TEACHERS TAKE CRASH COURSE ON 'K
to 12' / K to 12: TEACHERS FACE
CHALLENGE
[PHOTO - SIDEWALK SALE A
vendor polishes black school shoes in her makeshift stall covered with cardboard
and canvas on a sidewalk along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, a day before
the opening of the school year all over the country. The shoes sell for only
P100-P150 a pair. ALANAH TORRALBA]
MANILA, JUNE 5, 2012 (INQUIRER) Teachers who will take part in
the K to 12 program without substantial teaching assistance have been trained in
"creative tutoring."
Recently, more than a thousand teachers from the Cordillera underwent
familiarization training in the new program at the University of the Cordilleras
(UC) in preparation for the school opening this month.
Rosalinda Tavara, Cordillera supervisor for Filipino of the Department of
Education (DepEd), said the teachers were given a crash course on the new
curriculum and were provided with teaching strategies and teaching competency
exercises.
Tavara said the teachers were also shown models of teaching methodologies
they can use given expected problems.
The teaching modules, which the agency made available this school year, only
cover the first and second grading period of the new Grade 7, said Angelita
Ngao-i, Deped-Kalinga division supervisor.
"The modules for the third and fourth grading period [for Grade 7] are not
yet available, but we were told that it would be sent [in August].
K to 12 is challenging, pero maganda siya (but it is good)," she said.
"With or without materials the teachers can teach. (The lesson) will not be
textbook-centered. The teachers will focus on the students. They will be taught
how to analyze and [make creative decisions]," said Dean Norma Maria Rutab of
the UC College of Teacher Education.
Rutab said some teachers earlier expressed apprehension that the extended
period for basic education would not succeed. "But after the training … they
have become advocates."
In the City of San Fernando in Pampanga, 7,700 Central Luzon public school
teachers indicated they were "100-percent ready," according to Isabelita Borres,
the DepEd's Central Luzon director.
The government said the new basic education program intended to "provide
sufficient time for the mastery of concepts and skills, develop lifelong
learners, and prepare graduates for tertiary education, middle level skills
development, employment and entrepreneurship."
Borres said Grade 1 teachers were equipped to teach in the mother tongue of
the students.
She said enrollment for grade school in Central Luzon had reached 1.197
million, adding that over 100,000 students were expected to finish the first six
years of the K to 12 program in 2018, while 125,000 others were expected to
complete junior high school by the same period.
"Although senior high school is mandatory, there is democracy in our
engagement with parents. You are not on the losing end because the last two
years of high school, which are devoted for technical or vocational training,
are free for students," Borres said.
Lora Yusi, spokesperson of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), said
public and private colleges and universities should anticipate a slump in
enrollment in 2018 when the junior high school students entered the two-year
senior level.
A technical team of CHEd is holding consultations on the proposal to reduce
college from four to three years by lessening units from 63 to 36.
Before 2018, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda)
is expected to integrate its courses in senior high school.
Tesda will issue national certifications to graduates to enable them to land
jobs.
The DepEd runs 23 technical-vocational schools in Central Luzon and three
have been selected to be part of the K to 12 program: Angeles City Trade School,
Bataan School of Fisheries and Balagtas Agricultural schools. Reports by Desiree Caluza, Inquirer Northern Luzon, and Tonette
Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon
K to 12 SYSTEM: GRADE 1 & 7
TEACHERS FACE CHALLENGEBy Niña Calleja Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:12 am | Monday, June 5th, 2012
[PHOTO -Education Secretary Armin Luistro was hopeful that the enabling
law of the K to 12 program, which is still pending at the Senate and House of
Representatives, would be enacted before 2016 when the DepEd would begin
requiring the additional two years in all private and public high schools. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO]
Despite official claims of a smoother school opening on Monday, some Grades 1
and 7 teachers said the great challenge ahead was the lack of materials to help
them cope with what proponents of the K to 12 system called a "spiraling
approach" to learning.
Olie Daz, a teacher in first year high school, now called Grade 7, at Rajah
Soliman High School in Tondo, Manila, said she still had to reproduce the
instructional materials the Department of Education (DepEd) issued during a
weeklong training program last month.
"We were never given textbooks or handouts for the new curriculum. So my
problem now is to photocopy the instructional materials for the 200 students. It
might cost a lot," Daz said, noting she was still unsure if she would be
shouldering the cost or pass it on to her students.
Imelda Paddayunan, a Grade 1 teacher at Toro Hills Elementary School in
Project 8, Quezon City, said she was still confused on how to teach her
subjects, describing a training program she attended from May 28 to June 1 as
"hastily done."
"We are not yet ready," she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
But there were also teachers who were up to the challenge. "Yes, it's
difficult. But it's always our job to innovate and improve our way of teaching,"
Maria Luz Cruz, a Grade 7 teacher of Rizal National High School in Pasig City.
She said she had already written her own lesson plans for the new curriculum.
These teachers are among the 150,000 who will be working the year round on
the new curriculum for Grade 1 and Grade 7 as part of the DepEd's gradual
implementation of the K to 12 education program, replacing the old 10-year
system.
They are expected to teach the new curriculum to the Grade 1 and 7 students
this school year even if they were trained only for the lessons intended to be
taught in the first and second quarters.
The Grade 7 students, estimated to reach 1.66 million, are in the first year
of the four-year junior high and will be the first batch of students to enter
the additional two-year senior high school.
More training needed
"A series of training programs will still follow and we still have three to
four months before the second semester starts. We still have enough time," DepEd
Assistant Secretary for Planning Jesus Mateo told the Inquirer.
Mateo noted that Grade 1 and 7 students may use the old textbooks as subject
reference.
The DepEd has developed a curriculum for Grade 7 that embodied a "spiraling
approach" where different subjects like Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Earth
Science will be tackled.
Under the old curriculum, Earth Science is taught in the first year, Biology
in the second, Chemistry in the third and Physics in the last year.
The same goes with Mathematics, where basic concepts of General Math,
Algebra, Geometry and Trigonometry are integrated into one.
"These are no longer separate subjects since in real life, we are not
applying them separately," Education Secretary Armin Luistro told reporters
during his visits to three public schools in Pasig.
For Grade 1, on the other hand, subjects will be taught for the first time in
the pupil's mother tongue while subjects like Health and Science will be
integrated with other subjects.
Teachers ill-equipped
Benjie Valbuena, vice president of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT),
said the confusion arose because the teachers were ill-equipped to adapt to
these changes.
"The teachers have no blueprint of that curriculum, no modules, only
instructional materials and no textbooks so to speak. How do they expect us to
proceed?" Valbuena told the Inquirer in a phone interview.
"We have been experiencing old problems under a new name," Valbuena of the
party-list group ACT which has been opposing the K to 12 system and prodding
education officials to stop its implementation and focus instead on other
matters like kindergarten, shortages in classrooms, teachers and other school
necessities.
Sought for reaction, Luistro said the DepEd had heard and addressed the
concerns.
"There will always be negative comments from the moment we started this and
until it is already complete," he said.
He was hopeful that the enabling law of the K to 12 program, which is still
pending at the Senate and House of Representatives, would be enacted before 2016
when the DepEd would begin requiring the additional two years in all private and
public high schools.
"But we don't need that law right now in order to revise the current
curriculum," he said.
Congestion reduced
Accompanied by other officials on Monday morning, Luistro briefly sat in
classes, checked the water from faucets, and gave lectures to some students as
he made the rounds at Ilugin Elementary School, Pinagbuhatan High School and
Rizal National High School in Pasig.
Rizalino Rosales, officer in charge of DepEd in Metro Manila, said the number
of congested schools, which were forced to have triple shifts to deal with
classroom shortage, declined from 20 to only 9 this year.
"By the time the construction of classrooms in these schools is complete,
they no longer need to resort to having triple shifts," he said, noting that
teachers and students would have more "contact time."
The shortage of teachers, on the other hand, was filled by the 20,000
volunteer teachers hired by the DepEd and the additional teachers who were being
paid through the local government unit's school board funds.
A veteran preschool teacher, Baby Dimapawi, expressed reservations over the
new K to 12 program, saying she feared the integrated curriculum and the
additional hour of school for the students, 5 years old on the average, may not
be able to grasp the concepts well.
In the past years, students in the kindergarten class of Baby Dimapawi, 62,
who taught at a public preschool in Makati City, came at 7:30 a.m. and left two
hours later. Classes now start at 6 a.m. and end three hours later. Three more
such sessions follow, ending at 6 p.m.
"When I learned that [authorities] were placing another hour into the kinder
class, I asked myself 'what am I going to do with another hour?'" she said,
chuckling.
"From my experience, a child usually is attentive in class for one-and-a-half
hours," she continued. "After recess, they usually ask if it's time to go home."
With a report from Miko Morelos
Chief News Editor: Sol
Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE
NEWS ONLINE
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