BUTUAN CITY, Agusan del Norte, Philippines –The country’s top public and private elementary and secondary school journalists are divided regarding the plan of the Department of Education (DepEd) to lengthen basic education from 10 to 12 years, it was learned here Thursday.

The campus scribes from 17 regions expressed their varied views on the agency’s K+12 plan which was the issue assigned by DepEd for them to articulate on in the National Schools Press Conference (NSPC) news writing contest held last Wednesday at the Fr. Saturnino Urios University (high school) in this city, which served as venue of the five-day event hosted by DepEd in the Caraga Region.

They were later interviewed randomly by the Manila Bulletin after the hour-long written competition participated in by news writing contestants from various regions. They, however, asked not to be identified.

The K+12 plan, introduced by DepEd Secretary Armin A. Luistro on instruction of President Aquino, proposes to institutionalize kindergarten as regular part of the six-year elementary education curriculum and to add one year to the four-year secondary education program.

A high school journalist from the Eastern Visayas said the K+12 is disadvantageous to students from poor rural and urban-poor families many of whom go to school with half-empty stomach.

“Lengthening basic education will surely aggravate further our misery and the financial difficulties of our indigent parents,” she noted with much concern.

But a pro-K+12 student scribe argued that expanding basic education is a sure way to raise the quality of tertiary education so “I strongly favor Secretary Luistro’s program to add two years in the foundation stage of school system.”

“Strengthening the foundation of education,” he added, “is a sure measure of making higher education more effective, which will later benefit our college students.”