Vice President and DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio took very seriously the job given to her by President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to prepare a curriculum relevant to producing competent, job-ready, active, and responsible citizens.

In her report on basic education in the Philippines, she revealed in detail the problems confronting it, the teachers, and learners; and crafted means to overcome them, guided by the Constitution and the convention on the rights of the child, reaffirming our country's commitment to improving the quality of basic education in the Philippines.

"The four learners at home — one in kindergarten, one in Grade 4, one in Grade 7, and one in Grade 9 — enable me to see different kinds of problems being experienced by learners every day."

"In my work as Secretary of Education, I am in the company of 28 million Filipino learners throughout the country. I can see numerous problems faced by them every day."

"Four learners at home, plus 28 million more throughout the land, these, my countrymen, make my interest in the future of Philippine education a very personal matter."

"Filipino learners are not academically proficient. In time, Filipino learners experience emotional abuse and exhaustion. Some of them suffer from psychological fatigue. And being academically insecure, many of them may fail to meet the standards of a demanding and competitive world. These are caused and triggered by conditions present at home, in our communities, and even in our schools as a result of problems ingrained in our system. This is the truth. This is our future. But this is a future that we can change. That is why we are here."

"We have to take good care of our teachers. They are the lifeblood of the Department of Education. Without our teachers, our mission to carve a better future for our children will fail."

"And to empower our learners with the relevant skills and knowledge, we shall focus on upscaling their knowledge and capacities as public servants. The assessment of the K-12 curriculum revealed the weak teaching methods of our teachers in addressing 21st-century skills. Studies done by the Research Center of Teacher Quality, the World Bank, and UNICEF showed that our teachers need further support, particularly in explicitly and strategically teaching critical thinking and problem-solving skills."

"While critical thinking was the most evident in the curriculum, it was also the least taught to students by the teachers. Instead, lessons leaned towards conceptual or content-based teaching. And lessons lacked in-depth processing to cultivate critical thinking and problem-solving. Finally, there appears to be insufficient knowledge on developing 21st-century skills, including higher-order thinking skills among learners. This is not the fault of our teachers—whose dedication, integrity, and commitment to serving Filipino children and the country strengthen our collective effort to achieve our shared dreams for our learners. The sad reality is that the system has failed them."

"This is the system that burdens them with backbreaking and time-consuming administrative tasks, a system that provides no adequate support and robs them of the opportunity to professionally grow and professionally teach, assist and guide our learners."

"Our teachers must return to our classrooms and they must teach."

Studies and tests were conducted to measure the literacy of the learners.  It was discovered that the issue of literacy is alarming in our basic education.   We must address it appropriately and effectively.

The 2018 study results showed that 81 percent of Filipino learners could not deal with basic math problems, 81 percent had trouble understanding texts of moderate length, and 78 percent could not recognize correct explanations for scientific phenomena or draw valid conclusions from given data.

"We can do better than this," Sara said. "We are better than this. Studies like these are opportunities for us to thoroughly examine our system and defects that hurt our children's abilities."

(To be continued)