Brace yourself: K+12 to start SY 2012-2013

The stubbornness of Noynoy Aquino is not manifested only in the political front. And it is not a trait he alone exhibits. Stubbornness runs through his official family and spills over into other areas of his governance.

Pay close attention now, especially those who have children, because unless something happens between now and June 2012, which is just six months away, the giant tsunami the Aquino administration has promised to unleash on the Filipino people will hit us by that time.

I am referring to the K+12 basic education program which the Aquino administration wants to impose despite the opposition of many. The final word is out: K+12 will be implemented come schoolyear 2012-2013.

What that means is that those who are graduating from Grade Six this March will not be going to First Year high school in June. They will be going instead to Grade Seven. What we used to call high school will be called junior high and will be made up of Grade Seven to Grade 10.

After Grade 10, or Fourth Year high school in the old curriculum, your children will not be able to go on to college because there will still be the senior high school to complete. This will be made up of Grade 11 and Grade 12.

Only after finishing Grade 12 will your children be finally able to enter college. That is if you still have the budget for it, knowing many of you made provisions for only 10 years of basic education schooling.

But the new curriculum will not only affect those who are in Grade Six now and will be entering Grade Seven instead of First Year high school. It will also affect those who are going into Grade One.

“In 2012, we will begin using the new curriculum for Grade One and Grade 7 (or the first year of junior high school),” said Armin Luistro, the education secretary of Noynoy Aquino at a forum the other day.

But is everything ready for the shift which this government obstinately wants to take despite widespread misgivings? The next statement of Luistro is quite revealing.” The curriculum is almost complete for these two levels and we will soon begin preparing our teachers.”

This late in the day, just six months before the new schoolyear begins, the department of education has yet to complete the new curriculum. And it has not begun to prepare the teachers tasked to implement the changes.

But this government brooks no dissent. It listens to no other voice than its own. Once it has set its mind to do something, regardless of whether that something is right or wrong, it will just go ahead and do it.

This pigheadedness may have gained some adherents and believers in the political front because it dealt with a hugely unpopular former president whom almost everybody has already prejudged and found guilty.

But K+12 is an entirely new and different ballgame. While Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was an object of hatred most people only see on TV, K+12 is something that directly affects anyone who has children of school age.

K+12 is not an image you can manipulate with a tv monitor. It is an actual presence in your life that hounds you from the moment you wake up in the morning to prepare your kids for school until you finish helping with the homework and put them to bed before doing so yourself.

I can see how easy it is for the fans of Noynoy to applaud his Arroyo-bashing because it is something they can always walk away from as they go back to their own lives. I wonder how the same Noynoy fans will take K+12, especially when it starts hitting them where it really hurts?

For there is no escaping our children and the tremendous burden of responsibility that we carry for their well-being, with a great part of that responsibility being their education. With K+12, two more years are added to that burden, thanks to the pigheadedness of Noynoy.