Given the challenges brought by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the Department of Education (DepEd) was urged to allow schools to choose their own curricula especially for school year (SY) 2021-2022.
“For the coming school year at least, as an ‘emergency measure’ in view of the pandemic conditions, to allow public and private schools to choose between spiral and disciplinal curricula,” said Dr. Christopher Bernido, 2010 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for education and the President of the Central Visayan Institute Foundation (CVIF), during the DepEd’s Educ Forum Series on Thursday, Aug. 26.
“Many schools are opting or have opted for disciplinal because they think that the spiral curriculum is disastrous,” he added.
Likewise, Bernido also recommended to DepEd to decentralize curriculum design and implementation.
“DepEd regions and divisions should be autonomous in choice of curriculum since one wrong centralized decision affects all schools in the country,” he said.
Education Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado San Antonio, as a response, expressed openness to the recommendation of Bernido.
PISA 2018 and the curriculum
During the pilot episode of the virtual forum series, the K to 12 Curriculum Review Results were presented and discussed.
Bernido, who was among the reactors, discussed that results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) where Filipino students showed poor performance in Math, Science and Reading.
“Everybody has been talking about assessment because it gives us a way towards what to do next,” he said.
For Bernido , there could never be “more important performance indicator” than the PISA 2018. “What other assessment would you like?” he said. “This is a clear-cut --- numbers don’t lie --- five-year assessment after we moved from the disciplinal to spiral curriculum,” he added.
When it comes the curriculum, Bernido said that DepEd has to go to the “root” of the problem. “Otherwise we will just be keeping ourselves busy with the leaves and the branches without looking at the roots,” he explained.
READ:
https://mb.com.ph/2021/08/26/to-solve-ph-educational-crisis-deped-must-go-directly-to-the-root-of-the-problem/
Based on the presentations during the forum, Bernido pointed out that there were already many problems in the curriculum.
“But some of these problems will disappear if we take another curriculum, some of these problems will be alleviated once we move out of the spiral curriculum,” he added.
In 2010, he and wife, Dr. Ma. Victoria Carpio-Bernido, won the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia’s Premier Prize, for their “their purposeful commitment to both science and nation; ensuring innovative, low cost, and effective basic education even under Philippine conditions of great scarcity and daunting poverty.”
The Bernido couple developed the innovative Dynamic Learning Program (DLP) developed as early as 1999 for which they were honored with the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
READ:
https://mb.com.ph/2020/09/03/rm-award-foundation-touts-internet-free-dynamic-learning-program/
The DLP was designed not to be dependent on the internet or broadcast platforms. It offers a series of modules that students can learn on their own.
To strengthen the implementation of the Basic Education-Learning Continuity Plan (BE-LCP), DepEd collaborated with the CVIF and Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart) to bring improvement to the Philippine educational landscape through the DLP.
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