By Merlina Hernando-Malipot
The Department of Education (DepEd) is set to roll out a revised curriculum this coming school year (SY) 2020-2021, which highlights the streamlining of the K to 12 curriculum to the most “essential” learning competencies.
DepEd Undersecretary and Spokesperson Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan (PNA / MANILA BULLETIN)
As the result of the curriculum review, which started almost two years ago, DepEd undersecretary Nepoluceno Malaluan said that the agency’s Bureau of Curriculum Development (BCD) had compressed the curriculum to the Most Essential Learning Competencies (MELCs) to be implemented this coming school year.
To guide the department on how to deliver education in this crisis while ensuring the health, safety, and welfare of all learners, teachers, and personnel, DepEd has developed Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP).
As part of DepEd’s LCP, Malaluan said that the K to 12 curriculum had been streamlined to 5,689 MECLs from the original 14,171, or a reduction by 60 percent. This move aims to “address curriculum review finding of congestion and overlaps.”
Learning competencies, as per DepEd, refer to the “knowledge, understanding, skills, and attitudes that students need to demonstrate in every lesson and/or learning activity.”
Malaluan, however, clarified that the revised K to 12 curriculum containing MECLs would be used “only for this year, for now.”
DepEd has announced the formal school opening in basic education on Aug. 24 wherein distance learning will be a “major learning component.”
While the revised K to 12 curriculum will be used this coming SY, Malaluan said that this would be subject for review in the coming years.
“We will review it again for longer term within the year,” he explained.
“We have made a limited circulation of pre-final draft LCP,” he said.
The MECLs, he added, is an “annex” or part of emergency response amid COVID-19 crisis through the implementation of the LCP.