Philippines Chambers of Commerce and Industry wants 2 more years in primary education

Two or a month ago, I write some reason why we should add more year level in our elementary and high school. Some teacher agree and some do not. I noticed that those disagree are teachers who are handling a selected student like those in science high school or science elementary.

One of the main reason i provide in my previous posting is about teacher and curriculum factor. The DepEd curriculum is integrated on too big for 1 school yar because they want to complete the subject matter in just a short period of time. This situation resulted to less mastery on topics on the part of the student. The second reasons is the teachers workload. Too many subjects to teach, extra non specialization workload, daily class record, daily log or lesson plan, class register and periodic grading. This situation resulted to unprepared teacher in classroom activity. So do not blame teachers for low quality education. They will not pass the board exam if they are not good. Do not blame the books for they are well explain. However, for sure, teacher will not be able to complete the content of the book which for me a must.

Now i read an article from business group (PCCI) that will support this idea. The business community is complaining about the mismatch of education to the need of industry (specially the growth of inbound call center which required knowledge and skills in international business) which the constitution required the government to provide relevant and functional education (I learn my integral and differential calculus but after more than 10 years of working I did not find any application at all).

The Philippine Chambers of Commerce and Industry or PCCI through its research group, Universal Access to Competitiveness and Trade know as UACT have proposed to the government for the additional academic years. The group think that it is the solution for the job-skills mismatch in the country. PCCI is proposing two more years of primary education and dedicate the latter senior years of High School to technical and practical training (skills development). They said this is the concussion they agreed based on the discussion between academe and business group.

The business group believes that with more years in primary education until 3rd year of HS, student will be able to obtain necessary theoretical knowledge on Values, Math, Science and English. The the remaining 2 years in high school, the students will focus in skills development like speaking language for call center industry, writing skills for outsourced content writing jobs which is scattered online. The later year of the student will be spent on handling industrial machine, actual business procedures like making PO's, quaotation, correspondence, selling products and more. In this situation, i will be able to teach graphics and web designing which is very in demand now a days. This skills do not need diploma and degree. Its creativity and necessary tools are the requisite and we can produce a self earning student who are about to enter college.

The business group said there are a lot of job vacancy because of the absense of required skills to get hired by these companies. I do very much agree with this. I know some people are working online with 3 or 4 more different foreign employers. The business group also want participation in the development of the curriculum by allowing the leader industry to become part of curriculum developer for TESDA, DepED and CHED. This is the problem of the 3 government agency, they are seldom or not at all ask the private industry about the curriculum The truth is, the DepEd itself do not listen to the private sectors because these curriculum writers have PhD and they think they are the best in this task. I said maybe they are the best on theory but not and never in practice. Specially when it involve skills needed in the running machine, repairing and setting networks, assembling machine belt and more.

The DepEd Secretary response to the call from business group positively except that the smallest estimate of budget for this program is not less than P30 billion. Well i said looking for funds is no longer job of the people in the academe. How about you? Any suggestion?

To attain quality education, reduce the topics or subject matter per school year and more exercises which should be relevant to actual situation in the present industry.

Reduce the teachers load specially the paper works. The government should produce (congress) approved lesson plan and text books. Do not allow teachers to handle subject not their specialization unless they have special training. Increase our salary for God Sake.


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