Luistro encourages private schools to focus on the needs of their locality

“Come up with relevant programs that will allow your graduates to work in the very city where they were born.”

Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Br. Armin Luistro FSC encourages private schools to focus on the needs of their locality.  He added that schools can help in its respective communities by providing job opportunities for its graduates; thereby, preventing them from being uprooted from where they were. He said that “it will be a challenge that is worth the while of institutions that truly wish to anchor their offerings to the needs of a locality.”

“You will notice that in the past, if you review programs, both high school and tertiary, of both public and private schools, we’ve had the phenomenon of graduates of various programs and careers moving to the big cities. And therefore cutting them off from the very schools and communities where they studied.”

During his keynote address for a two-day conference on the Senior High School (SHS) program organized by the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP), Luistro explained that revolutionizing education by creating programs that answer the needs of the community will open venues to sustainable jobs for the alumni.

“Come up with relevant programs that will allow your graduates to work in the very city where they were born,” said Luistro. He added that schools can help in its respective communities by providing job opportunities for its graduates; thereby, preventing them from being uprooted from where they were. He said that “it will be a challenge that is worth the while of institutions that truly wish to anchor their offerings to the needs of a locality.”

Towards reforms in education 

The education chief also encouraged the private schools to “engage the Department regarding the remaining areas in the SHS curriculum, the other tracks that may not yet be complete.” He added, “You do not have to wait for the final and official curriculum to be out. The Department is happy to be engaged by schools in this regard.”

Aside from this, he emphasized the importance of having educational reforms that would impact the learners. He said, “Like many Filipinos, part of our dreams and hopes is to institutionalize reforms that will really matter. It is easy to change things around. The most difficult thing to do is to ensure that those are the things of great priority.” He said that despite the transition that would take place in education, the learners were still the top priority.

He highlighted the milestones on the implementation of K to 12 program. One of the highlights he noted was the formal institutionalization of the program itself by the virtue of Republic Act 10533, also known as the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, which was signed in 2013. 

“The Philippine now belongs to the community of nations with at least 12 years of pre-university with the passing of that law. For those of you who have international linkages, it has implications with regard to the mobility of the students and teachers as well as exchange programs between you and your international partners,” he addressed the private schools. In addition to this, he said that K to 12 program also “institutionalized Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE).” He said, “This main principle of MTB-MLE is to start the learner in a language that he or she is comfortable with.”

He added that the K to 12 curriculum and learning materials were available for download on the DepEd website. More than this, he stressed that the Department would “continue to reach out to private schools” to help in the alignment of their plans and programs for Senior High School.