Modern Turkish high schools established in Zamboanga, NCR

(Secondof3Parts)

ISTANBUL, Turkey: A special curriculum with some deviations from the Philippine secondary school curriculum was utilized by Turkish-operated private international high schoos that opened in Zamboanga City and San Juan City in Metro Manila (NCR or National Capital Region) over one decade ago.

This was agreed during a conference between a Philippine panel headed by former Department of Education (DepEd) Undersecretary Gutierrez Mangansakan and top officials of the Integrated Center for Alternative Development (ICAD) foundation, a group of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in Turkey that would operate the foreign schools.

ICAD foundation president Ozcan Meniscoglu said the curriculum has seven subjects offered from first year (described by the Turks as Grade7) to fourth year (Grade 10).

These are English, Pilipino, Mathematics; Physical Education, Health, Music ( PEHM); Values Education; Technology, Computer and Home Economics ( TCHE); and Turkish, which is taught as a second foreign language.

Meniscoglu said from Grades 7 to 10, English, Filipino and Values Education are taught one hour daily a week from Monday to Friday while Mathematics, from first to fourth year, is offered six hours a week or one hour and 12 minutes a day.

Computer will be taught two hours or 120 minutes daily from Grades 7 to 10.

Physical and Biological Science, locally known as General Science, is offered six hours a week in first year and followed by Biology and Technology three hours a week in the second, third and fourth years, respectively, in the current curriculum, and will be given starting in Grade 8 (second year) up to Grade 10 with Chemistry at three hours a week and Physics at four hours weekly.

Offered five hours a week are Philippine History in the first year, Asian History in the second year, Economics in the third year and World History in the fourth year.

Both Philippine and Turkish panels agreed that, in line with the host nation’s bilingual program, English will be used as medium of instruction in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English and Computer.

All the other subjects like Philippine History, Asian Studies, Economics and World History will be taught in Pilipino.

Turkish, the dominant language spoken across the independent states of Central Asia and middle and eastern European countries, will be taught six hours a week or one hour daily.

Mangansakan and Bureau of Secondary Education Director Mendoza noted that the Turkish-Philippine schools have a curriculum heavier in Science, Mathematics and technology than that of the DepEd curriculum.

The two Filipino DepEd officials said, ”This will be beneficial to our Filipino students who are internationally known as weak in Science and Mathematics.”

To be concluded