Educators back K+12 policy
LINGAYEN— About 2,200 educators from all over the Philippines, together with parents, policy makers and local officials of the province, attended the international conference-workshop on K to 12 organized by the Guro Formation Forum, Inc. (GFF) on January 19-21 at Sison Auditorium, here.
Several speakers, both local and foreign experts, gave their views on the event’s theme, “Addressing the K to 12 Curricular Enhancement in Philippine Education 2012”.
In an interview with the PUNCH, Dr. Oscar Ferrer, University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD) professor and GFF president, said, “The K to 12, despite the legislation pending in Congress is prime and ready for implementation in June which implies that we need to prepare a lot of things from basically the key personnel to make it successful.”
The workshop touched on the benefits of the K to 12, from its economic implications, effects on educational institutions, funding and resources, the quantity vs. quality issue, global standards and employment, skills and competencies, curriculum enhancement, innovations and teaching strategies, technological support and educational materials, teacher training and education development, and the school activities and community participation.
“…the K to 12 is a very necessary, efficient reform, ” said Ferrer, pointing out that the Philippines has been lagging behind globally in terms of education being the only country, aside from Angola in the African continent, that does not have a K+12 system.
Further, Ferrer said K to 12 will “release the compressed subjects because basically there are more or less five to six hours of academic undertaking but if K to 12 tries to relax them so that education will be fun, then we have to remove three to four hours of teaching.”
It means that under the K+12, there will be no additional subjects except for “reformulated” ones such as the Media Information Literacy (MIL), which, according to Dr. Paraluman Giron, DepEd Chairperson on Technical Working Group of K to 12, “is a basic right of all students.”
Ferrer expressed confidence that the Philippines, despite its limitations and problems in the existing education structure, is ready to adopt the new system.
“For as long as we systematize our efforts, there will be a kind of synergy because the K to 12 does not only involve the teachers, there has to be the family, the Parent Teacher Association, the local government, and the support of the business sector because we have to guarantee that all K to12 graduates should be employed immediately…”
The conference-workshop is part of a series of support advocacy for implementing the K to 12.
The GFF will also conduct teacher trainings in during the summer break.– Johanne Margarette R. Macob
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