[EDITORIAL FOR 1ST TABLOID ISSUE 15-16]
Surely, a potent key to every nation’s progress is its intellectual citizens – of which education is a major factor to produce critical minds.
Recalling the Philippine education programs and reforms in history, from the late president Marcos’ Education Act of 1982 up to President Aquino’s K to 12 Basic Education Program and Roadmap for Public Higher Education Reform (RPHER) – the straightforward question would arise: Are the aims of these educational systems toward addressing the primary needs of our nation?
Two years ago after K-12 has been implemented, there’s an unending debate about the content and repercussions of the said education reform.
Concerned teachers and lawmakers filed petitions for the suspension of K-12 believing that it has “no nationalist and pro-Filipino orientation” which is “contrary to the requirements of Article XIV, Sections 2 and 3 of the Philippine Constitution.”
Moreover, militant youth and students call for its junking and stressing that K to 12 is patterned “after the interest of foreign industries while the Philippines is still in the hiatus of backward and illusive national industrialization,” as National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) President Sarah Jane I. Elago said.
Meanwhile, the government would claim that we are K-12 ready, “We’ve already spent on this, and we’ve been working on this for the last 5 years…” as Education Secretary Armin Luistro said.
But in truth, we believe that the point of debate should not be about whether we are K-12 ready or not. This is already the question of the program’s orientation: for, to, and by the Filipinos or not?
Basically, there are three major reforms in K-12: Mother-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE) in Elementary, the addition of two-year Senior High School (SHS) in Secondary Level, and the eradication of some subjects in General Education Curriculum (GEC) in Tertiary Level. Aligned with this is the CHED Memo No. 20, Series of 2013 which mandates the eradication of teaching of the subjects Filipino and Araling Panlipunan in tertiary and secondary curricula.
SHS has four tracks: academic, sports, arts and design, and technical-vocational courses.
Alongside K-12, Roadmap for Public Higher Education Reform (RPHER) was also implemented.
RPHER is the “rationalization of the public higher education system” in which State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) will be clustered based on excellence. The “leading” SUC will receive more funding and the remaining SUCs are given least priority in terms of government allocation and will be pushed to be “self-sufficient” and “raise income generating projects.”
In essence, SUCs will be receptive from private sectors under the Public-Private Partnership.
In President Aquino’s last State of the Nation Address he said, “Kinukuwestiyon na ang credentials ng ating mga kababayan sa ibang bansa; mayroon na ring na-demote, dahil hindi raw sapat na patunay ng kakayahan ang diplomang tangan niya.”
K-12 is part of the Education for All Agenda of World Bank and Millennium Development Goals for 2015.
As the global market requires, neoliberal agreements like the Washington Accord of US and Bologna Accord of Europe are equipped with employment provisions such as the 12-year education cycle.
K-12 and RPHER is President Aquino’s programs on education under his Philippine Development Plan.
Indeed, tracing our history would prove that education policies were aligned and designed for the needs of other nation. Today, even labor forces are being exported.
As a Filipino youth, we believe that the education we must have is an education rooted on the needs and goals of our country. It must imbue nationalistic sensibility and should depart from the colonial pedagogical hegemony.
K-12 will produce young and docile Filipinos ready to work for the jobs abroad being catered by powerful nations for them to survive on the escalating global economic crisis.
Moreover, K-12 will intensify privatization and commercialization of education. According to Department of Education’s Senate Report, around 800,000 to 1.1 million youth can only be accepted in public SHS which means more than a million students will be forced to enroll in private schools. Or worse, will be added to the ballooning number of more than 6 million out of school youth.
There is no genuine “national development” if the basic problems of the society are not being addressed such as land reform which is a necessity in order for us to establish our national industry.
Thus, we firmly believe in Renato Constantino when he said that, “education of the Filipino must be a Filipino education.”###
MayoBenteUno 
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