PH Education secretary convinced that the K-12 program is not a failure despite low PISA rankings.
K-12 program is not a failure
PHILIPPINES – The education secretary opposed criticisms thrown against PH education, labeled as poor performing in terms of literacy, Math, and Sciences by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). She firmly believes that this is not a basis for calling the K-12 program a failure.
Based on OECD’s Programme for Internation Student Assessment (Pisa), the Philippines ranks the worst among 79 countries based on literacy and second-lowest in Math and Sciences.
According to education secretary Leonor Briones, the students who undertake the Pisa mostly belong to the junior high school program. Students under the K-12 curriculum are in senior high school. Based on local student assessment, students from senior high school performs better compared to junior high school.
Those in senior high school performed so much better and significantly superior compared to those in junior high school. We hope that the impact of senior high school will be better felt now that we are strengthening Math, Science, and English proficiency.
Criticisms against the K-12 program
Leftist group leaders like ACT Teacher representative France Castro doesn’t hold back on his criticisms against the K-12 program.
The representative insists that:
The dismal performance shown by Filipino students in the literacy assessment of OECD reflects the program’s failure.
Briones brushes off these criticisms along with the opinion that the country started the program way too soon.
It was not too soon; it was too late. We should have senior high school decades ago.
What the education secretary sees as a problem with PH education is that the outdated curriculum is still being taught to students.
The reason why the Philippines is not up to par with international standards is not because of the students; it is the educational system. and she minces no words in saying:
The contents of the PH’s current curriculum is far from international standards.
The Department of Education is currently reviewing textbooks, looking into rebuilding laboratories, and catching up with the reconstruction left by disasters on education facilities.
Featured image by FactsMaps
