MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Education (DepEd) leadership and public school teachers are headed on a collision course over a move to add two years to the basic education curriculum.
While DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro expressed his support for President Aquino’s intention to push for a 12-year education cycle to make it at par with the world’s standard, the Teachers’ Dignity Coalition (TDC), a public school teachers’ group, opposed the policy direction and preferred that the national government focus on addressing first the resource shortages currently bugging the public education system.
“We are also in full support of P-Noy and the DepEd’s leadership in pursuing reforms in the education sector. However, we believe that this 12-year basic education cycle should not be prioritized. Instead, the basic necessities in education should be given more focus,” said Benjo Basas, a Caloocan City teacher and the group’s national chairman.
Basas claimed that efforts like this one geared to reform the education sector would not be effective if the government fails to address the real issues in the field.
“We’ve been experiencing shortages in classrooms, school buildings, teachers, textbooks and other needs and every year the government is burdened with the backlog of the previous year. This is primarily due to low investment in public education,” he said.
The group said it is ironic that while the DepEd and Malacañang are talking about attaining global standards of quality education, it is mum on the international criterion for state expenditure for education, which should be earmarked at six percent of gross domestic product.
The group expressed their willingness to hold a dialogue with education officials and even with the President so they can present the realities of the sector.
They also like to know why there was no mention of teachers’ welfare in the President’s program and his 10-point education agenda.
The TDC said they are still waiting for the President’s pronouncement on resolving their problems with the Government Service Insurance System as he did in exposing and questioning the misuse of funds in the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) and other agencies.
“We want to remind the President and education officials that the reform initiatives that are not responsive to the teachers’ plight would fall in futility. The teachers’ welfare should always be prioritized,” he said.
Luistro, on the other hand, reiterated that he was behind Aquino’s push to upgrade the country’s basic education.
“I am not having second thoughts and the President has my full support in this education reform agenda,” he said.
Luistro said that while changing the education cycle from 10 years to 12 years was no easy task, it was still “attainable.”
The DepEd chief, however, admitted that the process will take time and may go beyond the term of the current or even the next administration.
During his first State of the Nation Address (SONA), the President included the 12-year education cycle as part of his reform programs.
Luistro said once the decision is made to change, it will be irreversible.
Meanwhile, Cebu Rep. Rachel del Mar is seeking to institutionalize the pre-school program in public education and the free breakfast program of the DepEd for day care center, pre-school and elementary school children.
Del Mar is also pushing for the integration of values formation into the curriculum of public schools.
House Bill 25, which she filed, was aimed to make pre-school mandatory, a separate level of education and a prerequisite to elementary schooling.
The bill also aims to include values formation as a compulsory and integral part of the curriculum of all public pre-school, elementary and high schools.-–Rainier Allan Ronda (The Philippine Star) with Paolo Romero
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