Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 4) — Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Friday said the new curriculum for the K-10 program that will be implemented in the upcoming school year will focus on building the basic skills of young learners.
“They will focus on foundational skills, reading, math, and writing,” Gatchalian told CNN Philippines’ The Source.
\”These are the skills that they want to build because admittedly after that World Bank report in which 90% of our children cannot read a simple story, there is now a direction to strengthen the fundamental or the foundational skills of our children,” he explained.
The Department of Education (DepEd) last month said the new K-10 program is ready for implementation following its review of the curriculum.
Gatchalian said the focus on basic skills will be implemented among kindergarten to grade 3 learners.
Aside from this, the department also reduced the number of competencies being taught to students under the new program.
“They took note of the problem of congestion,\” the senator said. \” We’re teaching too many things, too many competencies to our children that they end up learning nothing, so they addressed that by reducing the number of competencies by almost 70%.\”
As an example, when teaching mathematics, there will be lesser topics to be covered to allow students to further master the concepts, like addition and subtraction, he noted.
Gatchalian said despite the reduction, the country is still at par with Singapore and Malaysia in terms of the number of competencies.
This move will also benefit teachers as this can reduce their workload, he added.
DepEd spokesperson Michael Poa said in July that the review for the K-12 program is still ongoing to ensure that senior high school graduates would be employable.
