Please mind the curriculum gap

The ongoing academic year 2018-2019 is critical for Philippine higher education institutions as it is when they have to admit the pioneer batch of senior high school (SHS) graduates under the K-12 basic education reform program of the Department of Education (DepEd) into college. According to DepEd, of the more than 1.2 million graduates from public and private SHS’s in 2018, twenty-five percent (25%) or 300,000 learners will be able to obtain a college degree in the next four to five years. Factoring in the college completion rate of 30% as per Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), we are talking about 1 million (300,000/30%) learners entering college this year.

Reflecting on the situation, I could not help but ask, “How would these learners be any different from their predecessors? How would our newly minted college curriculum be more sensitive to what these learners bring and need?”

I am writing from the perspective of an accounting teacher who has handled classes in both SHS (the first and second batches) and college (intakes from the first batch of SHS graduates). In addition, I have conducted certification visits to feeder SHS’s of our university. Needless to say, my views are directed at the Accountancy, Business, and Management (ABM) strand of the academic track.

The main motivation behind this education reform is to ensure that graduates of our basic education system are at par with global standards. In more practical terms, the shift to K-12 aims to provide graduates with life skills in dealing with changes brought about by globalization, regulation, and technology. The reform is supposed to result in graduates who are prepared to analyze and solve problems, respond and adapt to changes, and internalize and live by the learning skills.

An important component of program management is monitoring and evaluation. DepEd