Educational reform

P.Noy’s commitment to extend the basic education cycle from 10 to 12 years has provoked adverse comments from activist groups, self-proclaimed “pro-poor” politicians, media commentators, and even some academics. It is time to step back and set the premises upon which people of goodwill can base the search for common ground.

1. There is no silver bullet capable of slaying all the demons that have prevented equitable development in the country.

Education, however radically improved, cannot immediately address problems of endemic poverty arising from inequitable social, political and economic structures. It cannot directly cope with concerns over climate change, corruption, and terrorism. Education must be part of a long-term approach, but cannot achieve much to resolve these issues in the short term.

2 There is no silver bullet even for education.

The K-12 system (preschool plus 12 years of pre-college education) is only one in the 10-point agenda adopted by the Liberal Party and P. Noy. But it is admittedly a key, strategic element; a truncated cycle compromises other reform elements because it forces teachers to cram into 10 years what other pupils learn in 12.

3. There is no magic cure that will miraculously and instantly provide healing in a totally pain-free manner.

A K12 cycle will cost more. The reform program calls for a heavier public investment in basic education. It will require more supplementary funds from households. But adding the years in pre-college, rather than in tertiary education, ensures that the government assumes the bulk of the additional expenses. Phasing of the implementation over six years will make the additional expenses sustainable.

4. The K12 system has become the global benchmark for basic education.

The extension of the basic education cycle is not driven by the desire to keep up with the wealthier Joneses of the world. All developed countries have longer pre-university cycles. The Philippines is not yet a developed country. But the Philippines cannot remain one of a handful of countries content to remain with a 10-year cycle. Countries poorer than the Philippines in GDP terms are investing in a K12 system for their children.

This reform is not a new demand. The need for a 12-year cycle was determined in the 1930s, when the Philippines already had an 11-year system, seven years of elementary and four years of high school education. The decision then was to take one year out of grade school and add two years to high school, which would have given the Philippines a 6-6 basic education system, with three years of junior and senior high school. After the war, the government did take one year out of grade school, but never added the two years in high school, leaving the country worse off than where it stood in the 1930s.

Establishing the K12 system has become more urgent because the pace of technology innovations and a globally networked market for products and services keeps raising the skills requirements demanded by 21st-century jobs. The World Bank has warned that these jobs now require skills beyond those learned in high school. We need to improve the entire educational stream up to voc-tech and university education. But we must begin with building the foundations in basic education.

5. The K12 cycle will benefit the tertiary education sector.

The benefits are clear, because the damage done by the 10-year system have been so obvious and, indeed, served as the premise for the recommendations of the Philippine Task Force on Education. PTFE concedes that colleges have to spend the first year and part of the second year for remedial courses that address the gaps in basic education competencies. The result has been to extend the time required to complete professional courses of studies, from the four years common in most countries to five years in the Philippines.

6. The K12 cycle will benefit all basic education students and not just those bound for college.

Problems are more effectively addressed at the point where they occur and become more expensive to fix at a later stage. Additional years make more sense at the basic education level, where the gaps exist.

The Commission on Higher Education has allowed and, at times, prescribed additional years in college, because of the deficiencies in basic education.

The PTFE recommendation to add years to tertiary school programs benefit only those proceeding to schooling beyond high school. And households must pay for this benefit because government only guarantees free basic education

Time is a resource, as well as a cost. Fruit allowed time to ripen without recourse to artificial means has superior quality. Our children need more time to gain mastery of basic concepts and learning tools. Equally important, the additional time allows them to mature and gain greater mastery over themselves.

In the current system, graduating at 16 or 17 years of age is not an advantage. High school graduates with 10 years of schooling do not have the skills or the credentials to compete in a job market swollen with unemployed college graduates. They are too young to enter into legal employment contracts.

A longer cycle will allow the educational system to develop a vocational-technical track in high school that will provide students with employable skills.

This should also address the dropout rate among male high school students, who cannot cope with academic subjects and see no realistic prospects for college.

Consensus on these six premises would make for a more rational discussion of the K12 issue and enable us to move faster on a comprehensive reform of the educational system that has been for far too long delayed.

Edilberto de Jesus is a former education secretary and now president of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). –Commentary — By Edilberto De Jesus, Businessworld