Youth org pushes for K-12 review

WITH the incoming administration of president-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., progressive youth organization Spark has called for the reconsideration of the K-12 program after nine years of its implementation.

“We, in Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan [Spark], urge the review of this failed program that sent the education system down the drain,” the group said in a press statement dated June 26.

This came after the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) expressed four days prior its interest to review the current education system’s effectiveness as the new government commenced on Thursday.

Vice President-elect Sara Dutertecarpio, who will assume the leadership of the Department of Education (Deped), earlier revealed that Marcos Jr. has already ordered the program’s reassessment.

According to Spark, the K-12 program has made the worsening education crisis in the country more inaccessible since its introduction in 2013, under former president Benigno Aquino III’S term.

“While it aimed to provide more opportunities for the youth, its voucher program lacked the compensation for other fees like food, allowance and transportation, which worsened the poverty that both students and…parents sought to get out of,” Spark said. “The gaps widened even more with the lack of facilities, schools, and even educators to address the needs of the students. The program…pushed through even in the midst of frustrations coming from both parents and students.”

The group noted that apparent failures of K-12 became even more pronounced recently with the ensuing pandemic. It cited complaints and problems arising from “erroneous learning materials, unbalanced curriculum, lackluster subsidies, and low enrollment turnouts” that have surged.

“Ultimately, the Deped has failed to [prove the] program’s earlier assumptions that K-12 graduates are ‘job-ready’ and ‘globally competitive,’” it said.

To address issues on the current education system, Spark pressed the demand for students, particularly the first generation that underwent the program, and parents to “have a voice in this review.”

It likewise asserted the revision and adjustment of the curriculum to suit today’s requirements “with the inclusion of climate science, sex education, modern Philippine history, and labor rights.”

“Students are treated as mere lab rats during the whole implementation of the K-12 curriculum. Now that the Deped, CHED and the government are coming to their senses [and realizing] the flaws brought about by its rash implementation, students should be given a proper seat in the discussion, as they are the main stakeholders and the ones [who] directly experienced learning under this curriculum,” Spark emphasized.