First of 4 parts

ONE of the most ballyhooed outcomes of the Edcom 1 report way back in 1994 was probably the so-called trifocalization of Philippine education. Before 1994, for almost a century since the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction in 1901, the Philippine education system was a monolithic structure headed by a department secretary, with all the components — basic education, higher education, and vocational and technical education — under one roof. Indeed, with the shortcomings and inefficiencies of a huge bureaucracy, the creation of three separate education agencies by law was a good idea in 1994, or so it seemed.