High school graduates can be productively employed even without a college degree once two years are added to basic education, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said on Monday. The education chief recently announced his plan to implement President Noynoy Aquino's agenda of increasing the basic education cycle from the current 10 years to 12 years, a plan that he referred to as the “enhanced K+12 basic education program.” He explained that “K” refers to “Kindergarten” while the number “12” refers to the sum of seven years of grade school and five years of high school. He said that these reforms will be implemented gradually over a number of years and may go beyond the term of the current or even next administration. Luistro said that the Department of Education (DepEd) is currently working on a concept paper that will outline the proposed revisions to the public school curriculum and how these will be implemented and funded. He added that DepEd will present the proposal to the public on October 5, 2010, which is World Teachers' Day, so that all education stakeholders can give their feedback. Luistro said that these reforms will aim to ensure that future high school graduates are ready to be productively employed even without completing college. “The current thinking and the current culture in the Philippines is that if you don't finish with a college degree, there is something missing in your life. What should basic education be? To me, what is basic is that [high school graduates] should be able to live a meaningful life, they should be able to be prepared to start a family, and thirdly they should be able to be productively employed,” explained Luistro. He added that the DepEd will explore how public schools can better develop Filipino' students skills and talents in the arts, sports, agriculture, fisheries, and in technical or vocational fields, among others. “Perhaps our current curriculum is too academic in orientation,” said Luistro. “What are the needs of industry? You need to match that with the gifts, resources, and interests of young people.” But some educators believe that DepEd should re-examine its reform priorities. “Our immediate focus should be just improving basic education. The dropout rate is very, very high and the quality of education is very, very low,” says Milwida Guevara, chief executive officer of Synergeia, an NGO that focuses on improving the quality of public school education through greater local government support.
