ADVANCE CAREER

ASSESSMENT PROGRAM
Advocacy Project

OCTOBER 24, 2018

CABAMALAN, VEULA MEI C.

DEJUCOS, JENNIFER V.
LLEGO, ALYANA J.
ORPILLA, MARISHIELA M.
RAMBOYONG, DONNA M.
RAMOS, DANIELLE B.
ROMERO, RENEELYN JEAN S.
WHAT IS K-12 PROGRAM?

According to www.officialgazette.gov.ph, “the K to 12 Program

covers Kindergarten and 12 years of basic education (six years of primary education, four
years of Junior High School, and two years of Senior High School [SHS]) to provide
sufficient time for mastery of concepts and skills, develop lifelong learners, and prepare
graduates for tertiary education, middle-level skills development, employment, and
entrepreneurship.” The program’s salient features include (i) strengthening early
childhood education [universal kindergarten]; (ii) making the curriculum relevant to
learners [contextualization and enhancement]; (iii) ensuring intergrated and seamless
learning [spiral progression]; (iv) building proficiency through language [mother-tongue
based multilingual education]; (v) gearing up for the future [senior high school] and; (vi)
nurturing the holistically developed Filipino [college and livelihood readiness, let century
skills). This 13-year program was implemented because it is “found to be the best period
for learning under basic education. It is also the recognized standard for students and
professionals globally”.

The additional 2 years in High School will “equip learners with skills that will better
prepare them for the future, whether it be Employment, Entrepreneurship, Skills
Development (further Tech-Voc training) and Higher Education (College). Ideally, Senior
High School creates the opportunities such as (i) standard requirements will be applied
to make sure graduates know enough to be hirable; (ii) SHS students will be able to apply
for TESDA Certificates of Competency (COCs) and National Certificates (NCs) to provide
better work opportunities; (iii) partnerships with different companies will be offered for
technical and vocational courses and; (iv) SHS students can now get work experience
while studying and companies can even hire them after graduation.

ABOUT THE ISSUE/PROBLEM

Based on the abovementioned claims, and as a students from the pioneer batch
of this program, we’ve come to the conclusion of how unprepared the government was
on the implementation of the K to 12 Program. The effects or outcome of this
unpreparedness are (i) short preparation for the incoming Senior High School students,
teachers and lack of facilities; (ii) falsity in orienting the first batch of Senior High School
students and; (iii) unproven interpretation of “globally competitive and skilled workers” due
to inadequate training, seminars and activities.

(i) Short preparation of the Senior High School students and teachers and
lack of facilities. Sunstar Pampanga (2017) addressed the disadvantages of
the K to 12 Program as such “the transition between the old curriculums to the
new one can be quite challenging for stakeholders, that is, the school
administrators, teachers, parents, and students. Such a drastic change in the
system requires long-term preparation and solid implementation. As of yet, it is
fair to say that a large number of teachers in the country have not been fully
prepared for the program, which may have an impact on the overall quality
received by the students. The added two years in basic education will also
cause a low turnout of enrolees in colleges and universities for school year
2016-2017. Current high schools that will open up the senior high school
department might lack facilities and teachers to cater to the students. This has
led the Department of Education to allow the employment of non-license
holders in high school, provided that they obtain one within the next five years.
“The disadvantages of implementing the curriculum are real and urgent.
Students need to adjust to the new curriculum and have to condition
themselves in spending a longer time in school. SHS is relatively new so its
efficiency is yet to be determined, and this is one risk which may have dire
consequences.”

(ii) Falsity in orienting the first batch of Senior High School students.
According to Gamboa (2016), “the government, therefore, should pay attention
to ensuring that schools, including the senior high schools, will produce
students who will be able to immediately find employment when they graduate.
Better coordination among the stakeholders of the academe and industry
should be fostered to ensure that not just 10 percent, according to a study
conducted by local human resources conglomerate Servicio Filipino Inc., of
 graduates are able to find jobs. It doesn’t make sense for Filipinos to spend so
much for an education, only to painfully realize that the years they spent in
school are not enough to give them a job, not just one that matches what they
trained for, but not even commensurate enough to what they spent in school.”

(iii) Unproven interpretation of “globally competitive and skilled workers”

due to inadequate training, seminars and activities. Based on the article
posted on Wordpress by Taborasj, according to Fr. Inocensio, “the Senior High
School ‘core curriculum’ requirement is so heavy that there would be no time
to develop the hands-on skills in the students that such as the manufacturing
industry requires.”
According to SunStar Cebu (2018), the results of the Philippine Business
Education survey shows that 4 out of 5 companies won’t accept K to 12
graduates. It also said that program was “not designed to fulfill the needs and
deficiencies of the education system in the country and it is bound to fail f it
continues to ignore the more pressing problems like lack of school building,
insufficient number of teachers, low salaries of teachers, lacking learning
materials and books, and corruption.”

SOLUTION/RECOMMENDATION

All these mentioned problems faced by the K to 12 program, we’ve come up to the
idea of implementing Advance Career Assessment Program to teach and orient
properly those who will be incoming Senior High School students of what track should
they pursue base on their skills and interest in relate to their future careers so that they
could have an outline knowledge and preparedness for the corporate world and industry.
This assessment program will help the student make up their minds on what do they really
want and what kind of job they want. This will also unlock and live up the K to 12 program’s
claim that is to produce globally competitive and work-ready graduates.

 Who benefits from this?  4th year High School students

 Who is most directly affected?  Senior High School sudents
 Who will be the key people in this?  Junior High School teachers
 Who would be the best person to  Authority of the Educational
consult? Institutions
 Who would make decision about
this?  Department of Education
 What is the best case scenario?  Career Oriented class
 What can we do to make a positive  Preparing the students to be
change? ndependent in terms of planning,
creative thinking and helps them to be
good enough in decisional making.
 What is getting in the way of our  This focus more on practical
action? assessment, performance skills,
upgrading one’s intelligence, thus,
applying it directly to one’s work
interest.
 What would be a counter-  Government financial assistance for
argument? the settings of this advocacy such as:
(i) providing learning materials and
tools for the students and; (ii) hiring
well-trained, qualified
teachers/instructors, thus, paying them
sufficiently.
 When is the best time to take  Before entering Senior High School,
action? particularly before choosing
appropriate tracks of their work
interest.
 When should we ask for help with  Before the implementation of the
this? advocacy.
 If the Senior High School students gets
fully developed and well trained
 When will we know we’ve making them to fall into the tracks to
succeeded? where should they belong, thus,
making them prepared for the right
curse of their career soon.

 Where is there the most need for  Public and Private Schools
this?  Department of Education authorities
 Where do we go for help with this?  Developing countries, third world
 Where in the world would this be a countries
problem?  Knowledge, confidence, skills and
 Where are the areas for decision making of the students.
improvement?
 Why is this a problem/challenge?  (i) Numerous first batch graduates of
K to 12 were not really capable of
facing world industry. (ii) Lack of
qualified and well-trained instructors in
 Why is it relevant to me/others? Junior High School.
 To make sure the courses to take in
college. To have a real dedication and
 Why should people know about passion for the work interest soon.
this?  Complex preparation for the K to 12
program will lessen mismatch of
courses, making the graduates fully
equipped with the skills and
intelligence they will need.
 How is this similar to?  This may have some similarity to
Career Caravan but this advocacy will
take longer from 1st grading up to 4th
grading.
 How can we change this for our  Hired excellent instructors who will
good? manage the class for orienting and
facilitating students.
 (i) Alternate cycle batch per week in
 How will we approach this? accordance to their chosen field. (ii) 2
hours of discussion and 2 hours of
exercises and activities. This will be a
4 hour class every Friday that includes
activities such as:
 Examination that categorizes
their skills and abilities (verbal,
arts, mathematical, scientific,
physical, etc.)
 Divisions of activities/skills
related assignments or projects
in accordance to their chosen
field.
 Students have freedom to
choose of what skills/abilities
they want to specialize.
 Discussion involves introduction
to the world economy and
problems arising to the
Philippine economy and make
possible solutions.
 Personality Enhancement,
Career Orientation, Industry
 How does this benefit us/others? related subjects.
 K to 12 graduates are the one who can
benefit from this advocacy through
making them good enough in
decisional making, knowing their work
interest in relation to their skills and
intelligence, unfolding their innocence
about the world issues that we still
encounter today, thus, education to
make a better change for everyone.
REFERENCES

A. WEBSITES

https://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/k-12/

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1746525

https://www.philstar.com/business/2016/03/28/1566992/k-12-and-skills-
mismatch#QyFHjCVb1txvI5Jz.99

https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/sunstar-
pampanga/20170403/281668254820716

B. BLOGS

https://taborasj.wordpress.com/2014/02/18/serious-problems-with-the-k-12-senior-high-
school-curriculum/