DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Congress wants to stop teachers from giving homework. This sounds like a good proposal, except that this is a requirement of K to 12.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) pointed out this fact after Representatives Elvie Escudero and Alfredo Vargas filed bills to have students do their assignments in schools to save more time for bonding and non-school activities at home.
ACT National Chairperson Joselyn Martinez, a public school teacher, said Congress should also review the implementation of K to 12 which has burdened both teachers and students in homework with lack of materials.
“K12 was an experiment that tried to integrate a little bit of everything in a complicated manner, while leaving no ample time for mastery of subjects and development of critical thinking. Further, the range of topics and competencies set by the K to 12 curriculum are impossible to cover within formal class hours, resulting to added and beyond-school hour work for both teachers and students,” Martinez said.
Martinez said that since the K-12 follows an outcome-based education (OBE) framework, this demands students to produce several outputs for their assigned topic, which teachers are also required to design and facilitate through their daily lessons logs (DLL).
“For example, our DLL should indicate that a certain topic should be covered within, say, an hour. Such should entail a discussion or input part from the teacher and multiple activities to ensure learners are engaged, like reporting, skits, writing, poster-making, and many others,” shared Martinez.
Martinez said that students, as well as teachers, are forced to render overtime school work.
She pointed out that research work has been “made heavier” on both teachers and students, due to lack of learning materials.
“Students have more than one class and therefore are required to cover several topics and competencies daily. No amount of ‘budgeting of work’ can force students and teachers alike to accomplish more than what is realistically doable in a set period of time, hence the need to take home their school work,” Martinez explained.
Martinez also took swipe on Education Secretary Leonor Briones for supporting the no-homework policy when her department pushes for more work through K-12.
“It is unfair for DepEd to claim that they are ‘discouraging homework’ through several policies, because the agency’s main curriculum is the culprit behind this added work,” Martinez said.
The K to 12 has been criticized by ACT and other observers as it aggravated problems in the education system, from lack of facilities to unclear curriculum, and its failure to produce graduates competent for jobs. (davaotoday.com)
