Sotto lambasts Education secretary’s K+12 program

Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III yesterday slammed Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro for proposing to add two more years to the basic education in the country, saying there is no need to adopt such scheme.

More than increasing the number of years in high school as being advocated by Luistro dubbed K+12 program, the senator said there are other problems concerning the education sector in the country that are worth looking into, not adding two years of expenses to students and parents.

“It is a total waste of time, effort and money. This proposal to add two years may be borne out of a perception that we are not as good as others. We are again in self-flagellation mode of our educational system,” Sotto said in his privilege speech.

Under the set-up, DepEd will be needing additional P16.7 billion funds to implement the K+12 project.

The proposal calls for a two-year period senior high school. This means that after kindergarten, there will be six years of elementary education, four years of junior high school (Grades 7 to 10) and two years of senior high school (Grades 11 to 12).

“I know there have been studies made prior to this announcement. I grant them good intentions, but as senator of the Republic, I must voice the sentiments of those whom I heard about the issue and whose views I share. I oppose the addition of two years to basic education,” Sotto said.

The senator pointed out that there is no clear benefit to adding two years to basic education.

“The second year college student today is as unemployed as the high school graduate, not because of any lack of intelligence or skill, but because our economy cannot generate enough jobs as there are job-seekers,” the senator said.

According to him, the already burdened parents who cannot, even now, afford to bring their children to high school will have a harder problem with the approval of K+12. More years in school translate to more expenses for two years more.

He said “our national budget is unable to fund the present numbers of years in basic education. Adding two years to basic education will further increase our budget deficit. We need quality education, not quantity of years in education. We need more schools, not more years in school.”

He added: “Finally, in a way, we already have K-12. It is common knowledge that pre-school had been a fact of life this past decade. Our children have entered school so much earlier than usual, such that before reaching kindergarten, they have already gone to pre-school of two years. In a way, we have had our own version already of K-12, without institutionalizing it.”

He said if the world standard does not suit our situation and culture, then let the world educate its young the way they see fit, and let us educate our young the way we see fit.

Education’s aims are always two-fold — instruction about the world outside and formation of the person inside. Knowledge must be accompanied by character to equip one to achieve his potential and prepare him to live in society with others. The most brilliant mind who kills for no reason will end up in jail, without much use of his intellect. The good person, even without outside formal education, can become an honest businessman and a gentleman, a good citizen and deserving child of his God, Sotto said.

“The school is not the only educator. Parents, the church, the community, and the totality of our culture educate and train our students to be good citizens. Let us not complicate matters; let us not fix what is not broken,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, a day after the Department of Education unveiled the K+12 program, critics, particularly parents, militant student groups and teachers said the proposal simply “won’t work” since the agency failed to focus on the most important missing aspect — the quality of education.

A group of students and parents greeted the official launch of the government’s 12-year basic education program with a protest.

League of Filipino Students (LFS) national chairman Terry Ridon said the program, which will add two more years to the basic school cycle, won’t work until the quality of education first improves.

The students also said a bigger budget should be allocated to education to fix the present system.

Meanwhile, the Kabataan Party-list said the additional years in the curriculum will only spawn “more problems.”

“The move to add two years in basic education will not answer the country’s declining quality of education, the growing number of out-of-school youth, nor will it lift the country’s employment rate,” the group said in a statement.

It cited five reasons to counteract the initiative: Additional two years would mean extra expense for parents of public school goers, a majority of whom belong to impoverished sectors; it is the government which would be ‘throwing money into the problem’; it will not resolve the high rate of unemployment, especially among the youth; it is designed to reinforce cheap semi-skilled labor for foreign needs; the genuine solution is for the promotion of an educational system that would truly address the needs of the Filipino youth and Philippine society in general. –Angie M. Rosales and Jason Faustino, Daily Tribune