“How can the Aquino administration claim that it’s ready for K to 12 when it can’t even provide basic access to schools to millions of children?”
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By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – Protests greeted the first day of school on June 1, as different groups said perennial problems of basic education would worsen under President Aquino’s K to 12 program.
From early morning until the afternoon, groups under the Stop K to 12 Alliance trooped from various schools and protested at the Department of Education Central Office in Pasig City, and at Don Chino Roces bridge (former Mendiola bridge) in Manila.
Although more than 23 million school-age children would be enrolled this school year, critics highlight the Aquino administration’s “failure in education reforms” as one in every 10 children could not go to school because of poverty.
Protesters cited the unresolved problems – shortages in classrooms and facilities, problems with electricity and water supply, lack of textbooks – that still plague the basic education in the country. They said things will take a turn for the worse as the senior high school (SHS) of the K to 12 program pushes through in school year 2016-2017.
Shortages in classrooms, education materials
Rommel Condino, 33, Grade 10 teacher at the Tanza National High School in Navotas, said they have old textbooks for fourth year high school, but there are still no available textbooks for Grade 10 students.
“The textbooks should have been in before the school year started, but there are still no textbooks that are aligned to K to 12 to be used by students,” Condino, who joined the protest in Chino Roces told Bulatlat.com in an interview.
Banjamin Valbuena, national chairperson of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), criticized Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro of the Department of Education (DepEd) for saying that “everything is okay.” He cited DepEd’s under-utilization of its budget and failure to deliver services:
• A shortage of 57,167 teachers. Yet 4,019 items are left unfilled by DepEd for 2014.
• 12,942 classrooms are needed. Budget was allocated for 59,671 classrooms, but were not built by DepED in 2014
• 4,281 schools have no water supply and 16,920 water supply projects were not implemented in 2014
• 10,514 schools have no electricity
• At least 24 million textbooks and modules are needed, and 12.7 million were supposed to be delivered last school
year
• 34,935 complete science and mathematics equipment were not delivered in 2014
• 10,383 information and communication technology (ICT) packages were not delivered in 2014
• 395 internet connectivity projects were not implemented
“This is beyond mismanagement; this is an outright neglect of their responsibility,” Valbuena said.
Producing cheap labor
Renato Reyes, Jr. Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary general, said the K to 12 program is aligning the country’s education system to serve the needs of foreign companies.
“The whole program is designed to orient the basic and secondary educational system into producing cheap labor for domestic and international employment in the tradition of the ‘vocational-technical’ schools. The youth will be eligible to join the work force after graduating from SHS,” said Reyes.
“There is nothing more left to the Filipino people, from the economy, to the lands, the students and our schools, all are serving the interest of foreign companies,” Reyes said in the program.
Mabelle Caboboy, vice president of the Quezon City Public School Teachers Association said that even before the K to 12 curriculum, Philippine history subjects were removed from the secondary level, and supposedly integrated to the elementary level.
“How can we teach patriotism when in the secondary level there is no Philippine history subject?” she said.
She said vocational subjects, such as manicure, pedicure, and cooking, should not be the primary skills to be taught to students. Education must produce graduates who can make and operate machines for national industrialization, she said.
Increasing number of drop-outs
ACT Teachers partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio said 2.3 million school-age children – those with ages five to 15 – who come from the poorest families in the most underdeveloped areas in the country, will be deprived of their right to education.
Citing enrolment figures provided by the DepEd, Tinio noted that around 570,000 five-year-olds will not be able to enroll in kindergarten. Also dropping out of school are 838,374 elementary-age children, and 1.1 million high-school-age youth.
Tinio said the figures show “the failure of the Aquino administration to fulfill its basic constitutional mandate to provide basic education to all Filipinos.”
“President Aquino and the Department of Education cannot claim success in any so-called education reform for as long as one child in ten is not able to go to school,” Tinio said.
The government’s multi-billion peso poverty alleviation program such as the conditional cash transfer program “has not been effective in enabling the poorest families to send their children to school,” he added.
“How can the Aquino administration claim that it’s ready for K to 12 when it can’t even provide basic access to schools to millions of children?”
Tinio also pointed out that 800,000 to one million students will be displaced once the SHS will be implemented in 2016 as the DepEd said only 60 percent or only 2.2 million students could be accommodated in 5,020 out of 7,914 public schools in the country.
DepEd’s Luistro insisted that these students will “not be displaced” since they will be given “vouchers” or government subsidy of up to P22,000 ($494) to enrol in non-DepEd or private schools that offer SHS.
Tinio called this “privatization of education,” which, he said, is in accordance with the plan of the Aquino government. “Even more students will not be able to enrol because of privatization of education,” Tinio said during the protest in Mendiola.
Mockery
The groups also lambasted Aquino for his “mockery” of opponents of the K to 12 program.
In his speech at the K to 12 Summit at the Philippine International Convention Center on May 29, Aquino said critics of the K to 12 program “behave like they’re the only children of God, like they’re the only ones who know best. Let God take care of them.”
“If we are God’s children, then what do we call Aquino and Education Secretary Armin Luistro? ‘Bugaw’!” said Louie Zabala, Manila Public School Teachers Association (MPSTA) president, calling the two officials “pimps” for selling the future of the Filipino youth and for announcing to the nation that the government is K-to-12 ready.
Zabala said it is easy for Aquino to say such things because he has not set foot in a public school where students are jam-packed in classrooms, with only one wall fan, no textbook, no chairs and lacking in sanitation facilities.
The groups vowed to push for quality education that will benefit the Filipino people.
“To attain mass-based, scientific and nationalist education, we should change the system, we should change the government. And we can only do that through our collective action,” said Reyes. 
