Secretary Luistro - 'It ain't over till the fat lady sings'

A few weeks ago I wrote about P-Noy’s Ten-Point Agenda on Education. I expressed concern over the status of each ‘point’ as a new school year is about to begin.

Fortunately, our Education Secretary Armin Luistro responded immediately but I must remind him that one should not assume the outcome of the plan or some action until it has actually been implemented or has actually reached its objective. In other words, “it’s not over until it’s over”.

To date, here are the actions taken on P-Noy’s Ten-Point Agenda on Education according to Secretary Luistro:

On the 12-year basic education cycle: The plan for the implementation of the K+12 enhanced basic educational curriculum was unveiled during the World Teacher’s Day celebration last October 5, 2010. Nationwide consultations at the regional level were conducted in order to get a wider feel of the sentiments of stakeholders on the proposed program. Parents, students, business organizations, local government units (LGU) and teachers were asked about their idea regarding the 12-year basic education program and likewise briefed to validate or correct their views. A Technical Working Group composed of curriculum experts from DepED, CHED, TESDA and the academe has been formulating a curriculum for the program. At present they are in the last stages of revising the framework before its final presentation. Another group is looking into existing studies on increased number of years in basic education and its impact on the country, the family and the community. As a sign of support for education, The Philippine Business for Education (composed CEOs of the country’s top 1,000 corporations) has signed an agreement with DepEd to match education competency standards with the requirements of the industry.

On universal preschool for all: Part of the K+12 program is the institutionalization of universal kindergarten in all public schools nationwide. Legislators who are part of the inter-agency committee on K+12 have filed a bill for this purpose. It passed third reading in Congress early this year and has been forwarded to the Senate. To date, 79% of the 2.4 million 5-year old children are under the kindergarten program for SY 2010-2011. The remaining 21% or about 500,000 are being targeted for the kindergarten summer program that will begin in April 11 to June 3, 2011 to prepare them for Grade 1 in June. The department has also embarked on a campaign to enroll all five year olds in kindergarten. On Madaris Education: While Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education (ALIVE) are conducted in public schools for Muslim students, private Madaris are also encouraged to use the DepEd prescribed curriculum. Those who use it are given annual subsidy by the government. Muslim public school teachers under the program were trained in the use of English as medium of instruction and were sent to partner teacher education institutions abroad, like the University of Brunei Darussalam for further training. The budget for the Madrasah education program for 2011 is P300 million, that includes subsidy to private Madaris that follows the DepEd prescribed curriculum. DepEd is also in partnership with TESDA for the ALIVE-Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) program where Muslim out-of-school youths are given skills training along-side the ALIVE program for opportunities to work locally or overseas.

On Technical Vocational Education in high school: DepEd continues to strengthen its 282 tech-voc high schools nationwide. These schools are not part of TESDA supervised schools but are schools under the direct supervision of DepEd. TESDA, however, provides support to these schools through training and accreditation of teachers and testing and certification of graduates. A strengthened ladderized competency-based curriculum has been developed by DepEd and TESDA for these schools. These are being reviewed annually and further strengthened as technologies continue to change.

On Science and Math Proficiency: The Department has partnered with the Mathematics Trainers’ Guild (MTG) Philippines in a bid to improve teaching capacities of math teachers. Students with exceptional aptitude in science and math are admitted either to existing regional science high schools, special elementary science schools, and special science and math classes. Teachers who specialize in science and math are continuously given training to upgrade their skills in handling classroom learning and keep them updated with new trends.

On assistance to private schools as partners in basic education: The Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) program provides subsidy to students enrolled in private high schools due to congestion in public secondary schools. Each student is given tuition subsidy of P10K for those studying in Metro Manila private schools and P5K for those outside the National Capital Region. Subsidy is also given to teachers at P250.00 per GASTPE-beneficiary student enrolled in their school. GASTPE now focuses on providing subsidy through education service contracting (ESC) which is preferred by the president. Those who are still enrolled and are using the education voucher system (EVS) will continue to be supported, but, as they graduate, their slots will be reverted to ESC. This year the budget for GASTPE is about P5.8 billion for some 720,000 beneficiaries. One million beneficiaries are being targeted starting school year 2011-2012.

On rationalization of the medium of instruction: DepEd continues to strengthen competencies of teachers in the use of the mother tongue and the English language as medium of instructions. All subjects from Grade 4 up except for Filipino (and those that require the use of the Filipino language) use English as the medium of instruction.

On quality textbooks: DepEd has been religiously implementing its five-area textbook evaluation since it was first put on policy. This evaluation process allows various experts in the specific subject-areas to correct the contents of submitted manuscripts before it is even produced. Experts in determining appropriateness of content to specific age levels are also part of the screening team. To lower cost, the manuscript and printing has been separately offered for bidding. Bidding was also opened for both local and international printers. At present, the average cost of a textbook is P58.00 and better quality of paper is used compared to its predecessors a decade ago.

On the covenant with local governments to build more schools: Local government support to education has been active. They construct additional classrooms and hire teachers to augment DepEd resources. Early this year, DepEd signed an agreement with the leagues of provinces, cities, and municipalities for a 50-50 counterparting/cost sharing scheme in classroom construction.

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I very well know that change cannot happen overnight. Government officials on the other hand, must also know that press releases and news reports do not seal the work – “don’t count your chickens before they hatch”.

Happy Easter!