By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
In a recent press release, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced that it has convened the Philippine Forum for Quality Basic Education (Educ Forum) to serve as a “platform for consultation and collaborative research in strategic basic education policy, planning, and programming to address critical issues in the implementation quality education.” The forum is “composed of DepEd and education partners including civil society organizations, education sector organizations, private organizations and foundations, bilateral agencies, and multilateral organizations.”
Sounds very good but this early, we warn it will just be another waste of funds if the real agenda is to turn it into a self-serving platform which consciously hushes up adverse information and issues even when it is very clear that immediate attention and action on the same is to the best interest of quality education. In other words, if the forum recoils from the hard and timely questions on what’s keeping our basic education in the doldrums such as the following, it will not benefit the country and its children at all:
*What has the DepEd done or is doing to the recommendation of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies that it strongly discourage the practice of public elementary schools allowing non-readers to graduate? Will it be implemented this school year?
*How come there are non-readers in high school when under the K-12 Curriculum, school children are supposed to learn how to read English in Grade 2? English is the last language our pupils must learn to read.
*How does the DepEd intend to claw back from a Grade 6 National Achievement Test (NAT) mean percentage score (MPS) of 37.44 (less than four correct answers of every 10 questions) in 2018, the lowest score ever and less than half the target of 77 MPS?
*Is the DepEd aware that under the K-12 Curriculum, handwriting skills have deteriorated such that majority of elementary graduates cannot write in cursive style or just write letters the standard way as against the traditional curriculum where all Grade 3 pupils were proficient in the said skills?
*Is the DepEd aware that the spelling skills of public school children had fallen back by roughly two grade levels? What might have caused the decline?
*If the DepEd’s claim that the Mother Tongue policy makes it easier and faster for children to learn additional languages, how come since 2013 when the program was introduced up to 2017 (DepEd has not yet released results of 2018 NAT although already available in April), the performance in English and Filipino in the Grade 6 NAT dropped by 28.01 and 19.94, respectively? Shouldn’t the scores be climbing instead?
*What’s the explanation for the 32.10 points or 46.16 percent reduction in the Grade 6 NAT average MPS during the first six years of the K-12 in juxtaposition to the 9.60 increase in the said score in the six years before the implementation of the new curriculum?
If the forum does not have the intent and strength to stare in the face and act accordingly on the the grim realities besting our basic education, then it has no business to exist a week longer because window dressing is alien to the quest for quality education. Actually, much of the trouble in our basic education front is due to the DepEd’s culture of silence, superficiality, obsequiousness, and irrational aversion to criticism which on the whole makes reality-based and objective solutions impossible.
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