‘No Advantage from K-2 program’ – BBM

By Herbert Vego

FOR the first time, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. recently  assailed the Department of Education (DepEd) for the failure of its K-12 program to equip high school graduates with skills fit for employment.

“There is no advantage. They are not getting jobs,” he told the media on a live TV interview. He was reacting to a published observation by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) calling for amendments to the program.

In a separate media forum, Education Secretary Sonny Angara reacted, “Within three years, we will be able to address this. We cannot say it will be totally addressed but we will make improvements.”

But he could not explain how he would overhaul our education system.

This corner agrees with the President’s observation that K-12 has only succeeded in adding two more years of high school students and in saddling parents with unnecessary expenses.

Officially known as the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 (Republic Act No. 10533), the K-12 curriculum extended the basic education cycle from 10 years to 13 years, encompassing kindergarten (one year), elementary (6 years), junior high school (4 years), and senior high school (2 years).

Senior high school allows students to specialize in one of the four STEM tracks.  STEM is an acronym focused on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics through hands-on, problem-based learning.

It’s the failure of this curriculum to deliver its promise of pre-college employable skills that compelled parents and students to call for its abolition and revert to the old program without compulsory kindergarten, with six years of elementary and four years of high school.

It would take a law to abolish the program. In fact, in June this year, Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III called for a thorough review of the proposal to abolish the Senior High School (SHS) component of the K-12 program.

However, we don’t see it coming yet in the absence of popular support from other senators.

It was during the incumbency of the late President Noynoy Aquino that then Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Armin Luistro proposed the enactment of K-12 in 2013 on the pretext that the Philippines was the only remaining country in Asia with a 10-year elementary-to-high-school education system, as opposed to the standard 12-year program worldwide.

While the proposed K-12 curriculum was still being debated in the Senate and House of Representatives, parents were begging the PNoy government to block it because there was no need to “globalize,” unless we wanted more professionals to work abroad and leave family behind.

We could have been prouder of what we had done in only 10 years than what others had done in 12 years.

No less than the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), warned that K-12 graduates would not be employable in a professional workplace. The minimum requirement of 80 hours or 2 weeks for the students’ on-the-job training was not enough to prepare them for skilled jobs.

But Luistro had probably a hidden motive, which was to generate more wealthy students for the university he had served as president, De La Salle.

Thus, he would not listen to students and parents opposed to his brainchild. As a result, we have never achieved the goal targeted by K-12.

On the contrary, based on data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), an agency of the United Nations dedicated to helping children worldwide, Filipino students are behind in their actual grade level. By grade 4, they demonstrate literacy and numeracy skills equivalent to only Grade 1 or 2, indicating a two-year learning delay.

Coincidentally, DepEd has also lagged behind in construction of classrooms.

It is not a lie that some classes are still held under a mango tree.

-oOo-

MORE POWER RELIABILITY IN ILOILO CITY ASSURED

WITH the energization of the Arevalo Substation on Friday, June 20, there would be more power reliability and less outages in Iloilo City.

The P11.5-million project utilizes a 10/12.5 MVA mobile substation to temporarily serve nearly 12,000 customers previously connected to the overloaded Molo and Megaworld substations.

MORE Power COO Engr. JM Zaporteza and Assistant VP for Project Development and Management Engr. Armil Logarta led the event, highlighting the importance of deloading to accommodate rising power demand and prevent equipment strain.

The new facility is equipped with advanced SCADA technology, which is an acronym for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition.  It enables real-time monitoring and faster restoration of power in case of system faults.

A permanent 30/36 MVA substation is also planned for Arevalo to support long-term growth in the area.