EDITORIAL · 2 min read · April 01, 2024

Bricks, sticks, tricks, and straws, which curriculum can stand the test of the big bad wolf? On August 10, 2023, the Department of Education (DepEd) announced the launch of the revised K-10 curriculum, dubbed as “Matatag” which will officially be implemented by slowly phasing out the previous curriculum in the country beginning next academic year.

In response to the rising problems of the current K-12 curriculum, such as poor performance of Filipino students in international large- scale assessments, the following solutions were to be implemented through the Matatag curriculum: reducing the curriculum content by 70%, ensuring that competencies were age-appropriate and properly sequenced to retain progression, and strengthening the foundational skills on literacy and numeracy. One of the most agreeable aspects of the revised K-10 curriculum is the decongestion of competencies down to only 30%, as this would benefit students and teachers alike. Students would be able to grasp the necessary competencies and avoid overloading. Additionally, teachers could maximize the school days to teach the reduced competencies more comprehensively instead of cramming a number of them in a single year only for students to underperform in standardized tests. A question remains, however: Can these solutions promise brick walls?

After 72 years, it appears that the Philippines is residing in a house of straw with the old K–10 curriculum which was not meant to last—at least not in the 21st century. The country needed to perform, compete globally, and offer quality education that readies its students for the future. From 2017 to the present, as the students settled into the walls of the K-12 curriculum, they found themselves with a weak house of sticks. Each piece that this house is built with snaps at the test of time, at the test of its own objectives: the curriculum promised to produce job-ready citizens upon graduation from senior high school. Yet, even DepEd Secretary and Vice President Sara Duterte herself admitted that “that promise is still a promise.”

The congested system could not take the pressure and showed its teeth, knowing it could not take any more of the unflattering results. The department ran to make change; hence, Matatag was designed to update the execution of the K-12 curriculum and address the issues that had stemmed from it. However, implementing the revised curriculum does not guarantee resolution; rather, it can easily be knocked off as new problems arise alongside the unresolved issues from the current K-12. The brick walls students were promised will inevitably follow the fate of all its predecessors if DepEd continues to miss its goals as it did for the previous curriculum. Matatag does not have to follow this pattern, but what does the public know to date?

Updates on concrete findings from the pilot run could be very beneficial for schools and academic institutions that are now preparing for its implementation next year. Can schools afford another experimental curriculum only for a wolf to blow it down?

The Matatag curriculum is another effort at making sure that the Filipino students’ levels of achievement are raised and that the students are ready for the future. The ongoing pilot implementation is an initial litmus test of how significant and effective are the enhancements that the Matatag curriculum promises.

At this point, it is but fair to beg the question: Will Matatag stand the huffs and the puffs of the 21st century demands and beyond?