DepEd needs more funds for physical and intellectual infrastructure

THE Philippine education system is a work in progress. This is a good way to frame a huge sector that is filled with challenges yet is important for the progress of the country. One such good direction is the integration of skills training in the K to 12 curriculum, which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered last February 27. The aim is to increase the employability of senior high school (SHS) students — one of the reasons for setting up the K to 12 curriculum.

The President gave the directive during a meeting with the education sector, led by Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte. He also reiterated his order to the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE). The aim is synergy. They should all work closely with industries so that the student’s skill sets and education are aligned with industry needs.

Tesda Director General Suharto Mangudadatu said the K to 12 curriculum would not be changed. Rather, it would be strengthened by the addition of a practicum component.

He noted that technical-vocational-livelihood, or the TVL, was separated from the academic tracks under the K to 12 program.

“We should provide additional skills for both the academic and TVL track programs. Not because they are in remote areas, they should automatically take the TVL track,” he added.

Moreover, he clarified that this would not be an additional task for teachers since the schools would decide on the training or skills that they would offer based on the resources available in the area.

“For instance, the school offers accountancy, business and management (ABM) strand, the teacher — who had undergone training at Tesda — will allocate the practicum side, which is bookkeeping,” Mangudadatu said.

“If you are in the far-flung areas in the countryside, you can’t teach mechatronic programs because there might be no electricity. But you can teach bookkeeping because you have a ballpen, calculator and ledger. So, everything really depends on the situation of the school.”

Tesda Deputy Director General Rosanna Urdaneta said that Marcos had ordered the creation of a technical working group to embed the skills into the DepEd curriculum.

She cited a study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), which showed that only 20 percent of the country’s SHS graduates have landed employment.

Under the proposal, Urdaneta explained that K to 12 graduates would receive both a diploma and a National Competency Certification from Tesda.

Last year, the DepEd launched the Matatag curriculum, a revised basic education curriculum under the K to 12 program that covers kindergarten up to Grade 10.

‘Bee in the bonnet’

But quick as ever, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) — the bee in the bonnet of the DepEd — issued a scathing statement last Tuesday.

It said that the DepEd’s “failure” to assess the learning recovery program and curriculum changes based on evidence slows down the recovery measures for our students.

In a statement, it slammed the initial assessment of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) that the lack of in-depth training of the teachers weakens the DepEd’s measures to speed up learning recovery. One of the contexts for this recovery program was the after-effects of the Covid-19 epidemic on the education system.

The ACT said that the DepEd failed to do a comprehensive, evidencebased learning assessment and a genuine consultation with teachers and other stakeholders. Such a consultation would have better addressed the diverse learning needs of our students amid the grave learning crisis.

ACT stressed that responsibility for the slide in the quality of education should not only rest solely with the teachers. It said accountability and leadership in the Marcos administration and the DepEd are also needed.

Moreover, the government should address the poor working conditions of the teachers and the shortage of teachers, school workers, classrooms, desks, and other learning facilities and equipment.

We wrote about this earlier, how the Education department is hobbled by a lack of funds to fill the basic needs that ACT has so acutely pointed out. Clearly, then, the onus is on the administration to allocate a bigger budget for DepEd next year for its physical and intellectual infrastructure.

The system is not completely broken, so it can still be fixed.