Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 1) — Senate Committee on Basic Education chairman Sherwin Gatchalian said the new MATATAG K-10 program of the Department of Education (DepEd) should be immediately implemented to prevent students from dropping out.
Speaking to CNN Philippines’ The Source on Friday, Gatchalian explained that the dropout rate among Grades 1-3 students is around 30% to 40%.
“Because our curriculum is so congested, a lot of our children get frustrated and they don’t enter school anymore,” he said, noting that what may happen is that the child only resumes schooling by the age of 12-14 through the Alternative Learning System (ALS).
Gatchalian pointed out that ALS is not the complete approach, so students still need to go through the basic education for a holistic development.
“I do agree with Congressman Roman (Romulo) na sana ginawa na kaagad (that this should have been implemented immediately] because of that [congestion], we are seeing dropouts,” he said, referring to the new curriculum “We can only arrest that dropouts if we decongest and launch the new curriculum,” he said.
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Launched on a pilot basis in early August, the MATATAG program is a decongested curriculum for K-10 learners. Learning competencies were reduced to around 3,600 from over 11,000 in the latest curriculum to give more time for foundational skills for a better learning outcome.
The DepEd said it will undergo pilot implementation during school year 2023-2024 in 30 participating schools across six regions.
READ: Public school students welcome new school year as gov’t pilot tests decongested curriculum
