CHAPTER 1

TITLE:

Hear Before You Blame: Difficulties Faced By Grade 11 Students with the K-12
Curriculum in Southern Masbate Roosevelt College Inc.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The Philippines implemented a new curriculum which started last school

year 2012-2013. This is the shift from the Basic Education Curriculum to the new
K to 12 Curriculum. The said innovation in Philippine education has been made
legal by the Republic Act 1033 or the Enhanced Basic Education 2013. There are
many innovations introduced to the curriculum such as the extension of years
spent in school. From the old 10-year scheme, Grade 1 to 10, it has been
modified to 12 years. Among the different subjects or disciplines, Science is one
of the subjects that which undergoes major revisions.

The future of higher education in the Philippines relies to the success of K

to 12 basic education systems. It is said that the graduates of senior high school
are well-prepared to enter higher education because they have a better
understanding and it is not necessary for remedial courses; however, this also
implies that they are ready for work. The concept of the graduates is both well-
equipped for higher education and employment.
 Given the situation, more knowledgeable high school students will enter
the higher education. The higher education institutions must change their
formation strategy. They must do research about the handling first year
students that have ages around 17 to 19 with high level of intellectual capacity.
Though other higher education institutions abroad have this formation concept
for ages 17 to 19, the Philippine higher education institutions must work on how
it will fit to Philippine culture.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The researcher was driven by her curiosity why students now, particularly
the senior high school, were stressing out by their academic activities all piled
up. The researcher found out that the strength of the curriculum is the feature
on student-centered activities. Teachers were now only the facilitators of
learning. The focus now is on how the students discover the essentiality of the
lesson by performing the various activities. These activities are designed to be
a student-centered and do away the “spoon feeding” method of teaching the
students. This led the investigator to launch the study to find out the varying
difficulties faced by students due to the newly implemented curriculum.

The K - 12 Basic Education Program is the flagship program of the Department

of Education in its desires to offer a curriculum which is attuned to the 21st
century. This is in the pursuance of the reform thrusts of the Basic Education
Sector Reform Agenda, a package of policy reforms that seeks to systematically
improve critical regulatory, institutional, structural, financial, physical, cultural
and information conditions effecting basic education provision access and
delivery on the ground. The department seeks to create basic education sector
that’s capable of attainting the country’s Education for all Objectives and the
Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015 and President Noynoy Aquino’s
10-point Basic Education Agenda by 2016. This policy reforms are expected to
introduce critical changes necessary to further accelerate, broaden, deepen and
sustain the department’s effort in improving the quality of basic education.
(Esther & Ethel, 2012) The K-12 education system is the public education system
that most people are familiar with today. Comprised of 13 grades, kindergarten
through 12th, it refers to the public school system in all of the United States,
Canada, the United Kingdom, and parts of Europe as well. It is difficult to
pinpoint the exact history of education, as it has been occurring in some form
for centuries in all parts of the world. The K12 Program has been initiated by the
Aquino administration where students will have to undergo a new system of
education. The Enhanced K-12 Basic Education Program is a DepEd program that
will improve the standard of education and give more opportunities for
graduating students. Last school year 2012, Philippine education officially
implemented the K12 curriculum. Everyone knows the country (in public schools
preferably) is drastically left behind in terms of curriculum adjustments. Grade 1
entrants in SY 2012–2013 are the first batch to fully undergo the program, and
current 1st year Junior High School students (or Grade 7) are the first to undergo
the enhanced secondary education program. (Kynemarie, 2013) Nolledo (1992)
Article XIV of the constitution which focused on education in which section I
states that “the state shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality
education at all levels and shall take appropriate steps to make such education
accessible to all”. The K – 12 Program “We are the last country in Asia and one of
only three countries in the world with a 10- year pre-university program”
(SEAMEO, 2011) The Department of Education has formally launched its K - 12
Program, which adds 2 years to basic education in the country. This means that
aside from kindergarten, 6 years of elementary, and 4 years of high school,
students will have to undergo an additional 2 years of study in senior high school.
The Department of Education (DepEd) is currently implementing mother tongue
based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) as part of our K-12 reform. This is not a
purely pedagogical strategy for language but a learner-centred approach. By
using the language students are comfortable with, the MTB-MLE in the
enhanced curriculum helps them develop the language skills they need to learn
the fundamentals of various subjects from kindergarten to third grade, and to
move seamlessly from home to school. Children clearly learn best when we use
the language they understand, especially in elementary education. Additionally,
prior to the launch of MTBMLE, studies had shown that language skills mastered
with the mother tongue can enable students to learn a second and subsequent
language faster. The program has the following twin objectives: To give every
student as opportunity to receive quality education based on an enhanced and
decongested curriculum that is internationally recognized and comparable;
Develop a curriculum that is rational and focus on excellence; Produce a pool of
highly qualified and adequately trained teachers; Achieve high academic
standards, especially in Mathematics, Science and English at all levels; Produce
graduates who are globally competitive and whose credential are recognized
internationally; To change public perception that high school education is just a
preparation for college; rather, it should allow one to take advantage of
opportunities for gainful career or employment and/or self-employment in a
rapidly changing and increasingly globalized environment; produce graduates
who possess skills and competencies that will allow them to be productive
members of the society or pursue higher education; through coordination
between the academic and business sectors, to change industry hiring practices
into account the enhance skills and competencies of K - 12 graduates (DepEd,
2010).

1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This quantitative study aimed to determine the frequency of various

challenges faced by Grade 11 students about the implementation of the K – 12
Program primarily with the student-centred activities. Furthermore, the
study sought answers to the following questions:
1. How many students find this curriculum inconvenient?
2. In what exact number of students notice teachers having difficulty in
teaching some concept not related to his/her major?
3. Exactly how many of them perceive that the activities are demanding
in such a way that there are materials that are not accessible?
4. How many learners agreed that time consumed within class hours are
spent just for reviewing the previous discussions?
5. What number of students have hard time to relate the topics they
learned from their previous year level to the present topics?

1.4 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

 The theoretical foundation of this study is based on three theories of
readiness for change. On one hand, Prochaska and DiClimente’s. The
Transtheoretical Model (TTM) attends to the role of uncertainty toward
change, noting that periods of readiness may be followed by periods of
resistance or disengagement. The model suggests that readiness to change
is a process taking place over the course of six stages that leads to behavior
change. Precontemplation Stage (Not Ready) people in the
precontemplation stage do not intend to take action in the foreseeable
future. Contemplation (Getting Ready) is the stage in which people intend to
change. Preparation (Ready) people plan to undertake change in the
immediate future. Action stage, people make specific behavioral changes and
actively pursue change. Maintenance stage, individuals strive to avoid
resuming old behaviors. Finally, at the termination stage, people no longer
worry about resuming old behaviors as the new behaviors have become
habit. On the other hand, The Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) Hall
and Loucks & Pratt originated in the field of education to help change agents
assist districts, schools, and educators modify their practices. CBAM is a
theoretical framework that describes and predicts potential teacher
concerns and behaviours throughout the school change process. Each
person will respond to a new program with unique attitudes and beliefs, and
each person will use a new program differently. Completing these theories,
Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation Model seeks to explain how innovations
spread through groups. A growing interest in the diffusion of innovations
occurred because getting a new idea adopted, even when it has obvious
advantages, is often very difficult. The Diffusion of Innovation model looks
into how the individuals value and adopt innovation. The relative advantage
of an innovation is a comparison of how much it improves the previous
generation of similar innovations. These three theories of readiness for
change were chosen for a number of reasons; first, they resonate with the
researcher’s beliefs and understanding of readiness for change. Second, The
Transtheoretical Model or TTM’s view of readiness to undertake change is
characterized by the preparation stage, at which point individuals have
considered their options and made a decision to move forward with change,
hence, making preparation plans. Third, The Concerns Based Approach
Model showed readiness as an individual process, whereby, interventions, or
actions taken to facilitate the change process, need to be targeted to the
concerns of the individual. Fourth, in the diffusion of innovation model,
readiness to adopt is related to one’s relationship to a given innovation,
characteristics of the innovation itself, and relationships with others who may
or may not attempt to adopt the innovation. The decision to adopt to change
is characterized as an “information-seeking and information-processing
activity”, where an individual is motivated to reduce uncertainty about the
advantages and disadvantages of an innovation or change. Importantly,
central to these theories, is the recognition that successful implementation
of a new program comes when a person decides to adopt change. However,
these three models differed in their approach to readiness, but they shared
similar elements that complement each other. The principle components of
readiness in these models helped identify the factors in the preparation
stage, such as staffing guidelines, course streamlining, workforce surplus
 management, and alternative programs that contribute to readiness of the
higher education institutions to the full implementation of the K-12 program.

THEORETICAL PARADIGM

TRANS-
THEORETICAL
IMPLEMENTATION
(TTM)

PRECONTEMPLATION

1.5 ASSUMPTIONS AND HYPOTHESIS

Eventually, this study would statistically provide the readers with specific
number of students having difficulties with the type of curriculum they are
experiencing today especially the Grade 11 students of Southern Masbate
Roosevelt College Inc. ( S.Y 2018-2019). Moreover, there is no significant
difference between the

1.6 SCOPE AND DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

 The focus of this quantitative study is on finding out the frequent students’
challenges with the k-12 curriculum in Southern Masbate Roosevelt College Inc...
The data were gathered inside the school premise of the mentioned school in
the municipality of Placer, province of Masbate with the seventy (70) randomly
picked Grade 11 students as the respondents of the study.

1.7 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Although this study was carefully prepared, there were some unavoidable
limiting factors. First, because of time and money constraints, the study was
conducted only on a small size of population of Grade 11 students and might
not represent the majority of all senior high school students in the entire
nation. Moreover, the slow internet connection in the locality of Placer,
Masbate had also been a problem in formulating this quantitative research.
For these reasons, the findings of this study cannot be generalized to the
broader community based on this study alone. Furthermore, the researcher
had a hard time finishing the study due to lack of equipment such as laptop
and printer.

1.8 DEFINITION OF TERMS

1.8.1 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Learning is the aspect of development that connotes modification of behaviour,
skills and knowledge that results from practice and experience which sought for
quality education. The generalization of this present study would be a great
contribution to the vast knowledge in relation to student’s achievements.

This study would be significant to the following groups of individuals:

1. Parents of the Students. This research would be able to help the parents of
the students who are affected by the K-12 program, to understand the benefits
of the program to their children’s academic growth, job skills, and
competencies.

2. Students. The students would benefit from the study by letting them know
how to cope up with the difficulties they are experiencing. Students would
understand how they would benefit from the program.

3. Teachers. The study would benefit the teachers for them to be prepared for
the additional two years to the basic education. It would be important for them
to know the advantages and disadvantages of the program, because they would
facilitate students’ learning and they are the implementers of the program.

4. Southern Masbate Roosevelt College (SMRC). This research would also

benefit the school, so they would anticipate the additional cost to the program,
by hiring additional teachers and providing the needs of the Grade 11 to 12
students.

5. Future Researchers. This study would provide additional information on

challenges of the education reform of the government which is the K to 12
program to the lives of Grade 11 students.
 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter represents the literature related to the study which in turn
will help the researcher in understanding the topic. It is composed of the foreign
and local literature contributed by the researcher.

FOREIGN LITERATURE

The SHS model in the Philippines was pattered from models which are
developed and being used in some first-world countries like the case of the
United States of America (USA) and Australia. In the USA, the model includes
three to four years of SHS, depending on the state. The student spends grades
10 to 12 in order to earn an SHS diploma. SHS students must take core curriculum
courses or subjects for a prescribed number of years (depending on the state).
These generally include English, Mathematics, General Science, Health, Physical
Education, and Social Sciences. And as reported by the International Student and
Scholar Services (ISSS) of the University of Minnesota, some high schools stream
students for academic subjects where the brightest students are put on a „fast
track and are given the opportunity to take enriched classes in their academic
subjects. After the satisfactory completion of SHS, the student will be given a
diploma which will enable him or her to take tertiary education (Corsi-Bunker,
2009). The national assessment taken in high school in the USA includes the
Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) for college admission and the American
College Testing (ACT) to assess college readiness. In Australia, the SHS model
includes grades 11 and 12. There are 14 „senior secondary‟ which fall under four
core learning areas, namely: (1) English, (2) Mathematics, (3) Science, and (4)
History. These 14 subjects will have to be completed (in addition to the
Foundation to Year 10 of schooling in order for the student to be qualified for
tertiary education. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting
Authority manages and delivers national assessments in Australia and overseas.
They implement the National Assessment Program that provides tests endorsed
by the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and
Youth Affairs including the National Assessment Program Literacy and
Numeracy (NAPLAN) and three-yearly sample assessments in science literacy,
civics and citizenship, and ICT literacy (see acara.edu.au).

LOCAL LITERATURE

As cited in The Primer on the New K-12 Educational System by Patricia

Tanya-Velasco on March 6, 2012: At present, the Philippines is the only
country in Asia and among the three remaining countries in the world that
uses a 10-year basic education cycle. According to a presentation made by the
South East Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO-INNOTECH)
on Additional Years in Philippine Basic Education (2010), the comparative data
on duration of Basic and Pre-University Education in Asia shows that the
Philippines allots 10 years not just for the basic education cycle but also for
the pre-university education while all the other countries have either 11 or 12
years in their basic education cycle. Achievement scores highlight our
students’ poor performance in national examinations. The National
Achievement Test (NAT) results for grade 6 in SY 2009-2010 showed only a
69.21% passing rate while the NAT results for high school is at a low 46.38%.
Moreover, international tests results in 2003 Trends in International
Mathematics and Science study (TIMSS) show that the Philippines ranked
34th out of 38 countries in HS Math and 43rd out of 46 countries in HS II
Science. Moreover, the Philippines ranked the lowest in 2008 even with only
the science high schools joining the Advanced Mathematics category. The
present curriculum is described as congested. This means that students do
not get enough time to perform tasks because the curriculum is designed to
be taught in a span of 12 years and not 10 years. The more obvious result of
this is the fact that most high school students graduate without the readiness
to take upon higher education or employment. These students are not
equipped with the basic skills or competencies needed at work. Plato’s model
was “functionalist” – a model designed to produce competent adults to meet
the needs of the state. Educators could work to produce people who are
both self-actualized and useful to the state.
There are too many controversies and praises that hound this new law,
however, many schools in the country have to buckle up to cope with the
demands as they have already been competing globally even before the
passage of the law. And in order to meet the global demands, the schools
have to face the challenges that come with the K to 12 program
implementation. In a statement posted on its website, Anakbayan, a youth
group, assails that the K to 12 program is “flawed, problematic framework”
which will only worsen the education crisis and “will further subject the
nation’s workers to exploitation.”
“The K-12, unlike what Aquino is promising, is not a solution to education
and employment woes. Instead, it will further worsen and deepen the
problems,” Vencer Crisostomo, national chairperson of Anakbayan, says of
the newly signed law.
He says the additional years in the K to 12 program will mean additional
burden to parents and students who at present are already struggling to
finish the current cycle. “At present, only 14 out of 100 finish the education
cycle up to college. Additional years will mean additional dropouts,” he said.
He also points out the lack of budget for education currently. “Government
spending for education, as it is, is not enough to meet the shortages at
present. The shortages will worsen and we will be faced with greater
problems,” he says.
Crisostomo explains that tuition rates for tertiary education will further
hike as the government’s K to 12 will also mean abandonment for tertiary
education. “We will see more budget cuts for the State Universities and
Colleges and commercialization of universities. The government is set to
further abandon tertiary education.” But the greater problem is the
program’s “problematic and flawed neoliberal framework” for labor. “The K
to 12 aims to create cheaper, more ‘exploitable’ labor. The program ensures
to make more ‘semi-skilled’ youths enter the labor force as early as 18 years
old, which will make the unemployment problem worse. The net effect will
be lower wages for workers,” he says. Crisostomo adds that “ultimately, this
is an attack on labor and wages.” The goal of implementing the K - 12 Basic
Education Program is to create a functional basic system that will produce
productive and responsible citizens equipped with the essential learning and
employment. This is in line with the agenda of the President Aquino of having
quality education as a long term solution to poverty. The K - 12 Education
vision from the Department of Education (DepEd, 2010) every graduate of the
Enhanced K - 12 Basic Education Program is an empowered individual who has
learned through a program that is rooted on sound principles and geared
towards excellence. Truly, the implementation of K - 12 program of the
Department of Education is a great help to every students. But, some which
has a noble purpose for every Pilipino pupil or student. From their own point
of view or perspective this is another burden on the part of the students and
parents. It will add to the financial problem of the individual family, and the
advantage of implementing this program are for the people who wants to
continue studying or work abroad because the curriculum is almost parallel
to another country. This is some of the problems that this study is going to
focus on and to hear the sentiments of the parents regarding the
implementation of K - 12 program (Jennilyn, 2013). One of the aims of the
Department of Education is to prepare the students to be globally
competitive. To achieve this, educational reforms of the government must
also focus into the mastery of English as the second language. Such attempt
will greatly help to harness the productive capacity of the country’s human
resource base towards international competitiveness. Competitiveness may
be gauged from sociolinguistic competence of a person. Sociolinguistic
competence is the ability to use language appropriate to a given
communicative context taking into account the roles of the participants, the
setting and the purpose of interaction. It is the ability to use and respond to
language appropriately, given the setting, the topic, and the relationships
among the people communicating, particularly the lingua franca of the
educational society and community, in its various contexts and dimensions
relatively guarantees the teachers competitive advantage in the complex
society like the Philippines (Alatis, 2009). Education Secretary Armin A.
Luistro (2011) says the additional 2 years will help students decide what
course they will take in college. It will also help high school students to be
given a chance to specialize in science and technology, music and arts,
agriculture, fisheries, sports, business entrepreneurship, and others. K - 12
Program aims to make basic education sufficient enough so that anyone who
graduates can be gainfully employed and have a productive life. K –12
Program will look at the possibility of specialized education such as a
high school or community, which will focus on the arts or agriculture. Bro.
Armin said that the proposal will make high school graduates employable,
making tertiary education unnecessary to get a job. That proposal of
Department of Education to add two more years to basic education drew
mixed reactions in the Senate. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (2011)
expressed support to the DepEd’s K - 12 Program as he agrees with the
proposal because the country needs to increase its competitiveness at the
international level, he said: We are underrated by other countries, our
educational system. It is painful for others. But for the country we have to do
it. To implement the program, the DepEd has to work with Congress to
amend the existing law, Batas Pambansa 232 or the “Education Act of 1982,”
which states that the basic formal education is a 10-year program. Nartates
(2011) conducted a study about the Effects of Broken Homes among Early
Teenagers to their Academic Performance this studies cited by the
researchers have also shown that the country’s education program is
equivalent to the 12-year education cycle followed abroad except that it is
being completed in only 10 years. These researches analyze and study what
will be the effects of the K - 12 Educational Systems to the country, parents,
and students. This study becomes related to my study in the sense that it is
concerned on the effects of K - 12 Program to the parents. The only difference
is that this study is focused on the effects of K - 12 Program to the students
whose parents are working abroad, and how it affects to their academic
performance. Marston (2011) conducted a related study about the perception
of students and parents involved in primary to secondary school transition
programs of different formats and complexities, based on both Australian
and international research, have been introduced in some schools to facilitate
transition. The aims of this research were to investigate and compare the
perceptions of students, parents and teachers involved in several of these
programs and to examine the extent to which transition programs can
alleviate issues associated with transition between primary and secondary
schools. Zellman (2012) conducted a study about the implementation of the
K - 12 Education Reform in Qatar’s Schools, this study is a reform of education
for a new era, because it views education as the key to the nation's economic
and social progress. This study, one of a number of RAND studies that trace
and document the reform process in Qatar, was designed to assess progress
made in the first years of the K - 12 Reform's Implementation in Qatar's
schools and the perception of the parents on the Implementation of the K -
12 Program. This study has a relation to the researchers study because it also
gets the perception of the parents on the K - 12 Implementation. Senate
Majority Floor Leader Vicente "Tito" Sotto (2011) explained why he opposed
the proposal of the Department of Education (DepEd) to amend the law on
the country’s basic education to increase the number of school years to 12
from the present 10-year program. "I oppose the addition of two years to
basic education. There is no clear benefit to adding two years to basic
education," Sotto said in a privilege speech at the Senate. He added that the
national budget can't even provide sufficient funds to maintain the present
number of years of basic education, but now the DepEd wants to add more
to it. According to him, adding two years to basic education will further
increase our budget deficit. We need quality education, not quantity of years
in education. We need more schools, not more years in school. The
Philippines is the only country in the world that still follows a 10–year basic
education cycle. And so Last October 2010, President Noynoy Aquino
proposed the Kindergarten plus 12 on the K - 12 Program to catch up with the
rest of world having a 12–year basic education cycle. However, with all the
issues on education the country is still has, parents expressed their opinions
on the President Aquino’s plan of strengthening the Philippine education
system through the K -12 Program. It is a must to hear the parents’ opinions
regarding the K - 12 Program as they are one of the stakeholders of schools
and respected parents of the students who are involved on loving and caring
for the future of their children. “The reality on the ground is that schools even
have to divide their classes to morning and afternoon sessions to
accommodate more students… We need to modernize our public school
system management priority to expanding the cycle of our basic education
program.”
 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY AND PROCEDURE

3.1 INTRODUCTION

This study is done by using quantitative research showing how the

researcher came to the necessary data for this study, and how these data
were analysed, interpreted and presented in the easiest way possible. This
study utilized so survey is the most important in order to achieve the purpose
of this study which is to determine the frequency of Grade 11 students of
Southern Masbate Roosevelt College who have been having a hard time
adjusting to the new curriculum. It is quantitative in a sense that the data
obtained were being measured or expressed in numerical terms. The
researcher used her survey questionnaire as her instrument. Based on the
result of the survey conducted, she was able to determine the details of this
study. This chapter describes the methods and procedures used, including
research design, and sample population.

3.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A survey method of research will be used. This study tends to find out the
frequency of students who are experiencing difficulties out of the said
curriculum and by using a survey questionnaire formulated by the researcher,
gathering numerical data from the respondents will not be that hard likewise
with regards to their answers. The survey questionnaire is answerable by 3 to 5
minutes in length.
3.3 RESPONDENTS OF THE STUDY

The respondents are bona fide Grade 11 students of Southern Masbate

Roosevelt College. The researcher choose 70 students out of the total number
of students within the level. Moreover, the subjects will be the providers of
information hence they are the respondents.

3.4 SAMPLING TECHNIQUE

The study used sampling procedures specifically probability sampling. To

get the exact numerically aimed data, simple random sampling was used with
the Grade 11 students as the respondents. Since probability sampling is the
selection of individuals from the population so that they will be the
representative of the population, it is way better to use this type of sampling
technique for an easier gathering of results.

3.5 RESEARCH INSTRUMENT

A survey questionnaire composed of 8 questions were to be answered by

the respondents. The survey questionnaire will serve as the means of gathering
data from the subjects. The p- value and percentage are also used for the
computation and interpretation of data. Thus, responses will be tested for
reliability and the validity of information.

3.6 PROCEDURES OF DATA GATHERING

This procedures used in the study was composed of 3 stages.

 The first stage is the distribution of questionnaires to students inside the

school campus.
  The gathering of answered questionnaires and collecting answers that are
find valid by the researcher is the second stage.
 Finally, the interpretation of data and solving the needed percentage
ended the data gathering.

3.7 STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA

To interpret the gathered data, the researcher used the following.

1. SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING

-A sample selected in such a way that every element in the population has
an equal probability of being chosen. Equivalently, all samples of size n
have an equal chance of being selected.
2. P-VALUE
-the probability that an inferential statistical result could have been
produced by chance if the null hypothesis were true for the population.

3. Alpha level

-the maximum risk that researchers are willing to take during hypothesis testing
that they make a mistake when they conclude that they have sufficient evidence
that there is a difference between groups or a relationship between variables in
the population.