Review the K-12 education system
“There is too much to learn in too little time.” Such was the strongest criticism against the old basic education curriculum before the adoption of the K-12 program. There was congestion in the old 10-year curriculum in basic education. Hence, the solution is to add two more years that pave the way for the implementation of the senior high school (SHS) program.
At the start of its implementation, it was touted that the new curriculum would produce job-ready graduates. But as the K-12 program churns out its products every year, only a small proportion (a little over 20%), enter the labor force. According to the Philippine Institute for Development Studies, most (more than 70 percent) continue their education.
Employers are still wary of what SHS graduates can do. In another study conducted by the Philippine Business for Education (PBED), the first batch of SHS graduates possesses “theoretically” 93% of the competencies suitable to the needs of the country’s industries. But in a separate study, the PBED found that only 20% of the 70 leading companies in the Philippines were inclined to hire senior high graduates, preferring college graduates or those with at least two years of a college education.
Studies showed that DepEd’s K to 12 resulted not in a decongestion but a reduction of instructional hours across the first ten years of education. It is even blamed for the low Math and Science rankings.
A closer look also at the senior high school curriculum reveals a cocktail of several specialized disciplines resulting in the lack of confidence among graduates in facing real work tasks and challenges. Take the case of the Accountancy, Business, and Management Track. Both public and private schools attempt to introduce a little of everything about accountancy, business, and management without sufficiently training the students to attain a level of proficiency fit for employment. In an attempt to cover the whole syllabus, some teachers in highly reputable schools teach the most fundamental principle and skills and expect their students to acquire comprehensive knowledge and skill by giving board-caliber questions in their official examinations.It is up to the students to level up their skills somewhere else.
Something is wrong with the K-12 program. It is high time to review this long-running experiment on the learners and spare them from a program that wasted two years of work opportunities.