K+12: A difficult challenge but necessary, doable – Angara

Filipino engineers and other professionals struggle to obtain international accreditation to meet requirements for jobs abroad because our basic education is only 10 years, two years shy of the international standard. Now, there is a strong move to increase basic education by two more years to make our high school graduates employable and our professionals, competitive in the world job market. However, there is an equally strong opposition to the proposal, known as K+12, mainly because of economic considerations.

Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and former president of the University of the Philippines, supports the move for additional two years in basic education. He said it will benefit Philippine education but he admitted that several problems have to be resolved first. He pointed out that a lot of preparation, studies and financing and financing is needed to ensure its successful implementation.

He has no doubts at all on the need for two more years in basic education. He cited a report by the Congressional Commission on Science and Technology and Engineering (COMSTE), which he heads, showing that while a big number of Filipino engineers abound in the construction and oil sectors in North America, Europe and the Middle East, there are still issues that prevent them from attaining equal stature with their Western counterparts. One of the main issues, according to Angara, is the failure of Filipino graduates to get accredited by international engineering bodies because their basic education is two years short of international standard.

“The additional two years will also provide the high school graduate the necessary skills needed for employment if he decides not to go to college,” he added, an argument that is also mouthed by Education Secretary Armin Luistro and Chairman Patricia Licuanan of the Commission on Higher Education.

While Angara agrees on two more years of basic education, he is not totally sold on the additional year’s being lumped together in the proposed senior high school.

“An option is to have seven years of elementary school and five years of high school,” he said.

He explained that adding one more year in elementary school would answer the financial question raised by parents.

“Elementary schooling is free in public schools. In private schools, elementary education is cheaper than secondary education,” he stressed.

Angara said the seven-year elementary curriculum could be made cheaper further by including the current pre-schooling for those aged 6.

“ Make pre-school Grade 1 so the current Grade 6 will become Grade 7. Pre-schooling is mandated by law so it is easier to implement,” he said.

While a seven-year elementary curriculum sounds simple, that of a five-year secondary curriculum is not.

“Nobody has brought this up yet, but if you increase the number of years in high school by two years, there will be no high school graduates for two years; if by one year, no high school graduates for one year,” Angara said.

He predicted a devastating effect of this absence of high school graduates on colleges.

“If high school will have one year, our colleges will have no freshmen for one year. I don’t know how they could survive without freshmen,” he said.

Studies showed that freshmen constitute the bulk of college population.

“What is the solution to this black hole? Our education leaders should immediately study this black hole or else our universities would go bankrupt and close down,” Angara warned.

The other problems of implementing the K+12 proposal are less daunting like revising the curriculum, building of more classrooms and raising the competence of teachers.

“Our present curriculum is not good. Look at the product. It should be revised,” Angara said.

He said revising the curriculum would also result in more quality time for teaching.

“Our teachers are overworked because they are teaching so many subjects. We could remove a number of those subjects without affecting quality. Our teachers could then devote more hours to Reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic and communications,” Angara said.

He also said that the current classroom-to-student ratio is 1:50 in a double-shift scenario, still far from the ideal 1:30 ratio. He cited data from Education depatment showing that the total nationwide classroom shortage is 41,197 “and rising.”

“At current prices, the government will need at least P16 billion of additional funding to fully address the classroom shortage,” he said.

To make high school graduates employable or better prepared for college, they should be taught by competent teachers, according to Angara.

“We need specialists to teach subjects like Math, Physics, Biology, or skills like carpentry. It will take time to train these teachers. That’s why the K+12 could not be fully implemented in the next three years,” he said.

These preparations for K+12 need a lot of funding. Angara said this need could be filled if the administration would concentrate less on “unproductive” projects like the conditional cash transfer scheme for 2011 that is proposed to have a budget of about P34 billion.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said the government must fund the money to fund the two additional years in basic education. He said he finished Grade 7 before World War II and that the quality of education then was so high that one who finished Grade 4 before the war was qualified to teach in the elementary. He questioned why Grade 7 was later removed from the elementary curriculum.

“We are under-rated by other countries because of our education system. It [adding two more years] is painful for others, but for the country, we have to do it. It is the future of the country. We have to find the money,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto 3rd, on the other hand, saw no clear benefit from K+12, which he branded as “anti-poor.”

“This would only increase the burden of parents,” he said. –EFREN L. DANAO SENIOR REPORTER, Manila Times