EDUCATION secretary Leonor Briones seems to have given up hope on the K-to-12 curriculum now that the first batch of six-year high school graduates has shown no better potential than their four-year predecessors.
“We will review the curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 12,” the Department of Education (DepEd) boss recently rued in the wake of a survey made by recruitment website JobStreet.com, which showed that only 24 percent of 503 employers polled would hire K-12 graduates.
The survey validated an earlier prediction by Alberto Fenix, the president of Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), that the first batch of K-12 graduates would not be employable in a professional workplace because the minimum requirement of 80 hours for the students’ on-the-job training would not suffice to prepare them for skilled jobs.
A brainchild of previous DepEd secretary Armin Luisto, the Enhanced Education Act of 2013, better known as the K-12 Program, requires 13 years of basic education — compulsory kindergarten plus two more years added to the traditional four years of high school — on the pretext of enabling its graduates to join the workforce, as well as preparing them for college education. Oh, have they been enabled?
Ask the K-12 graduates. They would tell you that most subjects in senior high school are the same ones being taught in first year of college. So why waste time and money for grades 11 and 12? Why ram unnecessary subjects into secondary students – say, Handicraft Production, Bread and Pastry Production, Caregiving and Electrical Installation – when very few would benefit from them? Such subjects are better taken post-high school at the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) training centers.
If I were Secretary Briones, I would ask Congress to repeal the law enforcing the K-12 program for being unnecessary and financially burdensome to the poor parents, merely anchored on Luistro’s alibi that the Philippines lags behind the world education standard. Who cares about “world standard” when we are even complaining of “brain drain” caused by college graduates working abroad?
Why should our skilled laborers be encouraged to work abroad when they could help develop local industries?
You and I know that when employers hire job applicants, they ask not whether you are a high school graduate. They ask whether you are a college graduate or a vocational school graduate. They may even require nothing but a demonstration of whatever skill you claim to possess.
Luistro was probably more concerned with added windfall to the income of private schools. He had been president of the elitist De La Salle University before his DepEd stint; and was “rewarded” or reappointed as such in 2017.
No less than now President Rodrigo Duterte – while he was still mayor of Davao City – had expressed disgust over the K-12 program. Davao City’s SunStar (May 26, 2015 issue) quoted Duterte saying, “I am confident that with the four years, if they want to enrol in a vocational course, they can have it after high school.”
That must have earned him millions of presidential votes.
Exactly one year later after winning the 2016 presidential election, however, he backtracked. The Philippine Star (May 25, 2016) quoted him saying, “I was against it early on when it was being implemented, but some of the bright guys at the Department of Education came to see me here in Davao.”
Well, now that he knows those boys were not so bright, shouldn’t the President ask his pliant followers in the House to file a bill repealing the K-12 program? (hvego31@gmail.com /PN
