The present situation of the Philippine Education System is not promising. According to the evaluation of the Department of Education there is insufficient mastery of basic competencies due to the congested curriculum. Their findings show that for every 100 freshmen only two are able to have a complete mastery of what they have learned in their high school (Department of Education, 2010). Also cases like high school graduates who look for jobs so as to sustain their means to pursue tertiary education are considered unprepared because of their competencies and maturity level. They are viewed as too young to work because of their age which is 17 or 18; also they are not emotionally mature to handle employment and entrepreneurship. Other countries also viewed that the 10 year cycle is already insufficient due to the fact that they were able to effectively implement the K+12 education system (Department of Education, 2010).
The Department of Education, (2010) also noticed some problems in the present curriculum because it was observed that there was overcrowding of subjects thus leading to no mastery amongst students and that there is no specialization because most subjects focus on academics area but does not develop manual skills. Because of this, several reforms were formulated and started but because results in improving the quality of education is not easily seen, the Department of Education came forth in addressing the improvement of the quality of education through their proposal of implementing the K+12 education system which is adopted in most countries around the globe.
Seeing all of this, one could assume that K+12 has benefits that could help in the improvement of the quality of education basing from the cases of the different developed countries like the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada. In the Philippines though, it could not be effective enough for there are different standards and requirements that the government and the Department of Education should work on before its implementation. Also awareness among parents, students and teachers about K+12 education should be promoted for its implementation given that most of these people see it as a burden rather than a help to improvement for our educational system. It is true that specialization and improvement of skills which the K+12 education system is highly recommended for is good in training students and it could be effective in our country but at present and in the next 5-10 years, this would not work especially if we are still faced with problems such as lack of classrooms, facilities, comfort rooms and teachers who are not well-trained to adjust to the K+12 curriculum. Also the ability of the government to release funds that would shoulder all the expenses in adopting this education system is another pressing concern. Therefore, K+12 education system will not work unless all of the other pressing matters would be addressed.
By: Ms. Lizel D. Mañalac | Teacher I | Magsaysay National High School
