Administrators panicking?

As president of a small college, I have nightmares about 2016.

In that year, my college will not have first-year students, because all Grade 10 students will be going to Grade 11.

The next year, 2017, we will still not have first-year students, because the Grade 11 students will be going to Grade 12. We will also not have second-year students, because we had no first-year students the year before.

The next year, 2018, we will finally get first-year students, but we will still not have second-year and even third-year students.

The next year, 2019, we will still not have third-year students.

Since my college uses a trimestral calendar, we really do not have fourth-year students, except for those finishing their final projects. My colleagues that run four-year colleges, however, will not have fourth-year students in 2019.

My college depends completely on tuition. Since we are not a high-end college with soaring tuition rates, my nightmares feature spreadsheets with no income, continuing staff and maintenance costs, and deadly deficits.

Fortunately, having thought about the problem as early as 2010, when Senior High School was first proposed as a solution to the bigger problem of the country’s failure to keep up with the rest of the world, I did not succumb to the denial mode that have made some administrators go recently into a panic mode.

Why do I say that some of my fellow administrators are panicking?

Because there are a few schools that have started to let go of their college faculty.

Since I always think long-term (after all, I always say that the first graduates of the full K to 12 curriculum will finish only in 2025, or 13 years after the start of the program in schoolyear 2011-2012), I am not as worried about 2016 as these colleagues of mine.

In the first place, the new General Education Curriculum kicks off only in 2018, after the two-year gap in freshmen enrolment. There will be a new President in 2016, and therefore a new Secretary of Education. We all know what happens when there is a new President and a new Secretary of Education.

Of course, there are certain things that will not change. Kindergarten and Senior High School will remain, because they are mandated by RA 10157 and RA 10533, and laws are not changed overnight.

Because it is in these two laws, the use of the Mother Tongue will not stopped. Whether we agree with the addition of two (actually three) years or the use of the Mother Tongue, we cannot do anything about them and neither can the new President nor the new Secretary of Education.

What is not law, however, is easily changed. For example, when President Arroyo came into power, she changed the curriculum into what we now know as the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC). When President Aquino came into power, he instituted the K to 12 curriculum. While history does not always repeat itself, we can almost say for certain that the new President will change the curriculum.

What? Change the curriculum? Have I just added to my nightmares?

Not really. If (I should say “when”) there will be changes, they will not change the basic structure of the curriculum. The curriculum will still be “learner-centered, inclusive, developmentally appropriate, relevant, responsive, research-based, culture-sensitive, contextualized, global, constructivist, inquiry-based, reflective, collaborative, integrative, spiraled, and flexible” because these adjectives are all in RA 10533.

Changes might (will!) happen in the details, and that means learning areas, skills, outcomes, competencies, domains, assessment, scheduling, and so on. These details, unfortunately, are tightly related to the College Readiness Standards (CRS) and the new General Education Curriculum (GEC) of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). If the basic education curriculum is changed, the CRS and the GEC will also have to change.

That is one reason I have not panicked and have not fired any or all of my General Education teachers. What would happen if I let them go now and, in 2018, I find myself needing them again? For sure, they will not want to return to a college that kicked them out.

I handpicked my GE teachers, and I believe that they are among the best GE teachers I can get, given the constraints of my budget. To let them go this early in the game and then realize that I need them later would be the height of carelessness (not to mention inhumanity to the teachers).

My nightmares, however, revolve around having to pay my GE teachers while not having students around paying tuition.

Like most nightmares, this one is frightening only when I am asleep. When I am awake and not in denial, I can think of various solutions. And yes, there are solutions. (To be continued) –Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star)