Basic education

HE said that he would have a Secretary of Education at the end of last week, but President Bongbong Marcos has admitted that selecting one is more difficult than he had earlier thought. He has asked for more time to make a choice. At the commencement of his administration, he did not have to wait at all since the vice president, Inday Sara Duterte, volunteered for the post and by express provision of the Constitution, no confirmation by the Commission on Appointments was necessary.

Elementary schools are preparing to implement the "Matatag curriculum" — the latest in the rather fast-paced evolution of the basic education curriculum. Project implementation will run through till 2027-2028 when it goes into effect for Grade 10. Obviously, the foremost question vexing school heads is: "What happens to the Matatag curriculum?" My urgent plea to whoever is chosen to head the department is simple: Keep it, and let us apply the brakes on ceaseless experimenting that has yielded hardly anything more than confusion on the part of teachers and school heads in our elementary and high schools. Whenever the curriculum is redesigned, it is not merely a matter of teaching pupils according to a new program of study. It involves the tedious task of re-orienting teachers and crafting appropriate learning materials. Some years ago, textbooks that were scandalously below par, riddled with factual errors and marred by grammatical lapses came to the attention of the public. That is the bitter fruit of so many changes in the curriculum that trigger the bid to churn up the corresponding instructional materials — textbooks, principally.