Wrong Track in Senior High School?
August 20, 2018
With the new K to 12 curriculum in the Philippines, various tracks are now offered in the last
two years of basic education. The various options available obviously make it possible for
students to find themselves later unprepared for the courses they decide to take in college. A
student, for instance, who finishes the accounting business management (ABM) strand in the
senior high school academic track, is now required to take additional courses if the student
chooses to enroll in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) major in
college. These additional courses which are now called "bridging programs" are either taken
during the first year of college or over several weeks in the summer before college starts.
Above copied from Coldwater High School Early College Program
There are bridging programs in the United States, but these are different from the ones that are
now appearing in colleges in the Philippines. In Coldwater High School in Michigan, for example,
the "bridging program" is an option for students to earn college credits in high school. The
"bridging program" in the Philippines is more like a set of remedial courses. In some cases,
these remedial courses are given only over a few weeks. Below is an example from Saint Joseph
College in Maasin, Leyte:
Looking at the above schedule, students are supposed to take a 5-day course in General
Chemistry, each day for eight hours. The two weeks before that, these students have spent
eighty hours on pre-calculus and basic calculus and the next two weeks, a total of eighty hours
are devoted to physics. This is quite intense.
Obviously, these involve additional time, effort and money. The National Union of Students in
the Philippines is clearly not happy with these bridging programs. The Union's recent
statement is as follows:
[OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON THE BRIDGING PROGRAM]
August 19, 2018
The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) expresses grave concern over the
Bridging Program required for the first wave of Senior High School (SHS) graduates that entered
tertiary education this school year. The said program is for students who took SHS strands that
are “mismatched” with their current tertiary education course. They are required to take
additional subjects in order to “demonstrate the competencies” required of a graduate of a
strand aligned with the course.
In the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), students under the Bridging Program are
required to finish two additional subjects over two years just to be considered qualified to take
their college course, while also taking the same subjects as students who do not have to take
the Bridging Program.
In the University of the East (UE), the Bridging Program requires students to take General
Education subjects first during the regular school year, and then enroll in their major subjects
during the summer break. This entails around twenty thousand pesos (Php 20,000) in additional
fees on top of their already bloated tuition and other school fees — a slap on the face of
students and families whose pockets were emptied by capitalist-educators that profited from
the K-12 program.
The implementation of the Bridging Program displays the failure of K-12 to produce college-
ready graduates despite the additional two years in high school. Also, it exposes the rotten K-12
program as nothing short of a burden to the Filipino people. Its goal of producing "globally
competitive and work-ready" graduates is in reality a scheme to enhance the capability of
schools to become factories of cheap, docile, semi-skilled workers to meet global labor
demands.
Duterte’s refusal to junk the K-12 program amid its numerous failures, including the Bridging
Program, shows that his regime does not seek to address the chronic illness of our country’s
education system. He only cares about preserving the reality of the K-12 program: a neoliberal
attack on the fundamental right to education.
Duterte would rather generate profit for capitalists-educators and sell the Filipino youth to the
global market as contractual laborers, rather than heed the demands of the youth in our
decades-long struggle for nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented education.
It is high time for us students to strengthen unities to expose and oppose these attacks and
maneuvers to our right to education. In a time of worsening socio-political crisis, it is the duty of
the Filipino youth to mobilize and fight for the democratic interests of the Filipino people.
EDUCATION NOT FOR SALE!
WE ARE NOT FOR SALE!
JUNK K-12!
The problem, however, goes far beyond additional time and money. The question of whether
these bridge programs are effective or not remains. This is the huge difference between a
"bridging program" that is meant for advancement (Coldwater High School example) and a
"bridging program" that is meant for remedial (colleges in the Philippines). As a study in
Australia shows:
Students entering university with insufficient mathematics preparation for the courses they
intend to study is an increasing problem. We show evidence of how withdrawal rates, failure
rates, and final marks in a first year calculus unit are strongly associated with the level of
mathematics studied at school, the assumed knowledge published for the degree and enrolment
in a bridging course. Bridging course students were, on the whole, able to pass their first
semester university calculus-based subject; however, they did not achieve at the level of their
mathematically well-prepared peers.
The K to 12 curriculum in the Philippines with its tracks and strands basically forces students to
choose a career path at an early age. The wrong choices made unfortunately have serious
consequences.
Ref.: https://www.philippinesbasiceducation.us/2018/08/wrong-track-in-senior-high-school.html
The K to 12 Academic Track: What You Need to Know
by webdev | Jul 14, 2015 | News | 7 comments
One of the significant features of the K to 12 system is the integration of specialized tracks
designed to help students in determining their respective career paths. These four tracks—
academic, technical-vocational, sports, and arts and design—are aimed at enhancing a
student’s ability based on what he wants to do after graduation.
The technical-vocational, sports, and arts and design tracks will allow students to join the
workforce immediately upon graduation while the academic track prepares students for further
studies.
The academic track consists of courses that will make college life easier to adjust to in terms of
subject variety and, to a certain degree, difficulty. This does not mean, however, that if you
take the other tracks, you cannot go to college. If a student chose the arts and design track, for
instance, nothing is stopping him from taking up Fine Arts or Interior Design in college instead
of working right away. It would still depend on the student. The academic track is simply the
track that prepares students for the most common college courses such as business
management, engineering, and the sciences.
Upon choosing the academic track, students can choose from four different strands: General
Academic; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics; Accountancy, Business, and
Management; and Humanities and Social Sciences. Students may choose their strand in the
same way that they decide a course in college. Aside from the 15 core subjects, these strands
will add 16 subjects composed of different contextualized and specialized subjects based on the
track and strand that will be spread out in grades 11 and 12.
The academic track is the most familiar one because students usually apply to colleges upon
graduation from high school. The only difference is that the subjects are now highly specific and
specialized. These are but some of the changes brought about by the K to 12 system.
Ref.; https://www.ahead.edu.ph/the-k-to-12-academic-track-what-you-need-to-know/
