Quo Vadis Educacionis? Mark Raymond Ferrer Where is our education system going?

This is the question that most of the Filipinos ask because of the big debate regarding the K-12 system that is being proposed by the government. K-12 is the addition of two years to the present educational system of the country which is K-10. This will make the present elementary level to have Grade 7 and the present secondary level to have the 5th year with the mandatory kindergarten. But how ready is the government for this thing? How ready are the students to have this? How capable is the country to have this? Frankly speaking, this attempt of the government may not happen with the present condition of the educational system of the country classroom shortage, book shortage, high student population, and teacher shortage these are just some of the things that the government must address first. Although the Department of Education has the biggest budget in all government agencies these shortages are still happening and what more if the K-12 system is already implemented, what will happen next? This system that is proposed is already an empirical impossibility. This is an ambitious plan to happen. Likewise, if the K-12 system will be pursued what will happen to the shortages that the present education system? It will not resolve the need for more books, classrooms and even teachers. There is already a big gap to the needed quantity to the things that we have, so we may infer that if we will have the system there could be a really big gap to the needed than those of what we have. Aside from that, the K-12 program may give a big budget deficit to the government. The government will need to spend more than what the government has. So this means again that the government will need to loan on other countries and have its foreign debts bigger. Moreover, there are many people, especially the teachers and students, oppose the said system. It is said that the added years for the current system aims to ready the students for work. But this will not address the problem of unemployment rate of the country and the private sector may have hesitations on hiring graduates from the secondary level. Thus, this will just give extra expense for the parents; it will just make a bigger problem to the society and even to the economy. In addition, according to some economists, there are four problems to resolve first before having the K-12 system the quality, affordability, budget and mismatch. First, the quality of the present education system has declined over the years as exemplified by the standard tests given to the elementary and high school graduates. The scores obtained were far way below to the target mean score. Second, with regards to affordability, there is a high drop-out rate among those who are in the low socioeconomic status compared to those of higher status. Third, the budget is again concerned with the issue. Although the education sector has the highest budget allotment in the country it is still considered low as compared to the allotment of the other ASEAN countries. Lastly, the mismatch, there

is a big difference between the trainings obtained by the students coming from the tertiary level to the actual job they have which causes a big percentage of educated unemployed or underemployed people. But, if the Department of education will pursue the program, there should be reforms to have. First is to upgrade the salaries of the teachers for them to be able to have advanced trainings on teaching. Second is to amend the budgeting on educations which is based on participation rates and unit costs. Lastly is to get all the leaders in business and industry to become actively involved in higher education; this is aimed at addressing the mismatch problem. However, the program may be able enough to address the need for competition of the country in terms of education system in the world. Many countries nowadays have K-11 or K-12 system of education and the Philippines is one of the 10-20% of the countries around the globe which has the K-10 system of education. This may also address to the problem of some Filipinos who wants to study abroad for masters degree or their doctorate. Since our country has only 10 years in the basic education some graduate students needs to study again to the country that they will go to study or to start their masters degree in the Philippines and obtain units and go abroad. Indeed, there are two sides regarding the matter first is the opposing and second is with the plan. Although there are two sides in this the people should think first what is really needed. They should weigh both of them and hear their side before doing such move. They should see first the outcomes of the plan then decide whether to continue or not and just improve the current system. The government should not make the education of its people at stake and there should be a concrete plan in addressing the problems of the current society. The question that people should answer is the Why? and the How? of the matter. Quo Vadis Educacionis?