TABUK CITY, Kalinga - Schools Division supervisor Norma Brillantes is encouraging parents to enroll their five year old children in kindergarten this school year as they will be now be covered by the enhanced education program of the government.

The enhanced K+12 Basic Education Program seeks to provide for a quality 12-year basic education program for the Filipino children. This is in compliance to Article XIV, Section 2(1) of the 1987 Philippine Constitution which states that “The State shall establish, maintain, and support a complete, adequate, and integrated system of education relevant to the needs of the people and society.”

According to Brillantes, the K+12 refers to Kindergarten plus 12 years of elementary and secondary education, where it requires children upon reaching the age of five to enroll in schools to take up standardized kinder curriculum.

Primary schooling in the elementary education would involve six or seven years of education and upon reaching high school, a student under the K+12 program would be undergoing an additional two years of academic or vocational course after the regular four year high school.

Brillantes said that this system was adopted by the Philippine government to improve the country’s quality of basic education having observed several problems and concerns among students such as the low performance in the national test, unemployment, and lack of emotional maturity and skills to cope with their counterpart in other countries after graduation.

The government, she said, has seen the need for further reforms after poor quality education is reflected in the low achievement scores during National Achievement Test (NAT) for grade 6 putting the Philippines in a very low rank in conducted international tests.

Another reason is that the current Philippine basic education is congested within a 10-year period where normally it should be undertaken in a 12-year curriculum, Brilliantes said. At present, only the Philippines is using the 10-year basic education program in Asia, she added.

Based on a study, the current system could not prepare high school graduates for the world of work or entrepreneurship or higher education since they do not possess the basic competencies or emotional maturity essential to meet international demands and that current high school graduates have not yet reached the legal age to qualify for employment after graduation.

With these concerns, she asked government agencies to help in the promotion of the K+12 basic education system for better appreciation by the public. (JDP/GGD-PIA CAR, Kalinga)