REFORM SHOULD BE BOTH RADICAL AND INCREMENTAL

Reform should be both Radical and Incremental

By

PROF. ROLANDO S. DELA CRUZ
Educating a Nation

MASSIVE SUPPORT FOR CHANGE

The administration of President Noynoy Aquino has both fortune and misfortune on its side. It is lucky to be enjoying massive support akin to a post-revolutionary spring of hope. It is in the best position to forward meaningful changes that could have lasting effects, boosted by the trust rating Aquino enjoys. People believe that he is anti-corruption and incorruptible. It is in this context that the K-12, a program which revises the curriculum in Basic Education and extends it by three years, operates.

Aquino is again lucky that he starts implementing K-12 on his second year. The negative impact in terms of additional tuition and other fees on those who will be Grade 7 by June 2012 (1^st Year High School) will start on their Grade 11 which is in June 2016, the month when a new President will take his oath. Any complaints, therefore, for new tuition and other fees for their additional full Grades 11 and 12, will be made when Aquino is already out of power for about 12 months, enjoying his retirement.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS AND PRESSURE

Aquino, however, suffers also from the misfortune of high expectations and pressure. He has to implement K-12 early in his term to harness immediately the support from the people, especially the business sector which looks up to him to implement changes in educating those who will man various industries. He is also pressured to implement a program that cannot be altered immediately by a new President who might be against him or his program. To assure that his program stays, he has to attack the very structure of the educational program of the country.

But implementing the K-12 immediately beginning School Year 2012-13 exposes the program from the same possible problems that all other major reforms had suffered in the past, like the lack of intense ideas and preparation to address the heart of the problem. One really wonders how deep is the preparation of the Department of Education (DepEd) from May 2010 up to May 2012 to implement such a radical reform by June 2012.

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER

Some questions are worth noting, however: 1) Why do most, if not all, schools up to this writing have not received yet the K-12 curriculum, at least for Grades 1 and 7?; 2) Where are the books to be used?; 3) What will happen to the colleges which will have no high school graduates to absorb in SY 2016-17 and SY 2017-18?; 4) Are all High Schools ready to absorb the deluge of excess students during these two school years in terms of capability to produce the quality graduates DepEd expects?; 5) Is the preparation of DepEd enough to produce a new breed of Filipino graduates who can all think critically and creatively, instead of being of the same kind as the country produces now but only with two extra years of schooling?; and, 6) How does the Philippines ensure that it executes K-12 in a way that is correct, effective, efficient, national-life altering, and successful internationally when measured?

Absent concrete answers to all the above questions, the nation will probably be shocked after the product of the K-12 starts graduating by March 2018. K-12 could just be the legacy of success or failure of Aquino in our nation’s history.

HOLISTIC AND INFORMED

Reform has to be holistic and informed of the factors that can undermine it. Indeed, the act of reforming education is an explosive political act. However, the essence of reform which is genuine learning of Filipino children ought not to suffer from the politics of haste, insensitivities and un-historicity. Indeed, reforming Philippine education is one of the most difficult to undertake because it cannot depend only on one man, one party or one Department. Reform has to be made in the context of Philippine politics and culture – sensitive to the weaknesses and strengths of the both ordinary and powerful people, and perceptive as well of the way we value and waste educational opportunities as a people.

Reforming Philippine education should be radical, indeed. But its unfolding has to be inevitably incremental: crossing one island to another at a speed effective enough to take root; its pantheon served by one government to the next without fail and without betrayal; its absorption by the Filipino soul undertaken by one generation to the next until such time we are ready to once more overhaul it not because the Filipino soul is changing but because that soul has to thrive and win in an ever-changing world.

  

An alumnus and former faculty member of UP Diliman, PROF. ROLANDO S. DELA CRUZ is President of the Darwin International School System. He studied in Osaka University (Japan), the University of Cambridge (England) and at the University of Leiden (the Netherlands).

(SOURCE: MANILA BULLETIN, April 26, 2012)