities, and, in the larger world, damaging the prospects of the
nations youth both in foreign universities and foreign jobs.

Though some of the points of the less self-interested petitioners have genuine validity, trying to insistby court order
that our educational system should cling to its antiquated K-10 mode of operation for even another day are
understandable, they remain short-sighted. Does our educational system have problems? Many. Are there rough spots
ahead in the implementation of K-12? Without a doubt. Is the transition going to cost money and cause personal and
institutional discomfort? You can count on it. But does the preponderance of all these issues combined in any way call for
a continuation of the presently inferior K-10 rather than proceedingeven in hasteto the globally accepted K-12
system? Not for a minute.

We can return to some of these issues below, but first we should get an idea of whats about to happen: Students in
Grade 10 are on their final year in Junior High School as they are set to enter Senior High in 2016 upon the full
implementation of RA 10533. That makes them the first batch to embark on the additional two years of basic education
made compulsory by the new law.

Opinion ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1

Despite five petitions having been filed at the Supreme Court to prevent the implementation of K-12, the Department of
Education (DepEd) is certain that the new curriculumwhich covers Kindergarten, six years of Primary Education, four
years of Junior High School, and two years of Senior High Schoolwill enhance the quality of education in the
Philippines, and they are equally confident that they are prepared for the pioneering batch of Senior High School
students in June 2016.
Official Gazette of the Philippines

So what exactly is the nature of the K-12 curriculum and how does it differ from the previous 10-year basic education
curriculum?

Aside from the additional two years of Senior High School (SHS), the K-12 program totally restructures the basic
education system in the country, aiming to provide some solutions to the widespread unemployment of the youth. As
Isagani Cruz put it, The whole point of the entire K to 12 reform is to answer the needs of about 30 million young
people (those below 24 years of age) who have not finished Fourth Year High School. Of the out-of-school youth of
employable age, more than six million are unemployed, primarily because they do not have the skills that employers
want.

The two years of SHS consists of two parts: Track Subjectscovering the development of skills for immediate
employment or entrepreneurship, and Core Subjectsto ensure college readiness of K-12 graduates. It also facilitates
four career tracks for students to choose from: Academic, Technical-Vocational-Livelihood, Sports, and Art & Design.

The four different career tracks provide flexibility. Depending on the goals of the student, as well as the community and
industry requirements in a particular region, the Track Subject Curriculum enhances the value and relevance of the high
school diploma. Equally important, the Core Subject Curriculum,remaining invariable for all schools,provides an
opportunity for everyone to be equally well-prepared for a college education academically.

By integrating the awarding of TESDA National Certificates at the high school level, K-12 studentsnow of employable
age upon graduationwould already qualify for decent entry-level jobs. This also increases the financial capabilities of
high school graduates who desire to pursue advancement through higher education.

Moreover, the SHS curriculum also addresses the redundancy of college-level general education programs, which
presently cover material that should have already been mastered at the pre-university level. This can result in higher
education institutions being more focused on the specifics of various degrees, rather that consuming so much of the first
two years remedying the inadequate competencies of the old 10-year program.

The K-12 curriculum is the present world standard and would be too difficult, if not impossible, to compress into only 10
years. Globally, the Philippines remains far behind, the only Asian countryand one of only three countries in the world
providing only 10 years of basic education.

Inevitably, there are also downside implications resulting from this shift in the education system.

With the introduction of K-12, there will be an increase in student population, translating into a requirement for 20,000
to 28,000 additional classrooms for each additional year-level; 40,000 to 56,000 classrooms for the two years of
SHS.Another pressing issue is the retrenchment of teaching and non-teaching college personnel. An estimated 25,000
are being held at bay.

DepEd, however, says that it has closed the gap of 66,800 classroom shortage in 2010 and has built 86,478 classrooms
between 2010 to 2014. This year, an additional 27,499 classrooms are on line to be constructed to cover the SHS
implementation in 2016.

DepEd has announced that it will be hiring 39,000 additional teachers in 2016 to meet the personnel requirements of the
program. This demand for SHS teachers is proposed as mitigation for the faculty lay-offs in higher education institutions.
This is an important point, since many junior faculty look to their teaching careers for funding to pursue higher academic
degrees. Thus, the roughly 50 percent cut in pay that comes from the move from college to SHS teaching is particularly
bad news.

Official Gazette of the Philippines

But, besides student and teacher concerns, there is a third factor: the additional cost to parents for food and
transportation expenses to send their children for two more years of high school.
Worsening parental expenses, well over half5800 out of 7,976of the nations public high schools are set to
implement SHS.As a result, DepEd is in talks with 2,000 private education institutions to accommodate incoming seniors
that would not be able to attend public SHS schools. The current plan is for DepEd to subsidize the cost of private tuition
but this is one of the most controversial issues around RA 10533s implementation. Many parentsand others
complain that the proposed subsidizes are too low and will constitute their childs high school diploma being held
hostage to costs they might find impossible to meet. Still others object to giving a taxpayer financed windfall to private
schools.

All these complaints are valid. Until recently, our school system has suffered much neglect in many areas, including a
chronic shortage of classrooms. Likewise, the almost criminally low pay our public schoolteachers receive is scandalous.
There is a very serious loss of junior college teachers as wellmany of whom are pursuing higher degrees that will
benefit the nation. That they should be forced into lower paying jobs even as they struggle to advance needs to be dealt
withit is an all-too-typical example of how neoliberal pressures such as privatization can gut the aspirations of a
developing country and force it into the race to the bottom that has become a linchpin of globalization.

Among teachers, there are deep-seated anxieties about the new duties expected of them. DepEd has been conducting
numerous teacher trainings to address these concerns, but there is a sense that things remain confused and unsettled.
Most likely, uneasiness and suspicion among teachers will linger until the new system is in place and they have a chance
to actually work through it and make the needed adjustments. In addition, there still remains the problem of language:
what to do with Filipino, how to sustain its place in the curriculum, and what will the changes mean for teaching the
language in colleges and universities? For that matter, has the English curriculum been chosen in haste, as some critics
allege? What of the adequacy and quality of some of our textbooks and instructional materials? Can schools coordinate
better to strengthen job placement for their students?

Likewise, tuition costs for parents whose children have no public SHS available should not hold those students hostage to
the financial capabilities of the parents. That is not what we mean when we talk about public education as a
constitutional right. And, sadly, anytime large sums of government money are being passed out, we come face to face
with the ubiquitous problems of potential corruption.
Parents wait for their children outside the gates of President Corazon Aquino Elementary School in Quezon City at the
opening of classes, June 2, 2014. AP/Bullit Marquez

All that said, I still tend toward proceeding with K-12. The K-10 approach is as problematic asindeed, is part ofthe
continued neglect our public educational system has suffered since the Marcos years. It is time and past time to begin
making amends.

We should not ignore the serious challenges of shifting to a K-12 program. At the same time, we should seize upon its
very real potential to improve the lives of everyone. K-12 is obviously a work in progress that will go through many
changes as it is implemented. Top-down planning will invariably be reshaped and modified by bottom-up concerns and
existing practices of teaching and learning.What remains imperative is that we provide our youth with all the skills they
need, especially education, to prepare them to live meaningful and productive lives. This means, among other things,
preparing for the constantly changing demands of the workplace. But they should also be able to question those changes
and craft alternatives for a better world. There are many problems to be fixed in education and we should pursue these
solutions with zeal. To do so means dealing with the many challenges of K-12 rather than simply putting them on hold.

Challenges in Implementing the K-12 program

Written by Maria Cristina E. Austria |T-II|Morong National High School

Published: 16 May 2016

Created: 16 May 2016

Three years ago, the Department of Education under the leadership of Secretary Armin Luistro proposed the K-12 Basic
Education Program. At that time, that agency was in its full battle gear fighting so hard in the spirit of educational reform
against critics coming from different sectors of the society. Many claimed that the proposal to take a quantum shift in our
educational system is a pure display of youthful bravado. The poor which constitutes a considerably large chunk of our
population argued that adding two more years to the secondary education is no less than a prolongation of the
economic burden brought about by sending students to school. Still others asserted that the proposed program is
impossible and is far from being actualized at least in terms of logistics (infrastructure, human resource, and equipment).
Aside from these relatively substantial attacks on the merits of the proposed program, however, what other challenges
does the Department of Education have to confront in implementing the K-12 education reform?

Sergio (2012) enumerated three challenges to the K-12 education reform namely (a) curriculum design, (b) human
resource, and (c) required infrastructure. Each of these challenges will be elaborated briefly in the succeeding discussion.

One of the features of the K-12 program is the decongestion of the curriculum which could be attributed mainly to the
additional two years in the secondary education (Okabe, 2013). Okabe (2013) further explained that under the K-12
program, the content that was congested in four years will be scattered and taught in a span of six years. The challenge,
however, is posed as soon as the questions of what content to include, remove, or add and how are asked. Realizing this
difficulty, Cruz (2010) argued that revising the curriculum is not only a matter of deleting a subject here and inserting a
subject there. Instead, Cruz (2010) claimed that revising the curriculum especially in the context of implementing the K-
12 program entails an approach holistic in nature where various factors are taken into great consideration.

Based on a report by the Department of Education (DepEd, 2010a), 103, 599 additional teachers would be needed once
the K-12 program is implemented. This challenge is very evident, Sergio (2012) argued, not only in the proposed program
but also in the previous education system. One aspect noteworthy in the previous system is the shortage of teachers
which could be best attributed to the fact that budget is limited. Cruz (2010) argued that employing additional teachers
to fully implement the K-12 program would be more of a challenge. Earlier, Torp and Sage (1998) reported this challenge
met by other countries who already had implemented the program.

Required infrastructure as one of the major challenges in implementing the K-12 program reflects the seemingly
impossibility of its actualization. As per the data reported by DepEd (2010a), 153, 569 classrooms, 13.2 million armchairs,
95.6 million books would be needed to fully implement the program. At present, classroom shortage is a serious
subsisting issue not to mention the shortage of other facilities and equipments. And Sergio (2012) claimed that
implementing the K-12 program vis--vis the annual budget allocated to the Department of Education would
substantially increase the shortage.

Despite these challenges, however, the Department of Education together with all the stakeholders of the learning
community will hold hands in implementing the K-12 program. Under the banner of true education reform, these
challenges, like that of the aforementioned criticisms, will be overcome.
References

Cruz, I. (2010, September 30). Changing the curriculum. The Philippine Star . Retrieved August 18, 2011,
from http://www.philstar.com/ Article.aspx?articleId=616556&publicationSubCategoryId= 442

Department of Education. (2010a, November 2). Briefer on the enhanced K+12 basic education program. Retrieved
August 18, 2011, from http://www.gov.ph/2010/11/02/briefer-on-the-enhanced -k12-basic-education-program/

Okabe, M., & . (2013). Where does Philippine education go?: the" K to 12" program and reform of Philippine
basic education.

Sergio, M. R. S. (2014). K-12 Education Reform: Problems and Prospects.Gibn,9, 70-80.

Torp, L., & Sage, S. (1998).Problems as possibilities: Problem-based learning for K-12 education. ASCD.