DepEd to pilot K-10 curriculum in 35 schools

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Education (DepEd) will commence next week the pilot implementation of the revised Grade 1 to 10 curriculum dubbed “MATATAG” in 35 schools across the country.

MATATAG stands for “Make the curriculum relevant to produce job-ready, Active and responsible citizens; TAke steps to accelerate the delivery of basic education services and provision facilities; TAke good care of learners by promoting learner well-being, inclusiveness learning, and positive learning environment; and Give support for teachers to teach better,” according to the DepEd.

On a list released yesterday, the agency said the MATATAG Curriculum would be pilot-tested on Sep. 25 in schools in seven regions, including the National Capital Region (NCR), Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), Ilocos, Cagayan Valley, Central Visayas, Soccsksargen and Caraga.

Participating schools in the NCR are all located in Malabon City: Dampalit Integrated School, Santiago Syjuco Memorial School, Muzon Elementary School and Tinajeros National High School.

In CAR, the designated schools are Calafug Elementary School in Apayao, Rizal Elementary School and Doña Aurora National High School in Baguio City and Lam-ayan Integrated School and Bineng National High School in Benguet.

Ilocos region’s designated schools are all in La Union: Cabaruan Integrated School, Caba Central Elementary School, Acao Elementary School, Casacristo National High School and Don Rufino Olarte Memorial National High School.

In Cagayan Valley, pilot schools include Cauayan City, Isabela’s North Central School and Isabela province’s Villa Teresita Primary School, Lanna National High School and Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo National High School.

Central Visayas’ pilot schools are Cebu’s Tindog Integrated School, San Fernando North Central Elementary School, Tabogon Central Elementary School, Dumanjug National High School and Liloan National High School.

Soccsksargen’s listed schools include Mlang Pilot Elementary School in North Cotabato and Sarangani’s Lamlifew Integrated School, Alegria Central Elementary School, Malalag National High School-Upo Annex and Alegria National High School.

Finally, Caraga’s pilot schools are Butuan’s Baobaoan Integrated School and Pedro Duncano National High School, Surigao del Norte’s Suyangan Elementary School and Socorro National High School, and Agusan del Norte’s Santiago Central Elementary School.

Earlier, the DepEd said the schools were “meticulously” selected based on their enrollment size and community socioeconomic status, “to create a well-rounded pilot program that reflects the diversity and complexity of the Philippine education landscape.”

Benchmarked on the “decongestion” of learning competencies, such as reducing subjects in the early grade levels to focus on foundational skills such as oracy and numeracy, the MATATAG Curriculum intends to improve students’ learning outcomes and help them succeed.

After the pilot tests this school year, the new curriculum will be implemented in phases: first in preschool and Grades 1, 4 and 7 in all public and private schools starting SY 2024-2025; Grades 2, 5 and 8 in SY 2025-2026; Grades 3, 7 and 8 in SY 2026-2027 and Grade 10 in SY 2027-2028.

The mass training of teachers for the full implementation will begin next year.

The procurement process of textbooks and other learning materials has also commenced.

DepEd: Vice President Sara never blamed rallies for enrollment drop

Meanwhile, the DepEd clarified that Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte had never blamed rallies as the reason for the two-million drop in enrollment for the current school year.

The DepEd was reacting to a news story headlined “Sara blames rallies for 2-M drop in enrollment” published by The STAR on its front page last Thursday.

In a statement that the agency issued last Saturday and also posted on DepEd Philippines’ Facebook page, it called the headline “highly sensationalized, inaccurate and misleading.”

“A perusal of the Vice President and Secretary of Education’s entire speech, delivered at the Peace Village on Sept. 11, 2023, would show that at no point did she allude to rallies as being the reason for the alleged drop in enrollment,” the DepEd said.

“As a matter of fact, a simple reading of the article itself would also reveal that nothing was uttered by the Vice President and Secretary of Education, be it verbatim or by insinuation, to even remotely support the title’s conclusion,” it added.

The news story quoted Duterte in her keynote speech delivered at the opening of the three-day Peace Village Exhibit at SM City Davao on Monday last week.

In her speech, the Vice President slammed ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro for supposedly questioning her over the drop in enrollment figure.

“And then France Castro would say, ‘Look, the DepEd is short of two million in enrollment. Ask Inday Sara where the enrollment is,’” Duterte said in Filipino.

The DepEd emphasized that distortion of facts for clickbait purposes should not be tolerated, as it demanded that the publications “make the necessary changes immediately to avoid spreading false statements.”

In a statement issued last Thursday, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) maintained that there is nothing wrong with questioning the DepEd over the drop in enrollment.

“There’s nothing wrong in questioning and holding the DepEd accountable for the two-million drop in enrollment. It is the department’s responsibility to ensure that no student is left behind. Why is Sara Duterte so allergic to questions?” ACT chairman Vladimer Quetua said.

“The DepEd should look into the root causes of the education sector’s problems that left students unable to go back to school this year, such as financial problems that households face due to the country’s economic problems,” Quetua added.

Enrollment can still rise

The DepEd said it is still premature to conclude that there is about a two-million drop in the number of students enrolled for this school year, as it pointed out that the figure could still go up in the coming days.

“For the information of the public, an accurate determination as to whether enrollment numbers have dropped compared to (figures from) previous years cannot be made at this time. This is due to the fact that the encoding of learners in our Learners Information System is still ongoing,” the agency said in a statement last Saturday.

The third week of classes ended last Friday with 26.9 million officially enrolled students in elementary and high school, still below the target of 28.8 million students for SY 2023 to 2024.

“The DepEd will consistently provide the public with regular updates on enrollment figures as they continue to increase, and announce the total number of enrollees for SY 2023-2024 once the encoding period closes on Oct. 30, 2023,” the agency said.

As of 9 a.m. last Friday, the DepEd reported a total of 26,895,079 students enrolled in public and private kindergarten, elementary and high schools as well as in Philippine schools overseas and under the Alternative Learning System (ALS).

Calabarzon tallied the highest number of enrolled students with 3,909,872; followed by Central Luzon with 2,955,216, and the NCR with 2,777,408.

Also with high numbers of enrollees are Region VII with 2,079,140; Western Visayas with 1,996,231; Bicol with 1,703,645, and Davao region with 1,353,504.

A total of 330,216 students signed up under the ALS while 18,466 enrolled in Philippine schools overseas.

The DepEd earlier said that schools would accept enrollees until the end of this month.

A total of 28.4 million students were enrolled in public and private schools in SY 2022-2023.

Performance-based bonus

The government should never delay the release of performance-based bonuses (PBB) for teachers and support personnel, the ACT said over the weekend.

While the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said it had released P11.6 billion for the 2021 PBBs of more than 920,000 public school teachers, the ACT said the DepEd should ensure the timely submission of forms so that teachers and other personnel would never have to experience long delays.

“We demand we should never experience this longest delayed PBB. The DepEd should ensure to pass the forms on time. They should learn from their mistakes. Teachers and education workers deserve to be compensated on time,” Quetua said in a statement.

While teachers are expected to have their PBBs after a two-year wait, education support personnel would be facing further delays due to issues that require “revalidation,” according to the DBM.

It said it returned the documents for support personnel PBBs due to “duplicate entries, incorrect information on the months of service, and certain personnel not found in the DepEd’s Personnel Services Itemization and Plantilla of Personnel, among others.”

“It is already September of 2023, yet the PBB 2021 is still not released for the education support personnel. This has been delayed for a long time, and DepEd has not yet addressed the discrepancies,” Quetua said. “This is not the first time that the DepEd is implementing the Performance-Based Bonus and yet they continue to fail to release this on time.”

The ACT also stated that despite the recent statement of DBM that it had released P11.6 billion for the 920,073 beneficiaries of PBB 2021, teachers are still disappointed in the DepEd’s sluggish process of complying with the needed requirements.

The DepEd submitted the necessary documents for evaluation to the DBM from April to August this year.

The PBB is a top-up incentive given to government employees based on their performance and contributions to accomplishing their department’s overall targets and commitments. — Elizabeth Marcelo