Math, Science focus of new curriculum

What is happening to our children? We have free elementary and high schools that account for a 94-percent literacy rate. Yet only seven out of ten children reach Grade 6; only four out of ten finish high school. And among those who manage to stay in school, the achievement level is below par. In the first National Elementary Achievement Test (NEAT) of Grade 6 pupils in 1993, the average score was only 41.8 percent, way below the 75-percent acceptable rating. Two years later Grade 6 pupils improved their scores, but were still low at 59 percent in Reading/Writing, 67.7 percent in Mathematics, and 61.7 percent in Life Skills. After another two years Grade 6 students showed mastery in only 46 out of 135 skills and competencies tested in the NEAT. By 2000, the average was down again to 49.2 percent; in 2001, still low at 51.7 percent.

Director Teresita Inciong of the Bureau of Elementary Education says nonacademic factors could have pulled the scores down. In many areas, 12- and 13-year-olds had to travel to other towns to take the tests, or were hampered by floods and, in the case of Central Mindanao, separatist war. Private school students somehow pulled up the scores, says Mariano Piamonte Jr., executive director of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines. Relatively well-off, they had adequate books, classrooms and teachers, unlike in public schools where six pupils must share one textbook and they’re lumped 56 to a class because they’re short of rooms and teachers.

The combined mastery of public and private school students still didn’t fare well compared to 45 Asian countries. In the Third International Math and Science Survey of 1995, Filipino elementary pupils ranked third to the last in math and second to the last in science. High school students did as poorly: fourth to the last in math; second to the last in science. That’s no way to prepare our children for global competition and space conquest, and the age of computers and cloning.

Many factors outside the classroom do affect the learning process of our children, aside from those that Dr. Inciong cite. Poverty, not only war and typhoons, make them drop out. So the government is bringing the classroom closer to children by building an elementary school in every barangay. It is also striving to give livelihood to parents so that one million of the 22.5 million children aged 5 to 17 don’t have to work but stay in school. Malnutrition can stunt a child’s ability to absorb knowledge. So the health department is pinpointing for special care the seven out of every hundred kids aged 5 to 10 who are underweight, and five who are severely undernourished. With recent findings that a child’s brain development is at its peak from birth to seven years, before entering school, the education and social welfare departments are setting up day-care centers that serve as nursery and kindergarten schools. Local governments are into it, too, building pre-schools in every barangay. (Mayor Sonny Belmonte, for one, has allocated another P14 million to improve the teaching quality for five-year-olds in Quezon City’s public pre-schools.) Private firms have joined the crusade to improve education by adopting high schools to which they donate computers and telephones, or build toilets, install better lights and ceilings, and add books and desks.

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With other agencies and civic groups handling the nonacademic factors, the Department of Education has found the chance to concentrate on its area: the curriculum and the quality of instruction. Long ago have experts discovered that the present curriculum is "overcrowded" with seven to ten subjects. This school year (classes start June 17) DepEd will enforce a new curriculum that will focus on only five subjects: Filipino, English, Mathematics, Science and Makabayan.

Education Sec. Raul Roco aims to increase the time that students devote each day to the core subjects. From the present 60 and 80 minutes daily for Filipino and English, respectively, in Grades 1 to 3, the revised curriculum will have 80 and 100 minutes. The aim: pupils must be able to read on their own by Grade 3.

Math, too, will be increased from 60 to 80 minutes a day in Grades 1 to 3. The daily 40 minutes of Science in Grades 1 and 2 will be integrated into English and 60 minutes of Makabayan. That way, learning English can easily be applied to, say, parts of the child’s body. Makabayan is the Civics and Culture of the old curriculum, but will be in Filipino under the new one, again for easier comprehension. Science and Health for Grade 3 will remain at 40 minutes.

The present 60 minutes of Filipino and 80 minutes of English each day will remain in Grades 4 to 6. But Math will increase from 40 to 60 minutes. Science and Health, which used to be 40 minutes, will become 60 minutes. Makabayan will be the 40 minutes of Geography, History, and Government and Civics of Grades 4, 5 and 6, respectively, but combined with 40 minutes each day of Home Economics and Livelihood Education, and another 40 minutes of Music and Arts.

In high school, the daily 40 minutes of Filipino, English and Math will become 60 minutes each. Math will return to the linear sequential approach of the ’60s and ’70s; that is, Basic Algebra for 1st Year, Advanced Algebra for 2nd Year, Geometry for 3rd Year, and Trigonometry or the optional Statistics for 4th Year.

Science and Technology, to be taught in English, will be reduced from 80 to 60 minutes each day. But under Makabayan, there will be a separate 60 minutes each day, in Filipino, of Teknolohiya-Edu-kasyong Pantahanan at Pangkabuhayan. Plus another 60 minutes daily of Edukasyong Pangkatawan.

What used to be 40 minutes daily Araling Panlipunan will also be put under Makabayan: 60 minutes daily of Philippine History for 1st Year, Asian Studies for 2nd Year, World History for 3rd Year, and Economics for 4th Year.

Also under Makabayan is a weekly 60 minutes of Edukasyon sa Pagpapahalaga (Values Education). Still, DepEd expects all teachers to include values education in their lesson plans, no matter what subject. Dr. Inciong says it is being done in elementary Math by using such examples in subtraction as, if the sari-sari store owner gives you more change than necessary, how much must you return to him? Mrs. Ester Abito, a high school science teacher at the Ateneo, had a fulfilling experience in teaching reproduction to her biology class. She showed a videotape of a mother’s nine-month pregnancy and the pain of giving birth. Her students, at first squeamish, later told her how they now better appreciate their moms for the nine-month sacrifice and the ordeal of bringing them to their birthdays.

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Some educators immediately criticized the new curriculum as soon as it was announced. Most of their arguments sprang from misinformation about the details. The biggest fear was that public school teachers might be displaced from work, some would be overloaded and others underloaded. Dr. Inciong assures that nobody would be fired. On the contrary, DepEd is in need of tens of thousands of new teachers to fill in vacancies in newly-built schools.

The question arises: will our children fare better in achievement tests with the new curriculum? Dr. Inciong says DepEd will be able to measure its success within three grading periods. To which CEAP’s Piamonte adds, any curriculum, old or new, will still depend on the teachers.

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