K-12 Ready or Not?

What is K-12?

It is the educational system employed by most countries around the world (universal system) wherein compared to the system we had before there will be TWO more additional levels in high school starting from kindergarten to grade 12, before pursuing a course in college.  The supposedly  first-year high school shall now be called grade 7 and second year  as it was called in the previous system we implemented would be grade 8 till the fourth year high school now be known as grade 10 so on and so forth.

In K-12, there will be additional lessons which are mostly focused on skills and ability (some say TESDA courses’ basic) to prepare the upcoming college freshmen to whatever career may be pursued. K-12 helps students become more competitive and not be left-out being compared to graduates of the said system from other countries.



Lessons are taught in the vernacular and English medium of instruction belongs to the subject alone for the reason that English can be learned while the lessons strictly taught in English can be more tedious to the students who are Filipino natives who are not so fluent in the language. Theories being studied will then be more understandable, sure what they learn in Science or Math and other subjects will be retained in their memory bank and as soon as they learn the English language, hear them talk about it J

K-12 implementation enables us to be abreast with other countries in the world, because we are among the countable few  (only four, as I remember  I heard from news) who did not employ K-12 educational system in the world.

Is the system really a problem?

Stopping K-12 system these days will cost our country wasting the money spent in acquiring materials and aides already acquired to realize the system.  I was just asking that why only now that the campaigns against the implementation of it are late? Only this time that AGAINSTs had become sensational and noted even in  various media forms. I respect the Teachers Dignity Alliance’s group’s choice and beliefs that the country is not ready yet for the change in the educational system because of the lack of classrooms, teachers? I am not so convinced that we lack professionals to assume the needed posts…in fact we have plenty of graduates who became underemployed – working in factories or households as house-helper abroad, I even remember  seeing a “teacher” working as a nanny in Hongkong being interviewed. 

Additional Two Years Useful or Not?

Contrary to it, the added two years before one can be called even a elementary, highschool or college  graduate can be so onerous to parents and students themselves..is this really what we need? Our graduates in the past years are competitive even in the international scene (one proof is the winner of the Apprenctice TV show) a Filipino besting an American, Singaporean, German and even French candidates assuming a rank in Air Asia chosen by its proprietor -  Tony Fernandez .  Mr. Fernandez has set a very rigid selection process and interviewed each candidate one by one and our fellowman still emerged as the TOP choice. Those grads  who are now working in every famous business locations  in the world, New York etc. Our home-grown grads have not failed to put our flags in every field of endeavor  they have chosen despite the fact that they have not studied under the k-12 system. The nurses and the caregivers are among the first choice of the employers.

Empathizing with the parents and the students, I think the ratio of undergrads will balloon.   But being a k-12 graduate is opening an opportunity to other job positions  not just being a helper, salesperson, janitorial posts and the like when you have not yet step-up to college and hunt for a job. Equipped with basic knowledge on  other skills apart from the theories  learned from kindergarten till grade 10, the training enclosed in grades 11 and 12 can be useful  especially to the underprivileged in a way that it can be a good reason to easily get employed and be able to pursue college studies part-time.

The concern of our other countrymen is that, are we just encouraging the students just to finish grade12 and not to go to college anymore?  Yes, I think it is partly true that anyone who starts earning cash, the tendency is that continuing to college became a low priority or sometimes forgotten.

Why YES to K-12?

My say in this issue is that, let it be. We will no longer have any feeling of inferiority towards anyone graduating from a school system way beyond the modern means.  And it is the parents’ motivation and positive acceptance of the system  that will  help every student to open their doors to change. The educational structure we had before, like other things we see around became OBSOLETE and we Filipinos all opt for  “What’s new?”, I remember an adage saying  “The one who graduates today and stop s learning tomorrow will never be educated the day after…”, I forgot the author.  Taking it as an idiomatic expression, only means that if one has to be content of what he had in the past, and never  open doors to the better version of it, will become not so clever at all in the days to come. The newer version of anything be it on technology or methodology has always been the IMPROVED one, more features and bettered , enhanced for greater  performance.

I salute the groups of teachers who flagrantly utter their disapproval of the new structure and still dignified enough to go on with their duties. As I noticed in an interview with the leader by a radio anchor, aside from their opinion that the implementation is half-baked as to their opinion (no enough funds yet to suffice the need for more classrooms and pay more teachers), they are also concern of the wage hike appeal (that  has been buried with the other requests educators are asking for) – I read  their sentiments this way, that why spend  to k-12 while their petition snubbed? Seems like willing to spend more on other improvements while not satisfying the main force behind education- the educators.


Why not give-in to those requests, Aquino Administration? If that could end the rallies and talks about  K-12 disapproval?

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Family, Daily Living & Style by Angelita Galiza-Madera is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.