Public SPED schools to follow enhanced curriculum of K + 12

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Education (DepEd) said that public special education (SPED) schools will follow the same enhanced curriculum under the K (Kindergarten) + 12 basic education curriculum (BEC) reform program being implemented under the Aquino administration.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said that the SPED schools will get the same lesson modules just like regular learners but teachers will have to introduce some modifications to suit their unique learning needs.

Luistro, who himself handled children with special needs during his early teaching days, said SPED is always a part of regular education and as such, it follows the regular basic learning competencies.

As part of the government’s inclusive education program, all children, regardless of learning disability, should be subscribing to the regular curriculum in school.

“It just so happens that they have special needs, thus, we have to give them special attention. This entails a little adjustment and accommodation from our teachers,” explained Luistro.

Luistro is referring to learners whose learning disabilities include speech defect, visual and hearing impairment or high functioning individuals who may have autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), those having problems with mobility and other physical and learning conditions.

The accommodation and modification, according to Luistro, will be in the form of adaptation, augmentation or alteration of the regular competencies.

“For example, if some learners cannot keep pace with the number of days a certain competency should be learned, the teacher may have to extend the learning days, or devise creative ways to achieve the desired learning competencies,” added Luistro.

He pointed out that the competencies can be further broken down into smaller tasks to suit the ability, capability and needs of the CSNs.

On the other hand, for children in the gifted class, accommodation can be done by providing competencies which are over and beyond the regular curriculum. “If our gifted children can do more, we should provide the kind of environment that is conducive to their learning pace. This will help bring out the best in them some more,” Luistro said.

DepEd, beginning this school year, has started to implement the enhanced K + 12 curriculum for Grade 1 and Grade 7 pupils/students in all public elementary and secondary schools nationwide.

In 2011, it started the rollout of the universal kindergarten program to formally introduce K + 12 in the Basic Education Program.