EDCOM 2: Gov't Programs Support Only 1% Of Our Best And Brightest Students

(MENAFN- EIN Presswire) PHILIPPINES, October 13 - Press Release
October 12, 2024

EDCOM 2: Gov't programs support only 1% of our "best and brightest" students

"I think we really need to think through a national strategy for developing the best and the brightest. Even if we need to just add one percent, or point-five percent per year, I think we need to act. It's high time for us to begin that discussion", Executive Director Dr. Karol Mark Yee said during an October 11 site visit and discussion to the Quezon City Science High School (QCSHS) and Philippine Science High School (PSHS).

The Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) visited different science high schools to investigate how the government currently supports the "best and brightest" in the country. This was followed by a presentation from the Department of Education (DepEd) on their Special Science Programs in Elementary and Secondary. A roundtable discussion at the University of the Philippines National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education followed.

In attendance were EDCOM 2 Co-Chairpersons Sen. Win Gatchalian and Rep. Roman Romulo, UP President Angelo Jimenez, EDCOM 2 Standing Committee Members Dr. Ester Ogena, Mr. Elvin Uy, and Fr. Lawrence Llona. Also in attendance were key officials from the Department of Education and University of the Philippines.

Currently, gifted and talented learners in the Sciences are catered to by the Philippine High School System under the Department of Science and TEchnology (DOST), the Regional and Provincial Science High Schools, as well as the Special Science Programs in public elementary and secondary schools, both under the DepEd. However, even when combined, data shows that the government supports only 1.03% out of 27,081,292 learners in the country.

EDCOM 2 noted that countries differed in their target learners to support, with countries like China and South Korea focusing on their Top 3%, while in Australia and Europe, this could go up all the way to the Top 10%. In the Philippines, this means supporting an additional 533,502 to 2.43 million learners.

"This is a low-hanging fruit for the Cabinet Cluster for Education. And they should start discussing this. We should be discussing this at that level" EDCOM 2 Co-Chairperson Rep. Roman Romulo said. "DepEd should take a look at [these science programs], and expand that with [other government agencies]. Yes, we have an issue with Grade 9 students lacking reading comprehension. We should isolate that problem from this one, but let's take care of this - baka pwede 'yun", said Romulo. "[I hope we can] increase this support to five percent of students in the country", he continued.

"While we fix the foundations for the rest of our system, the data shows hundreds of thousands of learners with possibly unrealized potential that could be supported better," said Executive Director Yee. This was reaffirmed by findings from the PISA 2018 which showed that two science high schools: Pasig City Science High School and Regional Science High School for Region VI, scored even higher than the OECD average.

Philippine Science High School Executive Director Dr. Ronnalee Orteza shared how they have had to turn down many students who actually qualified for admission, due to limited slots in some regions. "Based on our data, we proposed school expansion of the Philippine Science High School because we observed that we have students who are supposed to be in Region 4A, specifically from Laguna and Batangas, but we have a cutoff for CALABARZON, which is 120", she said.

Standing Committee Member Elvin Uy noted that there are more enrollees in special science programs in high school than in elementary. "We're not giving a lot of our learners in the first two key stages [the opportunity] to be further enhanced, further encouraged - whether in science or somewhere else... What is the aspiration for our special programs, and how does that connect beyond junior high school, or even grade 5 and 6? I think that's an answer we hope to get from DepEd sooner rather than later".

Data showed that while the government is supporting 279,796 students in science high school programs, only 106,670 students are being supported in elementary, despite studies which stress the need to identify and support emergent talents as early as Key Stage 1 (Kindergarten to Grade 3).

DepEd Director Sam Soliven of the Bureau of Curriculum Development however shared that the policy currently being promulgated for special programs and science high school, which dates back to 2011, is up for review.

Teacher qualifications, spiral curriculum questioned

"We're trying to find out what concepts [from science high schools] that we can apply to our regular schools. We're trying to think of concepts that we can apply to our general schools. Baka there is something that we can think of that we can implement", EDCOM 2 Co-Chairperson Senator Sherwin Gatchalian said. "What [best practices] can we apply to regular schools?", he continued. One of the teachers in PSHS pointed to teacher training as an important factor. "Ang teachers talagang kailangan nila ng training... It's really basic that you have teacher training from the ground up. Importante po 'yun", she said. Other responses were competitive salaries for teachers and strict assessments.

During the discussions at PSHS, another key factors highlighted was the school's non-implementation of the spiral curriculum. "Definitely the spiral [curriculum] is one major difference [between general education schools and science high schools]", Gatchalian pointed out. Yee also noted that there is a difficulty in implementing spiral progression in general schools managed by DepEd.

Philippine Science High School Executive Director Dr. Ronnalee Orteza emphasized that, since the school is managed by the Department of Science and Technology, rather than DepEd, it is not compelled to implement spiral progression. "Most of our curriculum is discipline-based; 'di kami spiral. We realized when we tried [the spiral progression], pero nanaig 'yung discipline-based", she said.

Under RA 10533, the K-12 Curriculum mandates a spiral progression approach. EDCOM 2 consultations with teachers, however, have surfaced that teachers have many criticisms toward it - such as repetition of content across grade levels, lack of depth and concentration for each area in science, the omission of some fundamental concepts, challenges in their content expertise, and provision of resources.

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