SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY’S (SBU) Social Sciences and Humanities Association (SSHA) held a webinar discussing the Department of Education’s (DepEd) reforms to the Philippines’ Basic Education entitled, “A is for Apparatus: Basic Education Under the Marcos Administration,” last November 22.
For the event, SSHA partnered with the Junior Bedan Law Circle (JBLC), the Political Science department, Kulturang Laya Bedista (KLB), The Repvblic (TR), the University of the East’s (UE) and Polytechnic University of the Philippine’s Political Science Societies, along with SSHA’s special partner, High School Philippine History Movement.
The activity chairperson and SSHA’s Secretary-General, Sean Audric Uy, stressed the importance of the event’s discourse that is the reformation of the Philippines’ Basic Education.
“I think there is lacking discourse din kasi when it comes to organizations, at least in San Beda, na nagta-tackle ng basic education or education reforms ng K-12 even though ito yung pinanggalingan [nating] lahat.” He added that “mahalaga na i-raise natin [ang] discourse na ‘to in the college level because most of our policy makers, most of our future policy makers actually, and future teachers.”
Moreover, following careful research, SSHA has chosen MATATAG Curriculum consultant, Dr. Maria Mercedes Arzadon, and High School Philippine History Movement’s Board Member, Mr. Johnel Brit.
In her discussion, Dr. Arzadon emphasized the Philippines’ need for a transformative education system that would equip students with functional skills and inculcate in them a sense of identity, one that would teach them to “read the word and read the world.”
However, she further explained that the current school system remains far from the aforementioned ideals because it “does not function to uplift the poor and marginalized.”
Schools and their materials use imagery, symbols, and implicit messages that teach children that “domination and inequality are normal,” glorifying colonizers along with their language as well as muting the repressive regime that was Martial Law.
Furthermore, she presented that the DepEd-launched curriculum, MATATAG, decongested the current curriculum by 70%, replacing subjects such as Mother Tongue with integrated subjects, a direct compromise of the inculcation of one’s identity.
On the other hand, Mr. Brit spotlighted the “endangered” Philippine History, or Araling Panlipunan, in the Basic Education curriculum.
“There is a six-year gap when it comes to learning Philippine history” in the K-12 curriculum, he says, adding that “there’s such a lot of… youth… today that are actually being victimized–of a lot of false information about our history.” For context, Philippine History is no longer a subject from grades seven until 12.
This is in compliance to DepEd’s Order 20, s. 2014 that integrates the subject with other high school history subjects such as Asian History and World History. Mr. Brit continues that a school-year-long duration could not do a thorough coverage of these subjects nor could it give time to inject Philippine History in the discussions.
Moving forward, Uy described the event as a “great success,” despite the hurdles faced by the Social Sciences organization, showing gratitude to the event’s partnerships.
Their participation had “formed a huge chunk ng audience natin,” he said, adding that the organization was anticipating 50 people.
The speakers’ enthusiasm had also contributed to an insightful informative event as they were “very eager to actually share” to the Bedan community.