Among the countries in the world, only Philippines has 10-year basic education curriculum, other countries have 12-year basic education curriculum.
There are so many problems in the education system of the Philippines right now which need to be be addressed by those people in authority aside from that increasing one year for all degree programs. As what I have observed, the problem is not lying in the higher education only but the biggest problem in education which affects the downward spiral of the Philippine economy lies heavily in our basic education system.
Most of the students entering college could hardly do basic algebraic operations which is supposed to be developed during high school years. I don't know if it has been changed but when I was teaching Mathematics in the Philippines, the following curriculum has been followed for high school Mathematics:
First Year: Elementary Algebra
Second Year: Intermediate Algebra
Third year: Geometry
Fourth Year: Advance Algebra and Basic Probability and Statistics
Well, as we can see, most of the mathematics courses in high school are dealing with ALGEBRA but aren't we surprised why students entering college could hardly do basic algebraic operations? There are students who could hardly determine the sum of x + x which is merely an addition of 1 banana + 1 banana = 2 bananas (x + x=2x). Here are some problems in the basic education system which I think must be resolved by the department of education:
1.
There is much focus on the content of curriculum and less or zero focus on mastery learning. The Philippines is following fixed curriculum provided by those people in authority. It is mandated that the all topics within the curriculum should be tackled within the specified curriculum days. I could still remember my high school math teacher who told us, "This topic is supposed to be completed within 3 days but we have been discussing days for 4 days so let's end it up." when we asked for more practice exercises and more explanation about a certain topic in Mathematics which we could hardly understand. MASTERY LEARNING is not emphasized and it's a very sad fact for the students who are ought to learn life skills and not just go through the topics within the curriculum.
2.
Teaching for test is still blatantly practised. Teaching is geared towards achieving high marks in the achievement test and not towards achieving the expected knowledge and skills. A teacher once told, "I have to teach all the topics specified in the curriculum because they will all come out in the National Achievement Test." Are our learners learning for the test? NO! NO! NO!
3.
Stiff bureaucracy in the education system The curriculum is still pre-determined by those "EXPERTS?" in the Department of Education. It's about time for our education administrators to wake up the diversity of our students (different needs, different environment, different social and economic status, different learning styles etc.) and therefor ONE ABSOLUTE CURRICULUM could not work for all. The EXPERTS that they call who designed the curriculum doesn't have any idea of what's happening in BARANGAY CANLUBAS. Do they know the learners in such area? If no, what made them design and implement a curriculum for learners there. I agree that DepEd should set goals and standard for education that would reach to all types of learners but I am against of a centralized curriculum. TEACHERS should be given the task to assess the learners' needs and design a curriculum based on their needs and DepEd's goals and standards (although this is very expensive because it would require rigid training for teachers on assessment and curriculum design).
For more articles on education, visit my teaching blog
www.edulotion.blogspot.com . I will update it very soon.
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