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DepEd to revise K-12 curriculum
The Department of Education (Deped) will revise the Kinder to Grade 12 (K
to 12) curriculum in order to make it relevant in producing more
“competent, job ready, active and responsible” citizens.
During the presentation of the Basic Education Report 2023 on Monday,
January 30, 2023, Vice President Sara Duterte, the concurrent DepEd
secretary, bared the department’s “Matatag” education agenda.
It includes making the curriculum relevant to produce job-ready; active and
responsible citizens; taking steps to accelerate the delivery of basic education
services and provision of facilities; taking good care of learners by promoting
learner well-being; inclusive education; and a positive learning environment
and giving support for teachers to teach better.
Duterte said that in revising the K to 12 curriculum, the department will
reduce the number of learning areas in Kindergarten to Grade 3 from seven
to five and instead put focus on foundational skills; strengthen literacy and
numeracy programs; revitalize reading, science and technology and math
programs by utilizing the gains of previous programs; and improve English
proficiency while recognizing linguistic diversity.
“We will integrate peace competencies such as social awareness responsibility,
care for the environment, value for diversity, self-esteem, positive character,
resilience and human security to the various areas of the K to 12 curriculum,”
said Duterte.
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The review of the senior high school curriculum, or Grades 11 to 12, is
still ongoing, according to Undersecretary Michael Poa.
“We are still going to continue K-12. It just happened that the K-10
curriculum was reviewed and revised first,” he said.
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DepEd already reviewing senior high curriculum
In January, Vice President Sara Duterte — she is concurrently secretary of
education — said that the department's ongoing review of the senior high school
curriculum found it to be overstuffed with content and yet missing several
prerequisites for essential learning competencies.
Only a little more than 10% of senior high school graduates landed a job,
while 83% continued on to higher education, according to DepEd’s
National Senior High School tracer study.
Some learning competencies also required "high cognitive demands" from
students — a finding that previously appeared in the DepEd’s Basic
Education Development Plan (BEDP) 2030, the agency’s first long-term
plan to improve the quality of education.
-Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS)
The need for SHS Program review
While the first batch of 1.3 million SHS learners graduated from
their respective tracks or strands at the end of SY 2017-2018,
DepEd the first cohort of learners that “engaged
the full cycle” of the K to 12 Curriculum since 2011 will graduate
by SY 2023-2024.
Citing various studies, DepEd noted initial observations on the
implementation of the SHS Program.
In the National Tracer Study of the SHS graduates for SY 2017-
2018, for instance, DepEd noted that about 10 percent of
graduate respondents were employed, seven percent
of which have completed the Technical-Vocational-Livelihood (TVL)
track while three percent completed the academic track.
“The study also showed that nearly 83 percent of the SHS
graduates went on to pursue higher education while one percent
engaged in entrepreneurship,” DepEd said.
In the 2022 Labor Force survey conducted by the Philippine
Institute of Development Studies (PIDS), DepEd noted that “only a
small proportion of SHS graduates (a little over
20 percent) were able to enter the labor force with the majority
(more than 70 percent) opting to continue with their education.”
Moreover, the study conducted by the Philippine Business for
Education (PBEd) indicated that “out of the 70 leading companies
across all sectors in the Philippines, only 20 percent were inclined
to hire SHS graduates with most companies opting to hire job
applicants with at least two years of college education, thereby
effectively excluding SHS graduates.”
DepEd also noted the Department of Labor and Employment
(DOLE) Study Report (2019) revealed that “employers know little
about the SHS Program, they are still open to accepting them.”
“However, their options are limited to rank and file, blue-collar or
clerical positions,”
DepEd said. “This is due to the belief that college graduates are
more competent and skillful in professional work and careers than
SHS graduates,” it added.
Aside from the “initial concerns” of the SHS learners, DepEd
noted that the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic has put
“tremendous pressure on learning outcomes, skills
development, employment, and the economy.”
MANILA STANDARD. NET
DepEd begins SHS curriculum review
The Department of Education has started the review of the curriculum for the
senior high school grades, DepEd spokesman Michael Poa said.
Poa said the department has just concluded the review for the curriculum for
kinder to Grade 10.
“The President gave us a timeline of around a year to finish the review. We are
trying to decongest our curriculum to focus on the essential subjects and the
basics, like math, reading, science,” he said.
“We want to really look at literacy in a way that we’ll be able to inculcate not
just foundational literacy but also functional literacy,” Poa added.
Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio earlier said the
government wants a more responsive curriculum.
She said in its present form, the K to 12 curriculum is “congested” and that
“some prerequisites of identified essential learning competencies are missing or
misplaced.”
President Marcos earlier acknowledged that the education system has “failed”
Filipino children as he vowed to do better to improve the education sector.
“We have failed them. We have to admit that we have failed our children. And
let us not keep failing them anymore. Otherwise, we will not allow them to
become the great Filipinos that we know they can be,” the President said after
receiving the 2023 Basic Education Report from Duterte-Carpio.
-MANILA BULLETIN
(Red flags seen in K-12 curriculum revision)
A group of teachers expressed concern about the planned revision of the K to 12
curriculum as laid out by the Department of Education (DepEd) in its Basic
Education Report (BER) 2023.
DepEd, led by Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte, delivered
the BER 2023 on Jan. 30 to present the current status of the country’s basic
education.
The agency also launched its “MATATAG” education agenda to address the
challenges faced by learners, teachers, and schools at the basic education level.
Among the highlights of the BER 2023 was the announcement made by Duterte
related to the K to 12 Program which added additional years to the country’s
10-year basic education cycle.
In the BER, Duterte pointed out problems in the current curriculum content ---
it was congested, and some essential learning competencies are missing or
misplaced aside from catering to high cognitive demands.
In its newly-launched agenda, Duterte said that these loopholes in the K to 12
Program will be addressed by making the curriculum “relevant to produce
competent, job-ready, active, and responsible citizens.”
However, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines pointed out that
aside from being “delayed” the curriculum revision as laid out by DepEd also
seemed “misguided.”
“The Philippine government is in fact very late in finalizing its assessment of the
K-12 curriculum and program,” ACT said, noting that the Congress Oversight
Committee also “failed to comply” with the K to 12 Law provision to come up
with an assessment of the program five years from its implementation in 2013.
ACT added that the DepEd has also been talking about its K to 12 review since
2018 but “no document of the comprehensive review has been made available to
the public” to date.
In the BER 2023, VP Duterte said that the revised Kindergarten to Grade 10
curriculum is being “finalized” and the review of the Senior High School (SHS)
curriculum already started.
Areas of concern
In the “MATATAG” agenda, Duterte announced that DepEd will reduce the
number of learning areas in K to 3 from 7 to 5.
This, she said, aims to “focus on foundational skills in literacy and numeracy in
the early grades” --- particularly among disadvantaged learners.
However, ACT said that teachers are “worried” about which subject will be
removed from DepEd’s plan.
Citing previous pronouncements and information that circulate on the ground,
ACT said that the Mother Tongue subject and the MAPEH are the “likely subjects
to be sacrificed.”
ACT maintained that scrapping the Mother Tongue is “counter-productive to
learning” because this serves as a subject that maximizes the home language as
an effective language of instruction.
“MAPEH, on the other hand is crucial in developing the young pupils’
appreciation of our culture, which is essential in producing ‘batang makabansa’,”
ACT pointed out. The group also pointed out that Music, Arts, PE, and Health
are “powerful tools” in learning and inculcating vital values.
“There are also questions on what will happen to teachers in learning areas that
will be removed, and reasonably, fear of displacement,” ACT said.
In the BER 2023, Duterte mentioned that DepEd will “improve English
proficiency while recognizing linguistic diversity.” This, she said, will entail
working towards the goal of “English language proficiency within the context of
a multilingual nation.”
For ACT, this push to improve English proficiency is also misplaced.
“The education system has been giving premium to the English language since
the public school system was established by the Americans, and look where we
are now,” ACT said.
“A nation with no mastery of any language, even our own, and has low
comprehension and higher level cognitive skills,” it added.
After pointing out that the promise of the K to 12 program to make its
graduates employable “remains a promise,” Duterte said that DepEd will appeal
to the industry and employers to accept students in work immersions and hire
them when they graduate.
ACT, on the other hand, cautioned DepEd on this move because the push to
prolong the work immersion of SHS students only “spell longer experience of
exploitation of our young students by business owners.”
“The education system failed to protect our SHS students against exploitation as
they were made to work for long hours without pay or any allowance under the
guise of the trainee system,” ACT added.
-ABS CBN NEWS
MANILA — The ongoing review of the K to 10 curriculum is "already in the final
stages," the Department of Education (DepEd) spokesperson Atty. Michael Poa
said on Friday.
"We will have a rollout once finalized," he added in a Viber message to ABS-CBN
News.
The review of the K to 10 curriculum started during the previous
administration, while the curriculum review of Grades 11 to 12 or Senior High
School began in November 2022. Consultations with experts are being held to
identify which areas need to be focused on, according to Poa.
He earlier explained the agency's long-term solution to learning loss would be the
revisions to the curriculum of the K to 12 program.
The official said the revisions would help "decongest" the curriculum, allotting
more time to literacy and numeracy, which serve as the foundation of students
so that they would not have a hard time as they advance to the next grade
levels.
(We don't want to immediately say that it will be reduced, but we will
recalibrate our curriculum. Because we saw that it is congested, so there are
many learning competencies. So we can really reduce the competencies so that
we can really focus and give time to your core subjects.)-Poa said.
In her Basic Education Report last January, Vice President and Education
Secretary Sara Duterte vowed to "produce competent, job-ready, active, and
responsible citizens" and to "revise the K to 12 curriculum to make them more
responsive to our aspiration as a nation, to develop lifelong learners who are
imbued with 21st-century skills, discipline, and patriotism."
