CASE NO. 8

Additional Two (2) Years in Elementary and in High School

MANILA, Oct. 11 (PNA) -- A group composed of the country’s leading businessmen and education personalities championing education reforms has expressed its support to the plan of the Department of Education (DepEd) to add two more years or “senior high school” to the current 10-year basic education curriculum. In a statement, the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) said the plan unveiled by Education Secretary Armin Luistro during the World Teachers Day celebration was long overdue as it called on education stakeholders, including the business community, to support the plan.

“We at Philippine Business for Education or PBEd welcomes the government’s strong resolve to finally put in place a decades-old proposal for a K+12 basic education cycle. PBEd reiterates that the additional years in basic education cannot be separated from the issue of poor quality of the education system,” the group’s statement said.

The group said the current 10-year basic education cycle has only resulted to poor performance of students.

“Forcing into 10 years a curriculum that is learned by the rest of the world in 12 years has resulted in poor performance by our students. This, over and above the poor quality and lack of teachers, textbooks and workbooks and facilities, continues to make learning a growing challenge for more and more of our students,” PBED added.

Earlier, Secretary Luistro said that despite the measures implemented by the department in recent years, the poor quality of basic education is reflected in the low achievement scores of Filipino students. He cited the 69.21 percent passing rate of Grade 6 students in last year’s National Achievement Test (NAT) as still needing reform measures though it is already a 24 percent improvement rate over the 2005-2006 NAT passing rate. Likewise, the NAT for high school was 46.38 percent last year, a slight decrease from 47.40 percent in 2008-2009. International education surveys like the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMS) ranks the Philippines 34th out of 38 countries in Math and 43rd out of 46 countries rated in Science. In 2008, even with only the science high schools participating in the Advanced Mathematics category, the country ranked lowest. PBEd said these reasons are more than enough to convince those opposed to the plan to rally around the DepEd.

“PBEd calls on the various education sector stakeholders to rally around the K+12 effort. It shall be no easy task and it shall most certainly make the necessary reforms even more complex, requiring even larger investments. However, K+12 coupled with other systemwide reforms like those under the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA) are essential if we want our children to learn to learn and learn to achieve,” the statement said.

“Certainly, with K+12, business shall be able to open its doors to hiring high school graduates as is the practice in almost all other countries in the rest of the world. Consequently, K+12 also further opens up doors to global opportunities for our young Filipinos. We also call on the members of the legislature to support this program, to be guided by a real concern with what is best for our youth rather than what is merely popular. Those who insist on throwing obstacles in the way of K+12 are condemning our kids to poverty and sabotaging their opportunities for a better life,” the group added.

At the same time, the group junked the arguments raised by those who are against the plan that it would make life difficult for the poor who have to bear two more years of schooling of their children. PBEd believes that making Kinder and an additional two years available to all in the public basic education system is another pro-poor and poverty-combating initiative of the Aquino Government. K+12 gives to the masses the extra years of schooling that for many years has only been available in private elite education institutions. Studies have shown that every additional year of schooling improves the income potential of a student as she/he enters the world of work,” they said.

Among the leading personalities at PBEd are Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II, Jose Cuisia, Manuel Pangilinan, Ricardo Romulo, Ramon Del Rosario Jr., Oscar Lopez, Washington Sycip, George Yang and Tony Tann Caktiong. Luistro said the two years of senior high school intend to provide time for students to “consolidate acquired academic skills and competencies.”

“The curriculum will allow specializations in science and technology, music and arts, agriculture and fisheries, sports, business and entrepeneurship and subjects for advanced placements,” the official said. But he added the program will not sidetracked the DepEd’s effort in addressing the problems besetting the basic education sector such as the lack of classrooms, textbooks, teachers and other facilities.

The department has already included a provision for substantial physical requirements for the 2011 budget, and Luistro said they are looking to introduce in subsequent years a budget that will constitute a significant increase not just in nominal terms but also in real terms.The DepEd will get a P207 billion budget next year, up from this year’s P172 billion. Of the amount, the department has allocated P12 billion for the construction of new classrooms nationwide. (PNA)
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OPINION/COMMENT:

The purpose of Additional 2 years in Elementary and in High School to enhance the basic knowledge of the student for oncoming in college. If they in college they will only enhance their knowledge on their major subjects concerning in their degree. I am agree if that will happen lots of parents or guardians will suffer in difficulty of life. would translate to added burden to parents who could barely send their children to school. For a poverty-stricken country such as ours, the proposal to add two years to basic education is a question of survival. Quality should be the point for education even in small span of time in learning in school still it benefits much.