Philippine Institute

for Development Studies

Policy Notes
Surian sa mga Pag-aaral
Pangkaunlaran ng Pilipinas ISSN 1656-5266 No. 2015-06 (March 2015)

K to 12 reform: Implications of adding

Grades 11 and 12 on the higher education
subsector

Rosario G. Manasan employable age to qualify for employment in

the formal sector if they wish to do so; and

T
he enactment of the “Enhanced Basic
Education Act of 2013” extends the basic
education cycle to include two additional
years at the secondary level (otherwise known
as the K to 12 program). The basic education
program now consists of one year of
kindergarten, six years of elementary
education, and six years of secondary
education, with the latter consisting of four
years of junior high school and two years of
senior high school (Figure 1). It is envisaged
that the K to 12 program will make the
Philippine basic education cycle not only more
comparable internationally but also better
able to prepare students for the workplace and
for higher levels of learning by: (i)
decongesting the existing 10-year curriculum;
(ii) providing students the opportunity to
learn the necessary skills and reach the
(iii) giving students who aspire to go to
higher education more adequate preparation
for college work (NEDA 2011).
This Policy Note does an initial assessment of
the K to 12 program’s effects on the supply of
classrooms and teachers vis-à-vis the
projected demand. It points to some windows
of opportunities that may be considered as
possible solutions, such as allowing higher
education institutions to absorb the additional
demand for places in senior high schools.
Based on the Senior High School Absorptive
Capacity Study carried out under the Asian
PIDS Policy Notes are observations/analyses written by PIDS researchers on certain
policy issues. The treatise is holistic in approach and aims to provide useful inputs for
decisionmaking.
The author is senior research fellow at PIDS. The views expressed are those of the
author and do not necessarily reflect those of PIDS or any of the study’s sponsors.
2
Figure 1. Comparison of current basic education cycle and new K to 12 basic education cycle
Entry Age 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Program Kinder Elementary
Current Kinder Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6
K to 12 Kinder Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6
Source: Author’s compilation
Development Bank Education Improvement
Sector Development Program (EISDP) Project
Preparatory Technical Assistance 2012 (ADB
2012), enrollment in Grade 11 is projected
to equal 1.1 million students in public
senior high schools (SHSs) and 0.4 million
students in private SHSs in school year (SY)
2016/17. Enrollment in SHS, which will
comprise Grades 11 and 12, is then expected
to increase to 2.0 million students in public
schools and 0.7 million students in private
______________
1
Enrollment projections are initially made at the division level
and subsequently aggregated at the regional and national
levels. Enrollments by grade and year for Grades 1–6
(elementary) and Grades 7–10 (junior high school or JHS) for
the period 2012–2020 are calculated by using cohort survival
rates that were derived from actual enrollments for each
division over the SY 2005/06 to SY 2011/12 period. To arrive
at the enrollment projection for Grade 11 in 2016 in each
division, the year-on-year cohort survival rate from Grade 9 to
10 in SY 2009/10 to SY 2011/12 was extrapolated and
applied to the projected number of Grade 10 students in SY
2015/16 (or the survivors of the cohort who entered JHS as
freshmen in SY 2012/13). Similarly, the number of Grade 11
students in SY 2017/18 is obtained by applying the Grade 9
to Grade 10 cohort survival rate over the SY 2009/10 to SY
2010/11 period to the projected number of projected Grade
10 students in SY 2016/17 while the projected number of
Grade 12 students in the same year is obtained by applying
the same cohort survival rate to the projected number of Grade
11 students in 2016. Note that the projected Grade 11
enrollment in SY 2020/21 is based on the cohort that entered
the JHS program as freshmen in SY 2016/17.
PN 2015-06
Policy Notes
12 13 14 15 16 17
Junior High School Senior High School
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4
Grade 7 Grade 8 Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12
schools in SY 2017/18 (Table 1).1 The
projections assume that graduates of public
junior high schools (JHSs) who will proceed
to SHS will stay in public schools, while
graduates of private JHSs who proceed to
SHS will stay in the private sector.
Although some 10,000 classrooms in existing
private JHSs are likely to be available for
the SHS program in SY 2016/17, this still
falls short of the projected demand for SHS
places in the private sector by about 9,000
classrooms (ADB 2012). Meanwhile, if the
Department of Education (DepED) were to
provide the places needed to accommodate
all the students who are projected to enter
public SHSs, it has to build close to 27,000
new classrooms by SY 2016/17 and an
additional 23,812 classrooms by SY 2017/18.
DepED also has to hire close to 46,000 new
teachers in 2016 and some 38,700 more new
teachers for the SHS program in 2017/18
(Table 2). Given these requirements, the
budgetary support needed for the SHS program
is estimated to be equal to PHP 27 billion in
SY 2015/16, PHP 37 billion in SY 2016/17,
PHP 28 billion in SY 2017/18, and an
 3

average of PHP 33 billion over the SY 2018–
2020 period (DepED various years).
Fortunately, there is a possible immediate
partial solution. There are available resources
in the higher education sector that can be
harnessed to help DepED ensure that there is
enough supply to meet the demand for SHS
places in SY 2016/17 onwards. With the
addition of two years in the secondary
school cycle in SY 2016/17, public and private
higher education institutions (HEIs) will have
no freshmen students in SY 2016/17, no
freshmen and sophomore students in SY
2017/18, no sophomore and junior students
in SY 2018/19, and no junior and senior
students in SY 2019/20. Thus, HEIs will have
empty places that can be made available for
the SHS students, in the interim at the very
least, because of these missing cohorts in
2016–2019. Moreover, the reduced teaching
load in general education as a result of the
shifting of about a year’s worth of general
education courses from the tertiary level to
the senior high school program means that
it is likely that there will be excess capacity
in the HEIs even after the transition years.
In total, it is projected there will be about
860,000 places in public and private HEIs that
may be used for the SHS program in SY 2016/
2017, equivalent to some 21,600 classrooms.

Table 1. Enrollment projectionsa in public and private SHS (2016–2020) and number of available HEI places
in 2017/2018

Public SHS Private SHS Number of Places Available in HEIs for SHS
in SY 2017/18
2016/17 2017/18 2020/21 2016/17 2017/18 2020/21 Private HEIs LUCs SUCs All HEIs

Total Philippines 1,078,453 2,030,723 2,141,435 350,602 667,943 684,200 899,748 72,262 525,324 1,497,334

Region I - Ilocos Region 61,606 116,393 118,291 17,026 32,576 34,426 47,147 2,843 30,188 80,178
Region II - Cagayan Valley 38,756 74,239 75,154 10,517 20,900 22,043 27,568 508 31,983 60,059
Region III - Central Luzon 118,689 223,831 234,541 45,073 88,787 90,649 59,475 3,947 56,458 119,881
Region IV-A - CALABARZON 147,307 279,381 294,326 73,621 142,584 141,700 99,090 5,037 56,496 160,624
Region IV-B - MIMAROPA 36,839 68,839 71,896 6,894 13,186 12,140 4,789 276 23,667 28,822
Region V - Bicol Region 77,640 147,763 157,213 14,448 26,440 31,141 36,727 5,069 34,659 76,456
Region VI - Western Visayas 87,813 164,644 174,993 21,009 42,029 43,781 57,262 6,068 43,500 106,829
Region VII - Central Visayas 82,033 156,425 166,638 27,058 50,834 59,175 84,001 2,542 34,971 121,514
Region VIII - Eastern Visayas 54,788 101,468 107,015 9,005 16,484 19,193 16,993 1,441 39,346 57,780
Region IX - Zamboanga Peninsula 40,392 76,401 83,389 7,309 14,084 16,263 31,798 0 22,537 54,335
Region X - Northern Mindanao 41,326 74,836 80,336 13,678 25,856 26,776 39,212 2,046 25,677 66,936
Region XI - Davao Region 45,228 84,474 98,811 11,556 20,315 23,339 49,684 649 13,143 63,476
Region XII - SOCCSKSARGEN 45,632 87,917 93,646 12,482 23,706 25,410 54,887 0 15,807 70,693
Caraga 28,512 53,395 56,895 6,196 11,283 11,730 41,007 143 11,976 53,126
NCR 131,372 246,465 249,446 59,185 109,165 95,781 173,760 41,692 58,970 274,421
CAR 17,200 32,829 33,584 7,483 14,619 14,984 15,058 0 13,102 28,160
ARMM 23,320 41,424 45,262 8,063 15,095 15,669 61,201 0 12,844 74,045

a
Division-level projections based on historical levels of cohort survival rates
Source: ADB (2012)

PN 2015-06

Policy Notes
4

Table 2. Projected classroom/teacher requirement under alternative scenarios

regarding provision of places for projected public SHS enrollment,
SY 2016/17 and SY 2017/18

Number of Classrooms Number of Teachers

2016/17 2017/18a 2016/17 2017/18a

With pure DepED provision 26,955 23,812 45,908 38,708

If 100 percent of HEI places were made 11,572 11,613 20,273 18,381
available to public SHS students

If 50 percent of HEI places were made 17,454 16,581 30,080 26,644

available to public SHS students

a
incremental for the year
Source: ADB (2012)

In SY 2017/18, these numbers would have
increased to 1.5 million places in public and
private HEIs, equivalent to 37,433 classrooms
(Table 1).2 Although the geographic
distribution of these places is fairly uneven,
HEIs are present in all school divisions with
the exception of two divisions (Siargao and
Lanao del Sur II). If all the available places in
HEIs arising from the missing cohorts were
made available to the SHS program, the total
classroom requirement for the SHS program in
public schools would drop by 57 percent from
26,955 with pure DepED provision to 11,572
in SY 2016/17. However, if only 50 percent of
the available places in HEIs are made available
for the SHS program in the public sector, then
the total classroom requirement in public SHS
would drop by 35 percent to 17,454 in SY
2016/2017 (Table 2).
______________
2
The number of places in HEIs that may become available for
the SHS program in 2017 is estimated based on the number
of their first year and second year students in 2011 assuming
a standard class size of 40.
Allowing HEIs to offer the SHS program, at
least in the interim, is a win-win solution.
First, it would allow DepED to delay or
reduce the number of classrooms that the
public sector needs to construct to meet the
requirements of the SHS program, thereby
reducing the pressure on government
resources and capability. HEI participation in
the SHS program, in the short term, would
buy DepED time to determine the real
demand for SHS places before it actually
builds the needed classrooms, thereby
enabling it to avoid the possibility of
overbuilding of classrooms. Second, it would
avoid private HEIs from retrenching their
faculty members who would be left with no
students to teach because of the missing
cohorts over the 2016–2019 period. Third,
the current HEI faculty provides a ready
source of teaching expertise for the higher-
level subjects required in the new SHS
curriculum. Fourth, it will ensure that the
resources of state universities and colleges
(SUCs) are put to optimum use instead of

PN 2015-06

Policy Notes

being underutilized.3 Note that the K to 12
law allows HEI faculty to teach in the SHS
program even if they have not passed the
Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET).
However, for HEIs to actively participate in
the SHS program, appropriate policies will
have to be put in place. An enabling policy
environment will be needed to allow HEIs to
offer the SHS program, such as the provision
of (i) mechanisms/programs (e.g., education
service contracting, vouchers, and/or
concession arrangements) to encourage
private HEIs to make available for the use of
incoming SHS students over the 2016–2019
period the places that will be left vacant by
the missing cohorts in the collegiate level;
and (ii) other policies (like credit window
for classroom construction) that will support
private HEIs that will be interested to offer
the SHS program on a long-term basis.
Additionally, the government has to modify
its existing policy governing SUCs’ basic
education program offerings. SUCs are
allowed to offer the basic education
program (including the JHS program)4 only
if they also offer teacher education at the
baccalaureate level. Moreover, the size of the
enrollment in their basic education program
is limited to 500 students. This restriction is
provided for under a special provision
inserted each year into the General
Appropriations Act. Because many SUCs
historically were converted from secondary
schools to trade schools and finally to
colleges or universities, this policy was
5
deemed important in ensuring that SUCs do
not continue to operate large basic education
programs while paying their faculty higher
rates in line with their status as SUCs.
With the introduction of the SHS program,
this policy will need to be revisited and
amended, at least in the interim, to allow (or
possibly even encourage) SUCs to offer the
SHS program to as many students they can
accommodate given their existing faculty
complement (at least the tenured component
of it) and the missing cohorts in the collegiate
level over the 2016–2019 period. In the
medium term, the government would need
to review SUCs’ staffing pattern in the light
of the downloading of some of the general
education subjects in their baccalaureate
programs to the SHS program. 
References
National Economic and Development Authority
(NEDA). 2011. Philippine Development Plan
2011–2016. Pasig City: NEDA.
Asian Development Bank (ADB). 2012. Education
Improvement Sector Development Program
(EISDP) Project Preparatory Technical
Assistance. Mandaluyong City: ADB. http://
www.adb.org/projects/documents/education
-improvement-sector-development-program
-ipsa.
Department of Education (DepED). Various years.
Medium-Term Expenditure Plan 2013–2017,
2012. Pasig City: DepED.
______________
3
Faculty retrenchment is not a problem in the SUC sector
inasmuch as civil service rules give SUCs’ faculty security of
tenure.
4
The basic education programs of SUCs are viewed as
laboratory schools of their teacher education programs in
the collegiate level.
PN 2015-06
Policy Notes
6

List of Policy Notes in 2014

PN 2014-01 How should we move forward in customs brokerage and trade facilitation? (G. Llanto, A. Navarro, K. Detros, and M.K. Ortiz)
PN 2014-02 Using the social rate of discount in evaluating public investments in the Philippines (E. Medalla)
PN 2014-03 Toward relaxing the cabotage restrictions in maritime transport (G. Llanto and A. Navarro)
PN 2014-04 Big Data for measuring progress and development: Big insights or big issues? (J.R. Albert)
PN 2014-05 Reviewing quality assessment tools for graduate education (M.A. Ofreneo)
PN 2014-06 A profile of graduate education programs in the Philippines (M.A. Ofreneo)
PN 2014-07 Formulating the Philippine services strategy for inclusive growth (R. Serafica)
PN 2014-08 Bakit nagmahal ang bigas noong 2013? At bakit mahal pa rin? The continuing saga of rice self-sufficiency in the Philippines
(R. Briones and I.M. Galang)
PN 2014-09 Linking small farmers to modern markets: The role of contract farming (R. Briones and I.M. Galang)
PN 2014-10 Competition in the rice value chain: Highlights of a rapid appraisal (B. dela Peña)
PN 2014-11 Analysis of technical assumptions and processes of evaluating feasibility of irrigation projects (T. Moya)
PN 2014-12 Government investment in deep-well pumps: Some preliminary notes for policy (A. dela Cruz and R. Briones)
PN 2014-13 Appraisal of methodology in estimating irrigable areas and processes of evaluating feasibility of NIA irrigation projects
(G. Tabios III and C. David)
PN 2014-14 Process, nature, and impacts of irrigation system rehabilitation (M.L. delos Reyes)
PN 2014-15 Effects of minimum wage on the Philippine economy (L. Lanzona, Jr.)
PN 2014-16 Is growth really jobless? (J.R. Albert)
PN 2014-17 Clarifying the jobs challenge (A. Orbeta, Jr. and V. Paqueo)
PN 2014-18 The need (or not) for fiscal incentives (R. Manasan and D.K. Parel)
PN 2014-19 How should income-based grantees in tertiary education be chosen? (D.V. Silfverberg)
PN 2014-20 Measuring irrigation performance: Lessons from national systems (C. David and A. Inocencio)
PN 2014-21 Establishing the linkages between human resource development and inclusive growth (T. Tullao, Jr. et al.)
PN 2014-22 Why global value chains and services matter: Implication for APEC 2015 (R. Serafica)
PN 2014-23 Process assessment of the bottom-up budgeting: The case of Quezon Province (C. Pastrana and M. Lagarto)
____________
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PN 2015-06

Policy Notes