MANILA, Philippines — Time constraints and limited teaching hours could derail the discussion of several new “progressive” and broad topics in Araling Panlipunan under the Department of Education’s revamped basic education curriculum, a group of teachers said Wednesday.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers pointed out that with the “inadequacy of time allotment remains unresolved” in the current K to 12 curriculum, only surface-level class discussions can be done on the proposed new topics.
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“Good intentions are apparent in the introduction of new and progressive topics, however, the time constraints would only allow for shallow discussions as what is already happening in the current topics, if discussed at all,” the group said.
DepEd only requires teachers to teach minor subjects like Araling Panlipunan and MAPEH for at most 40 minutes daily, while 50 minutes are allotted for Math, Science, English and Filipino, which are major subjects.
Fewer hours for critical analyses
ACT said that teachers have long raised concerns about the insufficient teaching hours devoted to Araling Panlipunan despite its broad topics.
This has often led to students being short-changed of “deeper and more substantive discussions” that will lead to "critical analysis," the group said.
While DepEd has no publicly available nationwide learning assessment for Araling Panlipunan, history teachers who spoke to Philstar.com in February said that they could only teach basic historical facts due to students' difficulty grasping complex topics and the inadequate class hours that could help them do so.
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New AP lessons
In the proposed new DepEd curriculum for basic education — documents of which were made publicly available in April to gather comments and suggestions — fresh contemporary issues and threshed-out lessons on human rights were added in Araling Panlipunan.
These include a more specific discussion on human rights in Grade 10, which include "red-tagging, trolling and extra-judicial killings."
Araling Panlipunan 10 will also include, for the first time, lessons on the West Philippine Sea and the 2016 tribunal ruling that established the Philippines’ legal victory over China in their maritime row.
Other features of the new Araling Panlipunan curriculum include lessons on same-sex marriage, gender and sexuality and climate change, among others.
ACT pointed out, however, that there is an “unrealistic target to discuss cumbersome international instruments and local laws at a very short time allotment in various grade levels.”
For example, the group pointed out the seemingly “unrealistic” goal of discussing all the United Nations and the Sustainable Development Goals as a closing topic for World History in grade 8.
The group, however, commended the inclusion of the new topics in the curriculum.
These include new Grade 6 Araling Panlipunan topics that will discuss American and Japanese occupations as periods of imperialism, human rights violations and ill-gotten wealth under the Marcos dictatorship and an “attempt to finish the (Araling Panlipunan) subject in every grade level with substantial discussions on contemporary issues.”
DepEd began its review of the K-10 curriculum in 2022 with the goal of decongesting lessons taught at every grade level and increasing students' basic literacy skills.
In the proposed new curriculum, Araling Panlipunan will be taught as a standalone subject starting in grade 4. DepEd merged AP and MAPEH from grades 1 to 3 to devote more time to foundational literacy skills.