By Estanislao Albano, Jr.
Even as she is repeatedly announcing the plan of the Department of Education (DepEd) to review the K to 12 Curriculum, Secretary Leonor Briones tries to shield the controversial system inviting doubts on her intent and capacity to conduct the review clinically. In her bid to present the K to 12 in a favorable light, she does not shy from making baseless assertions and worst, she even disregards the National Achievement Test (NAT). Apparently, she has prejudged the subject of the impending scrutiny.
Take the case when Senator Sherwin Gatchalian called for a review of the K to 12 Curriculum because of the alarming deterioration in the performance of school children based on NAT results last March (“DepEd ready to give Senate update on K to 12 implementation,” Manila Bulletin, March 26, 2019). In defense of the K to 12, Secretary Briones said that the NAT is not the only means to find out what is happening in the education sector then claimed that the Department of Science and Technology had reported during one Cabinet meeting that students are doing much better in Math and Science examinations after the implementation of the senior high program.
Either the official was not aware of the dismal results of the debut of the Grade 12 in the NAT in 2018 or in her zeal to defend the K to 12, she refuses to be bothered by facts. The pioneer senior high school graduates obtained measly mean percentage scores (MPS) of 29.60 in Math and 31.26 in Science both of which fall in the “very low mastery” level, the lowest level in the NAT. The untenability of the claim is very clear in Math where the Grade 6 takers scored 36.85 and the Grade 10 students garnered 34.26. Neither does it apply in Science where the Grade 6 students got 29.05 but the Grade 10 scored 36.52. The overall Grade 12 MPS of 36.71 was eclipsed by the 37.44 of Grade 6 and the 44.59 of Grade 10.
In the news report “‘Not a failure,’ Briones says of K-12 program amid low PISA PH results” in December 10, 2019 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Secretary Briones had stressed the K-12 is not a failure. She even insinuated that contrary to the allegation that our dismal showing in the Pisa survey proved that the K to 12 has failed, it was the delay in our switch to the 12-year basic education system which pulled us down. To support her assertion, she claimed that the senior high school examinees outdid the junior high school takers by a significant margin.
Pending the presentation of proof that indeed the alleged higher scores of the senior high school students were attributable to the K to 12, we maintain that the advantage could have been due to the fact that they had more exposure to the old curriculum and therefore had better foundation in reading literacy, the most crucial competency in the 2018 Pisa. Majority of public elementary and high school teachers and education observers deem the old curriculum sounder than the K to 12 specially when it comes to imparting the basic competencies.
Her assertion that the K to 12 is a better system is destroyed by the fact that in the first six years of the curriculum, the Grade 6 NAT MPS had gone down from 66.79 to 37.44 or by 29.35 points (43.95 percent). The Grade 10 MPS also suffered a 3.31 or 8.92 percent loss (from 48.90 to 44.59) from 2012 to 2018.
By their recent pronouncements, Secretary Briones and other DepEd officials have owned the dismal NAT numbers during the K to 12 era. Last September, the DepEd cited what they called “low proficiency” performance of students in the NAT as one of the reasons Congress should augment their initially allotted budget for 2020 and as reason for the conduct of a review of the curriculum. And they repeatedly stated that the Pisa results resemble the NAT results. They do not question the Pisa results.
In an interview over Cignal TV picked up in the story “K-12 not to blame for Pinoys’ poor test score” in the December 7 issue of the Philippine Star, Secretary Briones declared without presenting a shred of proof that the K to 12 Curriculum is not the cause of the low rank of the country in the Pisa. She knew better than that because last November, she issued DepEd Memorandum No. 173, series of 2019, which states in one part: “Elementary and high school learners are still deficient in literacy skills both in languages and content areas specially in reading.” With the goal evident in the title of the memorandum “Hamon: Bawat Bata Bumabasa,” the first objective it to “Equip learners with reading skills to make them proficient and independent readers in their grade level.” The memorandum is addressed to both elementary and high schools. How could the K to 12 now not have hurt us in the 2018 Pisa where incidentally reading was the focus when the DepEd needs a separate program to remedy the reading deficiency of students including those in the secondary? And in the first place, what kind of a basic curriculum allows non-readers and struggling readers in high school?
That we could have done better in the Pisa if not for the K to 12’s evident indifference to reading was highlighted by the admission of the official of the DepEd-Cordillera last week that the possibility that there were non-readers and frustrated level readers among their students who took the international survey could not be discounted considering the random manner the participating schools were identified. The No. 4 among the regions in the Pisa behind the National Capital Region, Region 7 and Region 4A in that order, DepEd-Cordillera just issued a memorandum prohibiting the promotion of non-readers and frustration level readers to the next grade stating that the K to 12 does not have a provision to that effect.
Thanks to Secretary Briones’ desperate attempt to foist the K to 12 on the country, it has become even clearer we have a lemon curriculum that must either be scrapped or overhauled immediately. That we landed in the bottom of the Pisa ranking and are a level lower in Grade 6 NAT in the seventh year of K to 12 Curriculum can speak for itself. Prolonging the DepEd wild goose chase after the double whammy would be the height of insanity and stupidity specially so that the future of our young is at stake. **
