Atin Ito First Filipino Community Newspaper in Ontario
One of the objectives of the K to 12 program, as embodied in Republic Act No. 10533, otherwise known as the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, is this: “Broaden the goals of high school education for college preparation, vocational and technical career opportunities as well as creative arts, sports and entrepreneurial employment in a rapidly changing and increasingly globalized environment.”
Last week, Vice President and Education Secretary Sarah Duterte met with Go Negosyo founder Joey Concepcion and discussed possibilities for including entrepreneurial skills in the Grade 11 and Grade 12 senior high school curriculum. She welcomed the initiatives of Go Negosyo, stressing DepEd’s need for assistance to improve its agriculture and fisheries schools. She said the program can also open ways for DepEd to utilize its idle lands by using these to teach children basic gardening and farming skills. She added that entrepreneurship mentoring can become part of co-curricular activities; preparatory activities can begin before the DepEd pilots the enhanced senior high school curriculum next school year.
Even while future directions for further enhancing the quality of basic education are being charted, it is important to acknowledge the assessment made by Philippine Business for Education (PBed), an advocacy formed by leaders of the country’s top corporations, that the following aspects of a learning crisis need to be addressed: first, while 82.4 percent of the age-25 and above population have completed primary education, “completion rate for secondary education significantly drops to 30.5 percent for the said cohort; completion rate for a Bachelor’s or equivalent degree decreases even further to 24.4 percent”; and second: “while 49 percent of the richest decile attend higher education, only 17 percent from the poorest decile can do so.”
PBEd also calls attention to the country’s dismal performance in PISA, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD), Program for International Student Assessment that measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. According to the 2018 PISA report: “The Philippines ranked last among 79 participating countries and economies in reading and second to last in science and mathematics. At least 78 percent of students in the Philippines failed to reach minimum levels of proficiency in each of the three PISA subjects.” Equally distressing is the finding that: “The low share of 15-year-olds represented in PISA reflects a large proportion of school leavers and out-of-school youth in the country.”
Despite this bleak scenario, digital acceleration and the emergence of social media platforms are twin developments that have enhanced prospects for aspiring entrepreneurs among senior high school students who could be instrumental in achieving a more auspicious future for themselves and their families.
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