In a column I wrote about a month ago (News That Makes People Nervous, May 18), I took pains to highlight a rare positive step by the Aquino administration, the signing of the K-to-12 (K-12) bill that adds mandatory Kindergarten as well as two additional years of high school to the Philippines’ thoroughly inadequate school curriculum. At the time, I offered the argument that the positives of the initiative vastly outweigh the two main criticisms against it: Although the fears that the extended curriculum will pose a financial burden on families, and present significant challenges to the government in adequately funding and staffing the al system are valid concerns, they are manageable problems, and should not be a reason not to proceed with a program that will help to raise Philippine to something much closer to competitive international standards, and provide a better-prepared, more mature stock of fresh human capital to the country’s tertiary system and its workforce, both of which lag behind the rest of the world precisely because of the poor level of development provided by the truncated basic program.