Vice President and concurrent Education Secretary Sara Duterte announced that the Department of Education is set to review the Senior High School (SHS) program, which refers to Grades 11 and 12.
This is in line with the target of the Department of Education (DepEd) to implement the revised K-12 basic education curriculum within the next three years.
The vice president said DepEd has completed its review of the K-10 program and recently started reviewing the curriculum for grades 11 and 12. K-12 was the basic education curriculum implemented in the school year 2012-2013 that introduced two years of mandatory senior high school.
Duterte was also tasked by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to review the K-12 program to help address the country’s job mismatch problem.
“The government is aware of the poor performance of our schools in international education assessments. We are now in the process of completing our review of the K-12 program. The previous administration finished the review of the K to Grade 10 program. Under my administration, we are set to review Grades 11 and 12,” Duterte said in her message during the 48th Philippine Business Conference and Expo Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industries Fiesta Pavilion, Manila Hotel.
She also mentioned that as the country transition to five days of face-to-face classes on November 2, 2022, DepEd welcomes the support of education stakeholders, parents, local government units, civil society organizations, and private sector partners who have all contributed to strengthening the basic education system in the past years.
“These days, I am happy to share that the private sector has once again come to our aid,” she said.
She said these are in the form of classroom building construction, teacher training, school grants, student competitions and awards including robotics and ICT talent competitions, nutrition education, school supplies distribution, reading materials, school preparedness advocacy, security, and mental health resources.
Duterte also mentioned that the programs and plans of DepEd for the next eight years are laid out in the Basic Education Development Plan 2030, which is the first long-term plan for basic education in the country.
“The BEDP 2030 is also a promise that we will continue to find ways to improve basic education in terms of access, equity, quality, resiliency, and governance. I invite you to come to sit with us during our education stakeholders’ convergence next month to uncover opportunities for collaboration and public-private partnerships. We need transformational leadership from the business sector. There is a growing consumer consciousness to support businesses with a demonstrated commitment to sustainability and social impact,” she said.
Meanwhile, DepEd recently issued an amendatory Department Order (DO) to DO 34, s. 2022 allowing private schools to offer blended learning modality and full distance learning options to their students.
Duterte said DepEd is cognizant of the current situation of private educational institutions due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic — the amount of investment in online learning technologies, the development and institutionalization of best practices on blended learning, and the unfortunate closure of small private schools because of losses.
She said DepEd will leave the discussion on the learning modality to be implemented by private education institutions to the schools, the parents/guardians, and the learners.
“However, we hope that parents/guardians of private school learners would not miss the abundance of scientific studies available on the advantages of in-person classes over online learning,” she said.