"More on K - 12" Open letter to President Benigno S. Aquino

I share the apprehension of  Dr. Eladio C. Dioko, retired DepEd VII Director, that the country is unprepared to implement the K-12 curriculum by year 2016. The problems of training new faculty, lack of classrooms and facilities would be enormously compounded, given the current predicament besetting our secondary educational system.

Sometime during the term of US President Bill Clinton, community colleges were opened to address the minority population and some white Americans who needed short term skills training for employment. These colleges equip students with technical skills training that would give them immediate employment. My son attended one of these schools where he finished Licensed Vocational Nursing. Eventually, he returned home and completed a degree here.

It would seem that the K-12 aims to address the needs of a great number of Filipinos, especially in the rural areas, who cannot go to college for one reason or another, and prefer to learn fast skills. Fortunately, TESDA is already addressing these concerns. If the purpose of K-12, therefore, is to provide skills training, why sacrifice a significant number of students who aim higher to obtain a tertiary degree after grade 10? K-12 is a duplication of the functions of TESDA.

As it is, many graduates of present secondary schools especially in centers of excellence, are already globally competitive, and entering international higher educational institutions with exceptional academic records. Well-motivated students at the Ateneo, UP, DSLU and other private and public schools in the country, excel in the academics, and why punish students with K-12, as if it is the best need for this country? Why delay many promising young men and women from entering tertiary education just to show that the Philippines is keeping up with the rest of the world? Why imitate countries that subsidize heavily their educational system, when our own cannot even afford to provide decent infrastructure for our public school?

My two elder children attended an American international school in Nairobi, Kenya when we were medical missionaries in the 80's there. What I observed is that the only advantage of the international schools is that students are given more time in sports, play, outings and cultural social activities. As far as academics are concerned, it was essentially the same as our present system.

DepEd has required private and public high schools TO APPLY to open Senior High School (grade 11 and 12) effective 2016 - 2017, implying that schools NEED NOT APPLY if they are not ready. Any private high schools planning to apply to open senior high school has to be financially able to put up more for infrastructures, facilities and equipment. We suggest that government re-visit the real intention of K-12. We believe giving a National Achievement Test to all grade 10 students at the end of the year is less costly and preferable to screen students who should go to technical Vocational Education Training, or to a baccalaureate degree. Those who fail the test, to TESDA they go. Those who pass the test can opt to go to university right away. The law on the K-12 curriculum is oppressive, prejudicial and violates the student's constitutional rights to access to college education. Will somebody raise this issue with the Supreme Court?

It's not too late to do that.