035 K-12 Revisited (1)
It’s been 10 years since the Philippine government enacted the law that created the K-12 program. With it was the transformation of the basic education cycle into a 13-year package that starts with kindergarten and ends with two years of what is now known as Senior High School, Grades 11 and 12.
I was quite vocal about my apprehensions about the program then, expressing my opinion via my old column in Educator Magazine, most especially through a piece entitled From Fallacy to Fear. In it, I covered what I saw as K-12’s critical flaws (the fallacies, hence the title). I followed it up with another commentary, entitled Snake Oil, which explained why K-12 ended up becoming such a flawed proposal.
I never thought my criticism would amount to anything good. Having been in the education department for many years, I knew that decisions at the top aren’t to be questioned. Consensus was built, of course, with the bureaucracy getting the support of key players in both the academe and the business sector, so it was just a matter of time before this program became real, especially for the millions of Filipino children and their respective families who’d all be under the impending 13-year basic ed regime.
I just had to say my say, I thought.
And I shared my thoughts early by sending an advanced copy of From Fallacy to our friends at the education department (They asked if they can give their counter arguments, and even while we offered to print their rebuttal alongside my piece, that rebuttal never came).
I even had a discussion with the key education department official tasked to implement the program. But this was so unproductive since the guy was only interested in making sure the program gets implemented, flaws and all. It actually ended with him asking, “So what? If we don’t do this, we do nothing?”
By then I thought that they weren’t looking for ways to fix the most consequential flaws, they just want the program passed into law—this was a done deal.
No appeal to reason—common sense, really—would make them change their mind.
And so it happened—K-12 became law and Philippine basic education is now out of crisis. And we all lived happily ever after.
I kid, of course. It is the law, yes. But as skeptics like me had warned, it wouldn’t be the solution to basic ed that some people thought it would be (I’m not referring to all the principal proponents, for sure, since some of them also recognized the fact that it wouldn’t make a dent on the quality issues of schools).
But that said, we’ve all moved on—or so I thought. Ten years and two administrations later, the new president has called for a review of the K-12 Program.
One can only assume that the guy is acting on the belief that basic ed in this country has a quality problem (That, of course, is a good sign since it shows that the new administration is aware that the problem exists).
Perhaps the guy learned about the abysmal performance of the Philippines in all international benchmark tests (PISA, TIMSS, that Southeast Asian thing), which showed our students are at the very bottom among all participating countries (I certainly hope he declares a crisis and acts on it!).
Is it because of K-12? Most critics would probably say yes. I have a slightly different take on the matter.
(To be continued)