High expectations from winners (3)

Here are words of inspiration that President Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. and Vice-President and Department of Education Secretary Sara Z. Duterte said shortly after their assumption to office on 30 June 2022.

Aware of the political exercise just past, President Bongbong Marcos said: "We are here to repair a house divided, to make it whole and to stand strong again in a Bayanihan way, expressive of our nature as Filipinos.

"We shall seek, not to scorn dialogue, listen respectfully to contrary views, be open to suggestions coming from hard thinking and unsparing judgment but always from us, Filipinos. Let us all be part of the solution that we choose. In that lies the power to get it done, always be open to differing views but ever united in our chosen goal. Never hesitating to change it should prove one thing.

"For now, I continue to dream for our country, a future of sufficiency, even plenty of readily available ways and means to get done what needs doing — by you, by me. We do not look back, but ahead. Up the road that we must take to a place better than the one we lost in the pandemic.

"I dream of food security for our people. The role of agriculture cries for urgent attention that its neglect and misdirection now demand. Food self-sufficiency is the key promise of every administration. None but one delivered.

"Food is not just a trade commodity. Without it, people weaken and die, societies come apart. It is more than a livelihood, it is an existential imperative, a moral one. Agriculture damage diminished by unfair competition will have a harder time or will have no prospects at all of recovering. Food sufficiency must get preferential treatment."

Following the presidential mandate, on 30 January 2023, Vice President and DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio presented the Basic Education Report 2023 that will be implemented to improve the quality of education, respond to the challenges, and solve the problems faced by Filipino students.

I have read the report of Sara, and I found it comprehensively impressive, its applicability relevant to the needs of our 28 million learners. Its content is attuned to our time and useful for what is intended and planned for the future of our youth and our country.

She prepared her report with an insight partly gained from her own experience as a mother.

"I can see four kinds of problems experienced by my four children, who are of different ages and at different levels in their studies, every day.

"I am in the company of or living with, and able to see the problems of the 28 million learners that will be enrolling this coming school year.

"The Department of Education, under the Marcos administration, guided by the Philippine Constitution, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Sustainable Development Goals, reaffirms our commitment to improving the quality of basic education in the country.

"We know that the road will be bumpy, but our direction is clear. We know that the challenges are vast, but we Filipinos are resilient.

"We will overcome. Our education agenda — we have taken small steps, but we need to take more.

"First, we will make the curriculum relevant to produce competent, job-ready, active and responsible citizens.

"We will revise the K to 12 curricula to make it more responsive to our aspirations as a nation and to develop lifelong learners who are imbued with 21st-century skills, discipline, and patriotism. We will reduce the number of learning areas in K to 3 from 7 to 5 and four on fundamental skills in literacy and numeracy in the early grades, particularly among disadvantaged students.

"We will strengthen literacy and the numeracy program. We will revitalize our reading, science and technology, and maths programs by utilizing the gains of previous programs." (To be continued)