Youth group slams Aquino for pushing K+12 education

MANILA, Philippines - The Aquino administration’s Kindergarten+12 basic education curriculum reform program is bound to fail with inadequate funds allocated to education, a youth group claimed yesterday.

Youth Against Debt (YAD) said the government should adopt the international benchmark for government spending on education, which is six percent of the country’s gross national product (GNP) to provide adequate funds for the K+12 program.

“It is very sad that while this government asserts international standards to implement K+12, they choose to ignore the international benchmark for government spending in education,” Erika Erro, YAD spkesperson, said.

Citing data from the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Erro said the country would have incurred an accumulated debt of P3.56 billion from 1986 to 2011 if it abided by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) standard of six percent GNP provision for universal quality education.

Erro added that the Department of Education’s (DepEd) K+12 program further divides the meager budget allocation to education.

“Before, the basic education budget is only divided by 10 levels; six for elementary and four for high school. Now, the virtually similar amount will be shared by 13 levels,” Erro said.

“This is the wrong mathematical operation to solve the complicated problems of our educational system. Instead of division, it should be addition. The Aquino administration should add more fund support to the education sector,” he added.

YAD held a rally at Mendiola yesterday to call for a six percent GNP allocation for education.

Members of Akbayan Youth, SANLAKAS Youth, Youth for Nationalism and Democracy, Student Council Alliance of the Philippines and KAISA-UP Diliman joined the rally.

The groups said the youth sector will judge President Aquino based on how he will respond to the problems of the education system.

“If President Aquino will remain blind and deaf to the grievances of the youth, it means that he is no different from previous administrations, that he will just continue the state abandonment of education,” Erro said.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), for its part, said the implementation of the K+12 program was without legal basis.

ACT said the absence of an implementing law is to blame for lack of budget allocation for the program.

“The prevailing education crisis must be addressed more fundamentally and their K+12 programs, P-Noy’s supposed legacy to the Filipino people, would only exacerbate the situation,” France Castro, secretary-general of ACT said.

“A comprehensive review and planning is in order so that the reforms to be introduced in our education system will not be wasted,” Castro added.

ACT said DepEd should instead give priority to quality kindergarten education and address the shortage in teachers, classrooms, textbooks, chairs and sanitation facilities.

Teachers, especially public kindergarten teachers, must be paid accordingly, ACT said.

“Quality education could only be achieved if this government will have the political will to invest more in the public school system, stop the predominance of a colonial curriculum, and develop science and technology for domestic development,” Castro said.

As this developed, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-Episcopal Commission on Youth executive secretary Conegundo Garganta urged the DepEd to utilize government buildings as alternative classrooms.

“Maybe the government could use its police power to use and get the permission to use these buildings that are idle,” Garganta said.

Data provided by the ACT show that teacher shortage for the whole public school system stands at 132,483; 97,685 classrooms; and 153,709 water and sanitation facilities.

DepEd assistant secretary Jesus Mateo said they would look into Garganta’s suggestion.– With Evelyn Macairan