The Department of Education will soon implement what it calls an enhanced 12-year education program, adding one year

in elementary level and another year in the secondary level. In his first State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Benigno S. Aquino III said there is a need to increase the basic education cycle from ten years to 12 years. Education Secretary Bro. Armin Luisto said that the new program would roll out a simplified and a competency-driven curriculum that would produce professionally competent and skilled high school graduates. He said that irrelevant subjects would be taken out of the curriculum while new subjects would be incorporated to develop the technical and vocational skills of the students. The DepEd would also coordinate with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to determine which technical and vocational skills were in demand.In other countries, where a 12-year education cycle is being followed, a high school diploma is already a ticket to finding respectable employment. If we do the same, college education will become more affordable to many of our high school graduates, Luistro said. Ateneo de Manila University president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres SJ criticized the plan and said the government should first focus on addressing school backlogs and show progress. In reaction, Luistro said that adding two years to basic education, and reviewing the school curriculum and solving the shortages in teachers, classrooms and textbooks, could all be done at the same time. Why? Is it not possible to do both? They always say its either one or the other but this is a good time to bring the components together, Luistro said. The previous administration had said the country lacked 40,000 classrooms but the figure had risen to 60,000. Nebres, former head of the Presidential Task Force on Education in the Arroyo administration, is not convinced, saying Luistros plan to review the basic education curriculum should come second to addressing the school backlog.

What we have found is that the heart of the problem is not so much changing the curriculum. The heart of the problem is to make it possible for the teacher to teach well, Nebres said.

Students, teachers oppose the plan In a statement posted at its website, the League of Filipino Students (LFS) also hit DepEds plan. Terry Ridon, LFS national chairperson, said that even if government increases the number of years of basic education, for as long as the average student-teacher ratio remains at 80:1, the quality of education in the country would remain stunted. An additional two years of basic schooling would only mean that funding that should be given for the building of classrooms, the repair of dilapidated facilities and the purchase of more textbooks, shall be diverted to the costs of operations of that additional two years. Tell us, how then do we address the more basic problems with such diversion of funding? asked Ridon. He added it is wrong for the DepEd to compare the supposed international standard of 12- year basic education with the ten-year model followed by the country. Ridon said that while other countries fund their public education system, the country had slashed its education budget several times. The biggest alliance of public school teachers also opposed the additional two years in basic education. The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) said that adding years to the basic education program is not the solution to the crisis in Philippine education. We say no to this plan being pushed by the DepEd and P-Noy. The 12- year basic education program will further deepen the chronic crisis of Philippine education which is caused and reflection of the chronic crisis of poverty and corrupt politics in the Philippines, said France Castro, ACT secretary general. ACT said the 12-year education cycle will definitely and heavily add to the burden of Filipino family which majority belongs to the poor and further exploit our teachers to more work loads and less and less pay in real value.

Castro added that the 12- year basic education program would not necessarily lead to more employment, pointing out that the countrys backward economy cannot provide local employment and the world economic crisis gives no assurance to provide global employment to the Filipino youth.