MANILA, Philippines - “Big Business” has come out loudly and strongly in support of the Department of Education (DepEd) and its move to implement the ambitious K+12 Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) plan which will add two years in the BEC and transform the current six years of elementary and four years of high school to one running from Grades 1 to 12.
Ramon del Rosario Jr., a former Finance Secretary during the Ramos administration and now chairman of the Philippine Business for Education (PBED), said that business groups are not only supporting DepEd, but encouraging it also to pursue the “K+12 BEC” program despite criticisms from some sectors.
“We want to tell you we’re behind you. But we also want to tell you to stay the course because we ‘re hoping you can carry it forward to a fruitful conclusion,” Del Rosario told DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro yesterday at the DepEd Office.
Del Rosario and top officials of major business groups such as Ed Lacson, president, Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP); Julian Payne, president, Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines; Alfredo Ayala, chairman, Business Processing Association of the Philippines; Dr. Chito Salazar, PBED president; Ernie Santiago, president, Semiconductor and Electronics Industries of the Philippines; and Edward Ong, chairman, education committee of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Jose Luis Yulo, president, the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines Foundation were present yesterday at the DepEd to sign a memorandum of agreement with Luistro for the K+12 program.
Under the MOA, the business leaders expressed a commitment to welcome the graduates of the K+BEC program of DepEd, airing a confidence that the additional two years in the BEC to be brought about by the program would solve deficiencies in competencies of recent graduates of high school.
The business leaders were one in saying that the K+12 plan was a necessary educational reform that will improve the quality of Filipino high school graduates, making a paradigm shift from one where high schools are expected to produce graduates ready to go on to college, to one where they are expected to be ready to join the labor workforce.