Whatever the outcome may be
The K-to-12 program has come under fire again with the latest School-to-Work
Transition report released by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).
The report is a major blow to the much-hyped panacea of the high
unemployment rate among the youth in the Philippines. The CHR noted that the
unemployment rate of the youth has been consistently high in the Philippines based on
recent data and research findings, but the K-to-12 curriculum touted by the government
as an effective strategy to solve the problem now appears to be a dud.
CHR reported that most graduates of the K-to-12 program have difficulty getting
hired because employers still prefer applicants with bachelor’s degrees. A research
study shows that while Senior High School (SHS) graduates are in the labor force, they
work more hours and are paid as wage and salary workers and have lower employment
rates and lower proportions than those who are self-employed.
The participants in the CHR study raised the issue of duplication of subjects that
have already been taught in senior high school but are still required as general
education subjects in college, missing their chance to take other subjects and wasting
their time and resources.
According to CHR, the youth participants of the study and public school
administrators alike would want to monitor the graduates in different pathways because
such data are crucial to know in which phase or what aspects of the process students
need help or intervention for their school-to-work transition. However, as much as the
public schools want to do the monitoring, they lack the resources.
On top of the K-to-12 experiment, the outcomes-based education (OBE) forced
upon all learning institutions, from basic education to college, completes the recipe for
failure. With mandates from the Department of Education and the Commission on
Higher Education, learners are now undergoing the ordeal of having to produce an
outcome without mastery of the basic theories and principles of the subject of study.
Take the case of ABM students who are more inclined to accountancy, business,
and management as their future career, being forced to produce a short film in their
Media Arts and Visual Arts subject. With zero to little training in movie production and
acting, the project required the students to devote all their time to it, forcing them to
forget momentarily the subjects that should be given more attention – accounting,
business, and management subjects. The school was supposedly on the right track
when it required all its students aspiring to become accountants to get a TESDA
Bookkeeping NC III certification as a requirement for graduation. But in the end, the
requirement was scrapped, and instead, it required all ABM students to participate in a
film festival.
Today, there seems to be no option. All are fixated on the idea that basic
education must be studied in 12 years in order to graduate, and learners must suffer 12
years of haphazardly-designed outcomes-based education.
Although we learn through mistakes, policymakers should not mandate a one-
size-fits-all approach to regulating education. There are telltale signs that these
experiments must be stopped, and allow educational institutions to design their own
curricular offerings. It is up to the parents and learners to choose an institution of
learning that offers a curriculum that best fits the learners’ profile. After all, the world
is a diverse place, and any learner who does not conform to government-imposed
standards should not be judged as a misfit.