DepEd's K+12

The Department of Education is proposing that a child would need 12 years of elementary and high school education aside from the preparatory level before going to college. The 12 years is composed of 6 years for Elementary, 4 years for Junior High School and another 2 years for Senior high school. As what has been observed, most Filipino children nowadays perform poorly in academics and have a lack of interest in studying. I understand that this is alarming and no parent would want their child to perform poorly in class because surely it will affect their future. I finished my college degree back in 2009 and while I have yet to finish or continue my Master's, I'm not quite sure how and why the Department of Education wants to prolong the students' agony by adding a couple more years in high school.

So here's my reaction if I agree with the DepEd's proposal:

No. It is not a solution if their problem is about the poor performance or disinterest of students in their studies. What they need to do, since their department gets the bigger budget is this: train their teachers well to become effective teachers thus affecting the performance of their students and to improve classrooms and provide children with adequate books and learning materials.That way, children wouldn't have no excuse of studying since he or she has access to information related to his or her subjects. With the teachers, I believe that proper training is key when it comes to teacher's performance.
Most teachers nowadays do not even know how to speak the English language correctly (Read: grammatically correct). They do not even know how to pronounce simple words! If you correct them, they would feel offended or insulted and you have put an X mark on your forehead meaning next time you see your teacher and grade on that subject, do not expect a high grade because you just insulted/offended him or her. Don't get me wrong here, I have a friend who experienced this. It was her speech class and she asked her teacher if that's the correct pronunciation of the word since she said, it was wrong. She said it in a nice way and her teacher was offended. Her grades everytime they had written and oral exams were high (ranging from 1.25 to 1.75) yet her final grade was only 2.25 or 2.5. How in the world did that happen, right?

Teachers think they know very well because they are educators. Well, partly, they're correct but if they continue to be ignorant and do not study their lesson more (research!), students wouldn't feel good that their teacher did not study more thus the lack of interest. Teachers should also learn how to engage their students in participation in class but before that happens, he or she should be inviting enough for the students to listen to him or her. I had a professor in algebra before who was just talking to the blackboard doing the solving even if no one's listening. People are throwing crumpled paper at each other, sleeping and some are going in and out if class and he didn't care. That's what he did everyday. They said that your studies or your behavior towards your studies shouldn't rely on the teacher or professor. Have you heard of the term teacher factor? I believe in that and that makes a lot of difference for me.

As for the physical improvements of the school, the school board just needs to distribute the funds appropriately. Most schools nowadays have projects such as new classrooms, additional computers, etc. Appropriate funding is all they need.