THE Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones on Tuesday stressed the importance of collaborative effort in improving human rights education under the new K to 12 basic education curriculum as the nation marked the 44th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law last September 21, 2016.
Briones also urged colleagues and stakeholders in higher education to support the department in the responsibility to “extend the net of sources” and lend additional substantive content to different learning materials, especially in writing textbooks.
According to Curriculum and Instruction Undersecretary Dina Ocampo, the inclusion of martial law in the new basic education curriculum is not confined to the subject Araling Panlipunan or Social Sciences.
The lessons, which echo the K to 12 curriculum’s emphasis on “karapatan, pananagutan at pagkabansa,” are also learned by students through other subjects like Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao.
She also emphasized that DepEd works with competent people in various disciplines to provide evidence-based and age-appropriate content and context. That’s good.
It will work best if Secretary Briones takes a look at the Sibika at Kultura textbooks that are being sued by the schoolchildren.
Last time we looked, these books had entries of inconsequential things like the name of the person who returned this much cash that he picked up, which many of us have not even heard about.
While honesty is something we should acknowledge and celebrate, single acts of honesty have little room in school textbooks that should be big on history and major events that affect the whole country. There are the social networks that such single acts of honesty can be extolled in.
Contents of textbooks should be tested for merit such that only what’s worthy makes it to print, like human rights and the multiple violations during the Martial Law years.
The eyes of someone who has spent her life in education should have a good grasp of what should make it to Philippine textbooks, which our untrained eyes are saying has been filled full of dubious facts.
It is heartening to know that the Education Secretary thinks that there should be greater emphasis on the lessons from the past where human rights have been abused.
Now, we want to see some changes in the narratives that the textbooks are telling us.