Next gov’t urged to add two years to basic education

MANILA, Philippines—The next administration should immediately add two more years to Philippine elementary and high school education, an education expert said.

In an interview with the Inquirer, University of the Philippines history and education professor Maria Serena Diokno said the Philippines is the only country in the world stuck in a 10-year basic education system.

Diokno said longer basic education was needed in the country and its implementation was “just a matter of political will.”

It takes six years to complete grade school and another four years to complete high school in the country, compared to other countries where basic education takes 12 years.

Diokno said: “If you look at our higher education system, you will see the deficiencies in our basic education. Instead of college-level teaching, we have to do remedial lessons.”

She said this was true even among students entering UP.

The biggest barrier to implementing the 12-year basic education course, however, is the additional costs it will entail not only to parents but also to the government.

In a lecture delivered at the UP Diliman campus last week, Diokno said adding two years to basic education would “relieve the pressure on higher education to fill in the learning gaps.”

She said higher education institutions should meet with the Department of Education for this proposal.

Colleges and universities should inform the department of the “competencies we expect your graduates to have when they enter us,” she explained.

Diokno and three other professors delivered lectures last week in a UP forum on the so-called Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA).

The BESRA was drafted in 2006 in order to achieve universal education access and total community involvement by 2015.

The BESRA, implemented starting in 2007, includes five key reforms focused on schools, teachers, social support, learning and complementary interventions like private support.

The BESRA is a good program that strengthens community and school relations as well as builds the capacities of teachers, De La Salle University professor Allan Bernardo said.

It has made progress in the few schools where it has been implemented, UP sociology professor Ma. Cynthia Rose Bautista also said.

Its promised improvements, however, are hampered by several factors, Bautista said. These include the perception of key players that BESRA is a “project with a completion date” instead of being a continuing program; its compartmentalized implementation; and the politics behind the hiring of teachers in the local level.

Diokno agreed that BESRA was a “good program.”

Last week’s lecture aimed to convince the incoming administration “not to start from scratch” in improving basic education, Diokno said, aware that new governments usually undo projects by predecessors.

Diokno said: “It is a good reform agenda. You should not start from scratch. We are already lagging behind.” –Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Philippine Daily Inquirer