OFFICE OF SENATOR ANTONIO "SONNY" F. TRILLANES IV
PRESS RELEASE
15 JULY 2012
English Version:
Trillanes: Let’s address first the basic problems of education
Senator Antonio “Sonny” F. Trillanes IV wants the government to solve the basic problems confronting the education sector instead of pushing the K to 12 program of the Department of Education (DepEd).
The government rolled out the K to 12 program this June to produce “employable youth”, but at a hearing last June 5 of the Senate Committee on Education, no less than DepEd admitted that the additional two years in basic education would not address the diminishing quality of education.
According to Trillanes, the poor quality of the country’s education system will only be solved by first addressing the fundamental problems such as lack of teachers, low salary, shortage of classrooms, chairs and textbooks.
“Once we provide a conducive learning environment, it’s going to reflect on the student’s performance in school. We’ll have to do those basics first before we think of more complex issues of curriculum change,” Trillanes explained.
Trillanes, however, clarified that he was not totally against the K to 12 program. “I’m not ruling it out. But we can’t really pinpoint the problem if we haven’t solved the basic problems first because, like I’ve said, the 10-year basic education program worked for generations before and the public school system before was competitive with the private school. Besides, the economic burden of two more years may be too much to bear for the parents during these trying times.”
Trillanes also debunked DepEd’s claim that the program will address the youth unemployment, saying “If the college graduates don’t have employment opportunities then how much more for the high school graduates? So whether they are employable or not, will they be employed to begin with?”
According to Trillanes, K to 12 plan will not only entail additional costs to government but also to parents who are already burdened by the escalating prices of food, utilities, gasoline and LPG, among others. #
