DepEd's K+12 initiative: Two steps backward

I am very alarmed by both the obstinacy of the DepEd leadership to ram its K+12 initiative down the throats of the Filipino people, and the cryptic silence of educators and parents who will ultimately suffer the consequences of this misguided program.

If they will not raise their voices now, they will wake up one morning and find themselves weighed down by the tremendous burden of having to go through, and pay for, two more years of unnecessary and unwarranted education.

At present, the government is already unable to provide for the requirements of a 10-year basic education program. Adding two more years of unnecessary education will only worsen the already severely deteriorated quality of education that the Filipino youth have to contend with.

The K+12 program is an anomaly. It adds one school year — preschool or kindergarten - to the six-year elementary curriculum, and two more years to the four years of high school, thus making basic education a 13-year burden to Filipino children and their parents.

And for what? The only compelling reason offered by the DepEd is that this is what other countries are doing. But that is merely looking at the trees and not the forest. The DepEd conveniently ignores the fact that good education is never measured by the length of schooling but by the quality of the instruction and the support facilities.

The reason why other countries such as our Asean neighbors are turning out quality graduates is not because these graduates spent more time in school. Their graduates are better because they enjoy the abundant resources that their countries pour into their educational programs.

DepEd says adding two more years to basic education will allow our graduates to be more employment-oriented and mature. Really? The DepEd must be hopelessly out of touch with reality and needs to plant its feet squarely on the ground.

How can the DepEd miss the glaring fact that, despite having enjoyed only a 10-year basic education program, F1lipino graduates are in virtually all industries in the world. The world turns with the help of Filipino graduates in shipping, construction., manufacturing and information technology. They are in the professions as lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers and accountants. They are in the various global service sectors.

And then let us not ignore the effect of the K+12 program on parents because at the end of the day, it is still the parents who are responsible for the schooling of their children. You can have as many variations of a K+ program, but if you do not factor in the parents, no education is likely to happen.

Consider these primordial concerns:

1. Is the added cost of two more years for high school affordable? Can the majority of Filipino parents who belong to the average and below-average income brackets afford the already heavy cost of education?

2. Do we have enough classrooms to accommodate two added years considering that, given the rapid increase in population, more and more children come of school age every year?

3. Do we have qualified teachers, considering that government has not given the teaching profession the respect, recognition and importance it deserves? How can we have qualified teachers when teaching ranks very low as a career choice, given its far from attractlve benefits? The greatest indictment against this situation is the fact that many of our teachers prefer to endure working as maids overseas because of the better pay. And the DepEd has never seen this?

4. Does the government have the resources to match its ambition? Can it pay the cost of two more years of basic education?

This schoolyear, to accommodate a total of 1,126,722 preschool pupils, no less than 45,068 teachers are required (at 25 pupils per class). But you know how many the DepEd can afford to hire? Only 29,000 teachers, or only about two-thirds of the requirement.

This schoolyear, 66,800 classrooms were needed for basic education. And how many did government build? Only 9,000. of the 101,612 teachers needed for basic education, only 10,000 were hired. And yet DepEd obstinately wants to push forward with two more years to basic education?

If these two more years are added, the lack of classrooms and teachers will grow exponentially as population increases, not just to burden the educational system, but to demand for other services as well, thus proving to be a huge drain on the already strapped government budget.

Clearly the K+12 program is destined for failure under the present circumstances. Instead of raising standards, it will only result in more dropouts in both the elementary and high school levels. Even as government is expected to be saddled with the runaway costs, parents will be hard-pressed as well to scrounge for the extra funds to finance the extra years of basic education.

Right now, many students walk to school in the barangays without breakfast, then go home and sleep without having a decent meal. And because hunger will prove to be more persistent than the urge to get an education, these poor children will eventually drop out to try and meet the more urgent need of helping their parents put food on the table.

If only the Philippines were as rich as Singapore, Japan or South Korea, then the K+12 program would have been a viable and preferred option. Unfortunately it is not. It must therefore match its plans with what it can realistically realize. Adding two more years of education in a situation where the more urgent need is to find work and put food on the table is simply too impractical and unrealistic to ever succeed.

Contrary to DepEd’s expectations, the K+12 program, at this point in time, is a move in the wrong direction. It can only take us two steps backward.

How lamentable that DepEd refuses to see the reality and the folly of its initiative, that just because something is new does not necessarily mean it is a change for the better. The present system may not be perfect but it works and has withstood the tests of time. Changing that system abruptly, especially when we are totally unprepared for the change, can be disastrous.

Adding two more years to basic education is no different from the wanton establlshment of more community colleges all over the archipelago, without any regard for the lack of teachers and facilities that these colleges must surely face. As a result of these inadequacies, these schools churn out poor quality graduates year after year. And then we want to add two more years to further burden the system?

Where is Philippine education going. Quo vadis K+12?

Most of our political leaders still prefer to stand in the sidelines on this issue. Do they have to wait until parents, the reality of this folly staring them in the face, start making noises? And when these leaders finally react, whose concern will they choose to adopt? The time to make a stand is now. They need to speak out now so Filipinos will know for whose interests they truly serve.

The road to a better future is not the addition of more years to education but to make sure and guarantee the quality of the years we now spend in school.

Education secretaries often want to leave their marks on Philippine education. Secretary Lourdes Quisumbing focused on values training. Secretary Isidro Carino went for infrastructure projects. Secretary Ricardo Gloria promoted science education. Secretary Edilberto de Jesus was instrumental in assisting Rep. Jose R. Gullas, the father of the Payroll Regionalization Program, in realizing the regionalization of the DepEd’s payroll services, a development that greatly benefitted the country’s public school teachers and non-teaching personnel.

The present DepEd secretary, Armin Luistro, should seriously rethink and reassess his K+12 initiative. Adding two more years to basic education at a time of rising poverty and lack of logistical support from government can spell disaster for the country’s educatlonal system. His primary task is to move that system forward, not take two steps backward. If he remains oblivious to reality, then all that can be said is Quo vadis, Philippine education?