Second of three parts
A Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) report in July last year said the K to 12 Program has been long
in coming.
Before the war of imperialist countries in the 1940s, Filipinos studied until Grade 7 and four years of high school before going to college. From 1945 and until last year, elementary education took only six years. For three-fourths of a century, beginning at the Commonwealth era, it took only a decade before a student goes to college.
After the full K to 12 program implementation, this year onward, a student must hurdle four years of junior high school and two years of senior high school (SHS) before he or she goes to college.
According to the CHEd, the K to 12 Program would “provide sufficient time for mastery of concepts and skills.”
The CHEd report provided to the BusinessMirror explained the additional two years of SHS decongests the curriculum and focuses on mastery, while minimizing need to review basic subjects in college.”
According to the CHEd, SHS students, or those in Grades 11 and 12, will be offered four major tracks: Academic, Sports, Arts and Design, and Technical-Vocational and Livelihood. The Academic Track includes the following: General Academic Strand; Humanities and Social Science; Accountancy, Business and Management; and, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
According to Luis Alberto A. Anastacio, president and CEO of work force solutions provider Servicio Filipino Inc., these tracks are not enough.
Well-rounded
ACCORDING to Anastacio, there’s some myopia in how the Philippines view education. For him, the education system should be viewed on the future needs of the economy.
“What’s the global economy gonna look by 2020?” Anastacio told the BusinessMirror. “That’s the way that I’m gonna break it [education system] down; to look at it from the global, Asean, Asian and prespective and then break it down to let say the Philippine economic output and then, perhaps, going down to the actual region or even the province.”
Anastacio said the reforms in the education system should have been viewed based on evidence.
We should be able to determine future trends and learn from studies, like by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, he explained.
By doing so, Anastacio said education officials can determine the top industries or the key employment and economic generators. “And then [we need to identify] the talent requirements because each industry has a need for talent.”
The problem, Anastacio said, is when officials could not forecast the future of an industry.
“When you don’t know that, the schools won’t even know what kind of people to produce, what to teach, what skills to provide,” he explained. “Thus, there is this miscommunication between industry and education sectors. There’s finger-pointing that’s happening ever since.”
Future perfect
ANASTACIO, whose company searches for talents, said the interest of the education and industry sectors should be bridged.
Such is a tall order as he said the issues are more than supply and demand.
However, owners of the schools have said employability is not their responsibility, according to him.
“Basta binigyan kita ng knowledge tapos binigyan kita ng diploma. E kung magtratrabaho itong mga batang ’yun, sa kanila [industry] na ’yan.”
But Anastacio pointed to Japan’s shūkatsu program, which is a job-hunting system coordinated by companies and universities. He explained the job-hunting season in Japan starts for students in their third year of college life.
Anastacio said based on his experience, the shūkatsu is “really big to support the entire university.”
“Lahat kami required to talk to the career counselor and guidance counselor to tell them which companies ang pupuntahan namin for interview, etc.”
He explained the number of students hired by a company lends credibility to the university. “The brand of the school is how good your students are because even before they graduate, the top companies are getting you.”
Anastacio said implementing such system requires a study of the industry needs in the future and the curriculum that would help build the talents required by the industry in that future.
“But are the schools willing to fund it? Should the government now fund it?” he asked.
“But if we are to champion something, I’d like to convince [schools] they should have a mission [to make their students] employable.” Anastacio said schools should have a notion that the institution’s brand is to make the student employable.
Employability ills
ACCORDING to the CHEd report last year, the K to 12 Program will impact college programs, as some courses were moved to the SHS level.
This move has led to revisions in the General Education (GE) curriculum and in policies, standards and guidelines of college programs. The GE Curriculum courses have been reduced to 36 units, composed of 24 units under the GE Core, nine units of Electives and three units of Life of Rizal. There are eight subjects under the GE Core, three under Electives and one subject under the Life of Rizal.
Anastacio said the curriculum should follow the “outcome-based” principle laid out in the K to 12 Program.
“Ang tinuturo kasi sa school academics, body of knowledge so, for example, kung ako management, tinuro sa akin puro management concepts, pero hindi sa akin inexplain d’un sa course ng management, principles of accounting. Tinuturuan ka ng applied math, critical thinking, logic and other skills,” he said. “’Yung mga bata hindi knowledgeable doon sa mga skills na ’yon na kailangan pala ng industriya.”
Anastacio explained it seems industry only assumed the country’s work force already have these skills they require.
“But these were never measured” because before K to 12 it was not outcome-based.
Anastacio explained the outcome is measured based on the global skills requirement. “Before it was only about giving a diploma; today kailangan ’yung diploma na ’yun equates to you having these skills and competencies, this body of knowledge, hindi lang knowledge,” he said. “So engineer ka nga, pero magaling ka ba mag-plano? Magaling ka ba mag-communicate? Hahanapin ’yan [ng mga employers].”
Another problem that Anastacio sees in the K to 12 Program involves teachers.
“Bihira ang teacher natin na meron talagang experience doon sa industry na ginagalawan n’ya,” he said, citing as example architecture. “In industrialized countries, the best minds are taught by people who really had experience of going to work.”
To be continued
Image credits: Nonie Reyes