Junk ‘oppressive and antidemocratic’ K-to-12

Education Secretary Leonor Briones seems to be utterly ignorant of the fact that the law formalizing K-to-12, Republic Act No. 10533, or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, mandates that “[t]o achieve an effective enhanced basic education curriculum, the DepEd shall undertake consultations with… private and public schools associations, the national student organizations, the national teacher organizations, the parents-teachers associations on matters affecting the concerned stakeholders.”

In fact, the K-to-12 curriculum was illegally implemented in 2012 when there was no law yet providing for it, and, worse, without any consultation with said organizations as evidenced by the list of developers/writers/reactors/reviewers of the Department of Education’s 2012 curriculum guides. Former secretary Armin Luistro himself admitted that DepEd consulted only a pool of experts, namely, academicians and other practitioners. DepEd should likewise review its heavy reliance on private schools for the provision of senior high school.

Instead of strengthening public education by using government funds to finance school facilities and increasing salaries to attract qualified teachers, millions of funds go instead to paying private schools that offer senior high school, through the education service contracting scheme. Rather than funding private schools, said funds should be poured to better learning materials, better teachers (by increasing their salaries), more classrooms, and thus a more conducive learning environment for the Filipino student. That would be a more lasting solution to the problem of education in the Philippines.

Given adequate instruction and armed with sufficient books and a conducive learning environment, the Filipino student does not need two additional years of senior high school. The DepEd should consider recommending the junking of this oppressive and antidemocratic education program.

SEVERO BRILLANTES, brillanteslaw@gmail.com