Pinoy Weekly
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Posted: 03 Jun 2013 01:04 PM PDT
 Youth activists picket the Department of Education office in Quezon City. (Pher Pasion)Kabataan and other youth groups have criticized the said program, saying that it does not in improve the Philippine education system. Instead, the increase in number of years for basic education only gives an added burden to impoverished Filipino families. “As the K-12 or RA 10533 signed into law, basic education institutions will be compelled to follow the new program despite the fact that there is no concrete scientific evaluation of the program’s efficiency and effectiveness after its first year of implementation,” said outgoing Kabataan Rep. Raymond Palatino. Unprepared According to DepEd, there were a total of 20.8 million students in all public schools nationwide. Of the said number, 1.78 million are in kindergarten, while 13.3 million are in elementary and 5.7 million are in high school. At the opening of classes, the schools were greeted with the same old problems that continue to be unaddressed by the government, according to Kabataan. “As another school year begins, millions of students are to return to their schools only to find the same old education problems brought about by years of underfunding for education – shortages in facilities, skyrocketing matriculation, and for students in basic education, additional burden through the full-blown implementation of the K-12 program,” said Kabataan President and incoming Rep. Terry Ridon. According to DepEd, they have addressed the shortages in textbooks and school seats while problems in classrooms, teacher items and water and sanitation facilities are expected to be resolved before 2013 ends. Kabataan said that according to government statistics itself revealed that for the incoming school year, the country still lacked 47,584 teachers, 19,579 classrooms, 60 million textbooks, 2.5 million chairs, and 80,937 water and sanitation facilities.  Kabataan Party-list once again expressed its criticism of the K-12 program. (Pher Pasion)Grade 7 and Grade 8 teachers attested that aside from the modules for vocational trainings, equipment for electrical, carpentry, among other, were not available. Teachers are challenged to be innovative but it would be difficult to impart skills to student when basic tools are unavailable, according to ACT. For cheap labor According to Kabataan, the implementation of K-12 program ultimately caters to cheap labor here and abroad, for big corporations to maximize their profits. “More Filipino youth will be absorbed to the technical-vocational labor force (that is) already widely wanting jobs, worsening unemployment rates, contrary to the administration’s tout of the K-12 system as equipping high school graduates with employable skills,” said Marc Lino Abila, College Editors of the Philippines (CEGP) national deputy secretary-general. According to research think-tank Ibon Foundation, majority of Filipinos find it difficult to get jobs because employment is scarce, and not because there is a mismatch between the school curriculum and job availability. Latest official figures show that in 2012, almost eight out of 10 unemployed are high-school or college-educated. Three out of 10 reached college-level of education or are even graduates of post-graduate studies, according to the National Statistics Office (NSO). Ibon added that job scarcity in the country is due to a weak industrial sector, particularly domestic manufacturing, which would have created sufficient jobs in the country. The share of the manufacturing sector to total employment has fallen from 12.1 percent in 1960 to only 8.3 percent in 2012. Even the neoliberal institution, Asian Development Bank (ADB), in its 2013 report, recognized that a strong industrial base is vital in increasing jobs and making growth more inclusive and sustainable. With the absence of government resolve to substantially increase the education budget, the lack of decent jobs in many parts of the country remains a barrier for parents to send their children to school, whether under a 10-year or 12-year education cycle. Added burden Youth groups also said that the K-12 program will surely an added burden to impoverished families. Kabataan said that the additional years of K-12 can be considered as “two more years of torture for the youth.” An estimated additional P12,000 per year on the average is what families will be spending for the K-12 in terms of school fees, school requirements, allowances among others, the group said. “The additional two years will surely burden our families especially prices are skyrocketing while our parent’s salaries remain low. Additional expenses may lead to higher dropouts as parents can’t afford to send their children to school,” according to Patricia Santos, CEGP, vice-president for Luzon. More fees But aside from additional two years of basic education, Filipinos are still have to face the continuing increases in school fees as the Department of Education and Commission of Higher Education (Ched) approved hundreds of schools to implement tuition fee increases this academic year. Student groups also denounced DepEd’s approval of tuition increases in 1,144 private basic education schools for the incoming school year. In their protest action at Commission on Higher Education amid heavy rains, the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), together with League of Filipino Studens (LFS) and Anakbayan, condemned the approval of tuition increases in 354 private and public higher education institutions. The increases average at 10 percent, with the highest increase at 50 percent. Last week, Kabataan filed a petition before the Supreme Court that seeks to stop tuition increases in tertiary schools. The petition asked the high court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the implementation of the approved hikes, and invalidate all previous hikes by the virtue of violating the “reasonable regulation and supervision” clause stipulated in Article XIV Section 4 of the 1987 Constitution. Youth groups vow to launch more protest actions to condemn the Aquino administration’s “continuing neglect on the education sector” and its promotion of neoliberal policies that cater to the rich, to the detriment of the majority poor. ## |
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