DILEMMA DERBY

The Philippine Education Curriculum today is now in danger. Legislature are on their way of passing bills in order to improve the skills of the students. Executive as well as administrative orders are now implementing programs  to suffice the needs of our future workers who will be competing the unemployed of the other countries in the global workplace.

 

The Department of Education has now been conducting a series of studies in response of the problems being experienced by the teachers as well as their students nowadays. Aside from that, the said department appreciates the work of the teachers and the students by giving them rewards which would encourage others to work hard. Inspite of these, why is our educational system in trouble?

 

Recently, DepEd announces that starting this coming school year Spanish language will be taught in selected public high schools to better prepare Filipino students in communicating a widely-used second language. It has been said that the program was developed after President Arroyo visited Spain in 2007 and learned that call center agents in  the Philippines could earn double if they knew how to speak Spanish.

 

The "Special Program in Foreign Language" is a program for school whose students have demonstrated competence in English and are also capable in learning another foreign language. To implement this, the Department of Education Regional Office will select ,based on the criteria , one school per region and shall initially offer Spanish. There will be two classes of 35 students each per school.

 

The then, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said that the pilot schools will also be selected based on the availability of classrooms and support facilities and equipment like computer laboratory with at least ten computers and headseats to support speech lessons. He further said that one of the criteria in selecting the teachers who will handle the teaching of the foreign language is that they must be willing to finish the crash course and participate in teaching Spanish.

 

This would mean that additional time will be given to the teachers and students who will undergo this special program. Good thing that high school students will be learning new knowledge however, would this learning be subsisting after they graduated college or would this knowledge be enough to those students who will stops studying after high school and will not undergo further studies. Furthermore, this may add burden on the part of the students because they already have a number of  additional subjects to learn. They might have the difficulty of  storing and digesting these lessons in their minds which may resulted to the so called "information overload". These new information might be futile in the end.

 

Aside from the Special Program in Foreign Language, Commission on Higher Education reviews proposals for five-year nursing and education courses. It means that additional year in nursing and education would give another burden to both parents and students. This five year courses curriculum is not the answer to the claims that we need quality teachers and nurses. We already have competent teachers and nurses in the country who are products of the four-year courses. The government should focus in ensuring Nursing and Teaching Education instead of prolonging the education years. If not, the curriculum  being used and existing must be updated. The authorities should cull the least important subjects and change with the most relevant as substitute. Additional years means additional expenses. We are now in global crisis. We are just preventing the disadvantaged to  improve their status. Thus, CHED must conduct a careful study regarding this matter.

 

Therefore, improving our educational system is not just a trial and error. And when they try out one program, a million of students will be affected. The root cause of the problem  of our educational system should be carefully studied and be known. And the authorities must dig, dig, and dig to formulate the best solution of this dilemma.