WE HAVE never encountered a more challenging situation in the educational system since the shift to the K to 12 Curriculum back in 2013 than the impending test of distance learning expected to be implemented in the opening of the school year. Although this setup is viewed as temporary, we still have no idea how short or how long this temporary would be. Also, we do not have a total grasp of how challenging this is since we are still not there. Before I share my opinion on this matter, I’d like to tackle a curriculum issue that is adversely affecting the learning of our learners today that strongly correlates to our impending educational dilemma.
Mastery of competencies is a perennial problem by our learners. Our poor performance in academics in global standards is proof. There are many ways in looking at the problem but my experience and observation dictate that this is mostly rooted in a large number of competencies our curriculum developers assigned in all learning areas. This is related to the contention that “the class periods are too short for extended activities that vitalize learning.” But we could no longer extend class periods because we have all these subjects to learn unless we cut vacation time or extend the five-day class to six-day, which is quite impossible. We can also point out this dismal academic performance on other factors such as teacher factor, environment factor, or the intellectual ability of our learners. Yet, even this last factor can be correlated to the high number of academic competencies as a source of the impasse.
Our students can on learn that much. This is not underestimating our students, it is only presenting a greater piece of reality. A child who is learning to count begins with the numbers one to five or from one to 10. A parent or teacher does not teach the child one to 50 at once or the child will not learn to count at all because of the overwhelming task. This strategy is not appropriate in the context of the learning process or learning age of the child. So, the teacher/parent may start from five numbers for easier understanding. Another example is the situation of a large poor family. There are various challenges for a poor couple having numerous children. When resources are limited, the parents cannot provide all the necessities of their children. We can argue that these parents should work hard to satisfy the needs of the whole family but given the time and effort required to improve their condition, they surely cannot acquire these resources in due time. When there are too many competencies to learn, the results are either too good or too bad. Too good means a high level of competency while too bad means incompetency-and this is what we get at the moment. Too bad.
Another implication is the excessive academic loads for students and teachers. Mastery is daunting due to the lack of time. Between too many competencies and lack of time, we surely have more control over the latter. Teachers have to move on to another topic with a question mark on students’ competency level because there are still many topics to be discussed. Hence, discussions are not deepened and interventions for failing students are not conducted properly and appropriately. In the end, quality education takes the fall. Ednave, et.al, (2018) stated in their studies that the excessive academic load has an adverse effect on the performance of both teachers and students.
Our students’ attitude towards learning and school and intellectual capacity need strong consideration too. There is what we call student culture in education and this partly speaks of the perception and attitude of the students towards learning and schooling. I observed that the majority of our learners are not academically inclined. Most hardly care about learning. They only want a diploma or the certificate of completion. So bombarding these students with too many concepts and topics only confuse and bores them. Sad and unfortunate. I am not belittling the ability of our students to achieve a desirable level of competencies but in curriculum development, content and experience are two essential elements to ponder.
In reducing the number of competencies in basic education, our students, in general, have a higher chance and greater opportunity to master them. The result is the quality of education.