K-12 program a failure

We denounce the K-12 program of the Department of Education (DepEd. The propaganda spread by former DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro and former president Noynoy Aquino promising easy employment for K-12 graduates without having to pursue higher learning or bachelor’s degree is a lie.

The only thing clear here is that more youth will suffer from joblessness due to inadequate education.

Long before K-12, the dismal state funding for education has long been the problem in the Philippines, and the implementation of the prolonged basic education through K-12 is doing nothing to improve the rotten to the core commercialized, human migration and export industrialization-oriented education system in the country.

The recent Philippine Business Education survey stated that 4 out of 5 companies won’t accept K-12 graduates.

From the very beginning, we have criticized the proposed K-12. It is bound to fail if it continues to ignore the more pressing problems like lack of school buildings, insufficient number of teachers, low salaries of teachers, lack of learning materials and books, and corruption.

The government through K-12 program merely aims to train our youth to become cheap laborers and gear them to serve the foreign countries.

We also denounce President Rodrigo Duterte and DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones for continuing the program despite early indicators of failure and incapacity of the DepEd. The dissent of the students, parents, educators and children’s organizations have fallen on deaf ears. --Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns