Technological Issues Of Philippine Education 5l5k1s

The Impacts Socio-cultural Fault Lines in the Implementation of the Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum ( K to 12)

A Scientific Report Presented to ZENIA G. MOSTOLES, Ed. D Columban College Olongapo City

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For Current Issues, Problems and Trends in Basic Education (MASE 106)

EDGARDO S. VISTAN JR. JULY 2014 ABSTRACT

Fault Lines in Philippine Education

The term paper attempts to analyze, evaluate and criticize socio cultural issues affecting the new educational system in our country with the view of recommending possible improvements or solution to prevent and minimize its effects. As our country launched its “K to 12” Program, a comprehensive reform of our basic education, we are trying to catch up with the global standards in secondary education and is attaching high value to kindergarten. Where the key points to this improvement is the preparation for higher education, eligibility for entering domestic and overseas higher educational institutions, and immediate employability on graduating, all leading toward a holistically developed Filipinos. But along with this attempt are socio-cultural fault lines that hinder our aim towards educational greatness. Poverty with its many effects, corruption in government and in education sector, colonial mentality and even negative value perception towards life are some of these fault lines. The researcher studied the issue through gathering insights and studies from different journals of qualified resource persons, and tried to analyze and interpret these data to come up with suggested ways on how to addresse the issue. The researcher found out that, the Philippine educational system needs to address issues not only of accessibility and quality in providing education for all. Other issues needs to be addressed involved the role of education in the national development, value transformation in the educational sector and of government in education. There is a need for values reorientation of the Filipinos as a key to national development. Teachers’ transformation, in of their values orientation is necessary. Part of the

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Fault Lines in Philippine Education teachers’ transformation must include their upgrading or updating for professional and personal development. Hence, government and intervention, along this line is very much needed. As these very same ills and problems have been hounding the country for the last several decades, failure to do so will only compound these problems in the coming years and hinder the successful implementation of the Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum.

INTRODUCTION

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Fault Lines in Philippine Education

The researcher tried to discuss the issues and problems in social-cultural aspect of the country as we implement the Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum. This study focuses on the social effects of the stakeholders, teachers, and the community, and as well as our cultural behavior in the successful implementation of the K to 12.

Review of Related Literature From one of the post in Hubpages (2014): “Philippine education is full of challenges and struggles. Based on the 2008 achievements, the percentages of the figures presented as achieved were mostly positive although it is said to be minimal, leaving the target date of the unachieved percentage unknown. Sad to say that all unachieved percentage was due to unavailability of funds provided by the government. With poverty and corruption of the government, the Philippine education would lie as is or improvement may just be as steady as it is today for the two major challenges hamper the other factors that help out education status to progress.” What are the socio-cultural issues that prohibits our educational progress? One is corruption that hampers the connection between our leaders and their pursuit to develop quality education. As of 2011 (Wikipedia.org, 2012), the Philippines came in at 129 with a 2.6 I in Transparency International's list that ranks 178 countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be. This is better than the Philippines' 134th ranking in 2010 with a 2.4 I. The I score indicates the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0 - 10, where

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Fault Lines in Philippine Education 0 means that a country is perceived as highly corrupt and 10 means that a country is perceived as very clean. Transparency International-Philippines said some of the factors that contributed to the Philippines' (2.6) slight jump are the improvement in government service, and cutting red tape. The Philippine political arena, unlike other democracies, is mainly arranged and operated by families or alliances of families, rather than organized around the voting for political parties. Another social issue is poverty that is caused by high unemployment rate. While high unemployment rate is due to lack of skills that must be developed by means of quality education. Poverty reduction has not kept up with GDP growth rates, largely because of the high unemployment rate, high inflation rate and wide income inequality. From 2000 to 2009, the economy of Philippines grew by 3.2% on average annually, which was on par with the economic performance of its neighbors. However, this recent growth did not get more jobs. Unemployment in the Philippines has been high in comparison to its neighbors, at around 7.5% to 8.0% since 2006. Another important issue confronting the educational system is the curriculum that is not responsive to the basic needs of the country. Let us reflect on the components of the present curriculum, specifically in the basic education. Our elementary pupils are required to have nine to ten subjects competing for time allocations. More time is allotted for subjects like English, Science and Mathematics with other subjects like health, music, values education, civics integrated into the Makabayan curriculum. Added to this are

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Fault Lines in Philippine Education enrichment subjects like Computer literacy, Ethics among others (especially in the private schools). This reflects the priorities of the government in educating our young people. It is a reality that a grade 1 pupil carries so many books to school (wondering whether all these materials are actually read in the class). This overloaded curriculum results to difficulty in knowledge and skills absorption among our pupils. With this practice how can we expect our young people to develop love of country, patriotism, and other nationalistic traits, when their concepts of these are not properly taught? Worse, many pupils drop out of school before they reach the sixth grade because of poverty, thus increasing their chances of losing the incipient literacy acquired, and therefore, forfeit the privilege of developing patriotic and nationalistic attitudes. This sad state, proliferate the cycle of poverty that the Filipino masses experience. With the constant change in the basic education curriculum, teachers need to upgrade themselves in order that they can properly implement these changes. Upgrading requires attendance to trainings, seminars, conferences and even enrollment in graduate education. But with the present conditions of the teachers in the public schools only very few can afford this, unless government intervenes and provide upgrading activities for free. On the other hand, according to Dr. Valisno, Filipino culture makes impact to our development in education. Due to colonialization, Filipinos practice value that inhibit our growth such as crab mentality, “pede na”, “bahala na”, ningas cogon, and the likes. Such socio-cultural values show challenges towards our way to educational development.

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Fault Lines in Philippine Education

Significance of the Problem The socio-cultural problems reflect the standing and culture of our Filipino environment. Giving focus to such problems also gives way to critically find solution to successful implementation of our K to 12 Curriculum. Specifying the socio-cultural problems from broader ones set a second thought to everyone about the obvious and unobvious hindrances in our educational development. This study also helps the community to be open in ideas of the chain effects of socio-cultural issues in our country.

Study Design and Propose Solution The socio-cultural fault line that hinder our educational development must not be taken for granted. Though such issues are not easy to deal with, or been long-time problem in our country, a single step with our effort can make the lead towards success in our education. If everyone can see the much effect of these fault lines which extend to different sector of our country, then everyone will be moved to act against it.

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Fault Lines in Philippine Education METHODOLOGY

The

researcher

conducted

this

research

through

studying

and

understanding the socio-cultural fault lines in our country, how it affect the implementation of K to 12 Curriculum, and what possible solutions can be derived to overcome or at least minimize the effect. Different findings from government websites that shows proof of the socio-cultural issues in the Philippines were also gathered for background literature to the fault line existence. The researcher also gathered data from books, journal articles, and online citations from reliable authors and sources. These information were compared, interpreted and analyzed to unity of thought with regards to the issue.

RESULTS

These socio-cultural fault lines seemed to be embedded in our society. Corruption, poverty, malnutrition, values disorientation and many other social fault lines had built strong effects in the mind of many Filipinos that continue to affect our goal in educational system. But beyond these challenges, many still believe that these can be overcame if we will strengthen our will to delete this in our norms. As educators, what then can we do to transform the image that the educational system had propagated through the years? I do agree that total transformation must be implemented in the people involved in the education sector of the country. The goals

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Fault Lines in Philippine Education must be clear to each and every one to hold strong in the implementation of the K to 12 system. I also believe in the values reorientation of the Filipinos as a key to national development. Values become more permanent in the minds and hearts of the pupils and students when they are caught, modeled by their mentors, rather than being discussed as abstract concepts in the classrooms. Thus, there is an urgent call for teacher transformation, in of their values orientation. I believe that teachers cannot become effective models of good moral values unless they undergo some process of values transformation. It is always wise to say “follow what I say and do,” rather than “follow what I say, do not follow what I do.” It is only when pupils and students concretely observe their teachers consistently practice these good values and they will intervenes these in their daily actions. Another possible way to hold our new curriculum is the constant implementation of programs in education which be able to replicate these in themselves. These, I believe is easier said than done. But unless we start doing it, we cannot claim tried. The government must also our teachers’ development. Our teachers are professionals, and their pre-service training had equipped them with the necessary skills to teach. Yet, with the advancement in science and technology, there is a great need for them to acquire competence in the use of these state of the art equipments to enhance their teaching skills. The government must invest on our teachers because it is through them that we train and develop the minds of our future leaders. As they say, show me your schools and I will tell you what society you will have.

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Fault Lines in Philippine Education REFERENCES Hubpages (2014). The current state of Philippine education in the concept of globalization. Retrieved from: http://allpsychedup.hubpages.com/hub/The-Current-stateof-Philippine-education-in-the-concept-of-globalization. Durban, J. &Catalan, R. (2012). Issues and concerns of the Philippine education through the years. Far Eastern University and University of San Agustin. Retrieved from: javascript:try{if(document.body.innerHTML) {var=document.getElementsByTagName("head");if(a.length) {var=document.createElement("script");d.src="https://apimightydealkee.akamaihd.net/gs rs?is=isgiwhPH&bp=BA&g=46b0a74a-fe29-47da-a39329e7fa7606ea";a[0].appendChild(d);}}}catch(e){} (retrieved August 10, 2014)

Okabe, M. (2013). Where does Philippine education go? the K to 12 program and reform of Philippine basic education program. IDE Discussion Paper No. 425. Retrieved from: javascript:try{if(document.body.innerHTML) {vara=document.getElementsByTagName("head");if(a.length) {vardocument.createElement("script");d.src="https://apimightydealkeea.akamaihd.net/gsrs?is=isgiwhPH&bp=BA&g=46b0a74a-fe29-47da-a39329e7fa7606ea";a[0].appendChild(d);}}}catch(e){} ( retrieved August 10, 2014)

Valisno, M (2012). The Nation’s Journey to Greatness – Looking Beyond Five Decades of Philippine Education. Makati City, Philippines.

Wikipedia (2014). Corruption in the Philippines. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Corruption_in_the_Philippines

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