K-to-12 and beyond

(First of two parts)

WHAT IS common to all countries with high-performing education systems? Their national leadership possesses a comprehensive vision of education quality that goes beyond just solving the myriad structural, political and socioeconomic issues that naturally arise with an undertaking of this magnitude and complexity.

Unesco’s yearly Education for All Global Monitoring Reports repeatedly underscore that “Better education contributes to higher lifetime earnings and more robust national economic growth”; and that the quality of education the learners receive “determines how much and how well children learn and the extent to which their education translates into a range of personal, social and developmental benefits.”

Education stakeholders have repeatedly emphasized that K-to-12 is more than just adding an extra two years to basic education. Former education undersecretary Mike Luz astutely pointed out years ago that our learners actually go through a 12-year basic education cycle: 10 years (Grades 1 to 6 and four years of high school) plus the first two years of general education courses in college, for which parents actually pay tuition. The same holds true if the 4-year high school graduate decides that he or she wants to go down the technical vocational path.

As such, the argument that senior high school will be an additional expense for families is largely unfounded. With K-to-12, parents will actually be spending less for essentially the same learning result, whether academic or technical vocational. This is so because senior high school will be free and compulsory. Furthermore, their children will have even better chances at finding gainful employment because they would have stronger fundamental competencies given the new curriculum, and they will be of legal, employable age by the time they graduate.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro’s leadership and the time, effort and expertise that Education Undersecretary Dina Ocampo and her team of
education experts have exerted in designing a curriculum that evolves and adapts to contextual realities, especially at senior high school, clearly make K-to-12 a quality imperative. Denying our learners this singular opportunity is a great disservice to every parent and education stakeholder.

When K-to-12 becomes fully implemented in 2016, it will become equally imperative for education stakeholders to find ways to fully leverage K-to-12’s benefits for both the learner and for the education system. This includes articulating the education agenda of the next national leadership. But now, the stakes will be much higher.

Last Thursday (May 14), the first of a planned series of education summits was convened at the headquarters of the Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education precisely for this purpose. The convenors of these summits are former education undersecretary Isagani Cruz, Dr. Paulino Tan of Asia Pacific College, former education undersecretary Fe Hidalgo, Fr. Benigno P. Beltran, SVD, Fr. Onofre G.
Inocencio Jr., SDB, Sonia M. Roco, Dr. Dionisia A. Rola, Butch Hernandez of IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (Ibpap), and former education secretary Mona D. Valisno.

Ateneo de Davao University president Fr. Joel E. Tabora, SJ, began by saying that his wish list is to see the next president preside over a national discussion on quality assurance frameworks as the debate on this issue remains unresolved either at the Commission on Higher Education and at the legislature level. Father Tabora said that such a discussion should also include an examination of “the complementarity between public and private education.”

Secretary Luistro, on the other hand, said that making high school mandatory was on his wish list because it is unenforceable at the moment. “We have no way of compelling parents to send their children to school if they don’t want to,” he said. This apparent unenforceability clearly impacts on the number of the country’s out-of-school youth.

Sen. Sonny Angara then posed two questions to illustrate his point that there must be a clear link between education policy and industrial
policy: “What jobs do we want to create?” and “Are we educating for migration?”

“I have seen a good education team under the present administration. That kind of teamwork must be preserved moving forward,” Angara said, adding that we must take a more serious look at public investments in the kind of education that takes into account, supports and/or directly responds to the structural economy.

Education is of course more than just getting a job. This is at the core of the Ibpap’s talent development initiatives. The information technology-business process management (IT-BPM) industry is one of the country’s biggest key employment generators. Ibpap president and CEO Jose Mari P. Mercado says that the number of IT-BPM industry’s full-time hires is expected to go up to more than 1.3 million in 2016. Penny Bongato, Ibpap’s executive director for talent development, on the other hand, believes that K-to-12 can potentially increase the number and quality of the country’s talent pool through industry-specific curricular support, such as contact center services, animation, programming and medical transcription modules at senior high school.

Ibpap’s wish list is to see a national leadership that can articulate and spearhead the creation of a workable education-to-employment system, mobilize the right people and marshal resources accordingly.

Butch Hernandez ([email protected]) is the executive director of the Eggie Apostol Foundation and education lead for talent development at Ibpap.