Before we continue delving into the ongoing policy debate about what to do with the K to 12 curriculum, it may be useful to study its genesis in the Philippine educational system. Here, I will quote extensively from a detailed historical account prepared by Ms. Clarisse Buday, a social science researcher at the University of Asia and the Pacific, who assists me in my role as the holder of the BPI Professorial Chair in Social Entrepreneurship.

Until 2021, the Philippines was one of only three countries in the world (alongside Djibouti and Angola) with a ten-year basic education cycle, consisting of six years of elementary or grade school and four years of secondary or high school education. As globalization intensified and regional cooperation (especially the ASEAN Economic Cooperation) deepened, the Philippine educational system struggled to keep pace with international standards in higher education, employment opportunities, and lifelong learning. Globalization led more and more Filipino youth to aspire to be admitted to international universities in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Their ten-year basic education curriculum was a great handicap to their being admitted to the best universities. Even Filipino professionals who obtained their undergraduate degrees from some of the best Philippine universities were put at a great disadvantage when applying for advanced degrees or employment in countries where basic education is delivered in 12 years.

The movement towards curriculum reform began as early as 1991 when the Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM) advocated educational reforms, the most important of which was the lengthening of the basic education program from ten to twelve years. It was during the Presidency of President Benigno Aquino III (2010 to 2013) that the K to 12 program was finally adopted. In 2011, the Department of Education, under the leadership of Education Secretary Armin Luistro, launched the K to 12 program beginning with universal kindergarten. The Program was formally institutionalized through the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, signed into law on May 15, 2013. The Act expanded the education cycle to include kindergarten, six years of elementary, four years of junior high school, and two years of senior high school. It mandated the use of mother tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE), spiral progression in core subjects, and curriculum contextualization.

The K to 12 Program was implemented in phases:

- 2011–2012: Universal Kindergarten introduced

- 2012–2013: Grades 1 and 7 adopted the new curriculum

- 2016–2017: Senior High School (Grade 11) began

- 2017–2018: Grade 12 completed; first K to 12 cohort graduated.

While the K to 12 Program was intended to equip graduates with employable skills, many employers remained hesitant to hire Senior High School (SHS) graduates. A 2020 study by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) revealed that both Grade 12 graduates and Human Resources (HR) officers expressed doubts about SHS graduates’ readiness for employment. Business World also reported that employers perceived SHS graduates as lacking critical thinking competencies. Human Resource officers continue to prefer to hire college graduates, often citing lack of maturity and training gaps as reasons. The skeptics included employers from the public sector.

I attribute this problem to a misunderstanding of what graduates of the SHS are qualified for in the workforce. Obviously, they are not ready for knowledge-intensive work in the various professions, whether in the physical and social sciences, law and engineering, business and management, even if their prospective employers were to invest in their on-the-job training. They do not have sufficient intellectual preparation for these professional fields. They are, however, sufficiently prepared to assume jobs that are predominantly manual and technical if they have followed the tech-voc track and are given an opportunity to join in-house on-the-job training implemented by the companies themselves or offered by such technical schools as Dualtech, CITE, Don Bosco, MFTI, Dagatan Agritech School, Punlaan Culinary School, and other schools training manual or technical workers who are in great demand, not only in our own home market but overseas. We just have to exert the effort to convince parents and their children that there are more opportunities for employment and high wages if more young people get rid of their fixation on college diplomas and choose to prepare for lucrative jobs in electro-mechanics, carpentry, masonry, culinary arts, agro-tech, butchering, and other jobs that still require a great deal of manual effort but also increasingly incorporate more sophisticated technology like AI. In these programs, close collaboration from industry is needed to provide on-the-job training opportunities that will enable as many technical schools as possible to adopt the so-called “dual voc” system made famous by the Germans and has been perfected in the Philippine industrial scene by the Dualtech Training Institute located in the Carmelray Industrial Zone in Canlubang, Laguna. Dualtech is fortunate to have hundreds of factories in the industrial zones of Cavite, Laguna, and Batangas as partners in the dual training system. A good number of their graduates, practically all of them coming from some of the poorest households in the Philippine countryside, have been deployed in very remunerative jobs abroad. One of their employers is Lufthansa Technik, which has hired Dualtech graduates to maintain and repair airplanes not only in the Philippines but in other international airports all over the world.

There have been legislative responses to address some of these challenges in the implementation of the K to 12 curriculum. House Bill No. 7120 was filed by Congressman Alfred Vargas in 2020, proposing tax incentives for private employers who hire SHS graduates. In the Senate, the establishment of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) was approved in 2022 to conduct a comprehensive review of the education system, including K to 12. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian has been vocal in pushing for reforms, citing curriculum congestion and inadequate teacher training. Other highly knowledgeable and competent officials in the BBM Administration who are more than qualified to meet these challenges to the basic education curriculum are Secretary of Education Sonny Angara and TESDA Director General Francisco Benitez, who have devoted long years to the field of education.

In response to the evolving needs of Filipino learners and the identified gaps in the K to 12 curriculum, the Department of Education launched the MATATAG Curriculum on August 10, 2023. The reform is positioned as a cornerstone in basic education transformation. The acronym MATATAG (which stands for the Filipino words “MAkabatang edukasyon, TAong may kakayahan, TApang harapin ang bukas, Ginhawa para sa pamilya”) emphasizes the promotion of foundational learning, reduced curriculum congestion, and holistic development. Prior to the full-scale implementation, the curriculum underwent pilot testing as outlined in DepEd Memorandum No. 54, s.2023.

The Phase 1 rollout of the MATATAG Curriculum began in School Year 2024–2025, covering Kindergarten, Grades 1, 4, and 7. The Kindergarten curriculum introduces foundational experiences through play-based and experiential learning. Emphasis is placed on cognitive, language, socio-emotional, and physical development to support school readiness. Language (Grade 1) fosters oral language development and vocabulary expansion using the learner’s mother tongue. It also lays the groundwork for understanding language structure. Makabansa (Grade 1) integrates Civics, Character Education, and Culture to instill national identity, love for country, and good citizenship at an early age. Reading and Literacy (Grade 1) enhances decoding, comprehension, and fluency, ensuring that learners develop automatic word recognition and critical reading skills. Mathematics (Grade 1) curriculum prioritizes number sense, patterns, and problem-solving using concrete experiences, ensuring conceptual understanding over procedural memorization. GMRC and Values Education (Grade 1) is meant to develop socio-emotional learning and moral reasoning, preparing children to become respectful and responsible members of society.

To be continued.