K - 12 does not make us globally competitive

Only 14 percent of senior high school graduates in American public schools go to higher education, according to a recent survey. The rest seek employment after graduation right away, or enter community colleges (established by former US President Bill Clinton) for short-term vocational training that land them a job shortly afterwards.

The figure could be higher in American private education, but perhaps no higher than 30 percent go to college because of the high cost of US college education despite state subsidies and scholarship grants.

In this country, a great majority of high school graduates join the out-of-school youth after high school. Without skills, they are in a sinkhole.

The solution to address the thousands of high school graduates who cannot go to college is not K-12 but more technical-vocational schools. K-12 does not promote global competitiveness, but enhances world labor market employment.

The following facts contradict the rationale of K-12:

-              First: More than 70 percent of high school students in both private and public schools actually need technical-vocational training, not K-12. That is exactly what advocates of K-12 say, "Kon dili makatiwas sa college, maayo nalang dunay skills, that K-12 provides, sa trabaho."

-              Second: Constituting the minority, perhaps 30 percent or less, we have many Filipino high school students who may be mentally capable, and intellectually prepared to enter tertiary education after 4th year high school. Having to learn a vocational skill to become, say, a doctor, an accountant or a lawyer, is simply ridiculous. This group can easily hurdle any educational achievement tests, here or abroad.

-              Third: Parents whose children are intellectually endowed must be spared from the high costs of additional two years in senior high school. Many parents of bright children are poor.

-              Fourth: Helpless professors who would be "banished" to a forced two-year period of sedate unemployed will suffer substantial income loss.

-              Fifth: Graduate education is where global competiveness should be enhanced.  Today top executives in the corporate world are smart product of today's school and graduate education here in abroad.

The K-12 law has mandated the engagement of industries and business enterprises for related learning experience prescribed by the senior high school curriculum. This is ideal in urban centers where private and public schools are located near industries. But how about the needs of senior high school students in the rural areas, in the remote communities where cottage, fishing, and farming are the only sustainable "industries"? Did the K-12 planners anticipate this? Will free land, sea and air transport be provided by government to bring senior high school students for practicum from where they are, say Camotes Islands, to Mactan Processing Zone or Mitsumi in Danao City?