Cebu schools to pilot GMRC

Five public schools in Cebu Province has been included to pilot the implementation of Good Manners and Right Conduct subject for basic education, according to the Department of Education in Cebu.

DepEd Cebu Provincial Schools Division superintendent Dr. Senen Paulin said that the public schools which will pilot the GMRC are Tindog Integrated School in Medellin, Tabogon Central Elementary School, Dumanjug National High School and Liloan National High School.

Paulin said that the schools' participation is part of the agency's MATATAG Curriculum program launched by Vice President and DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte in August this year as a revised curriculum for Kindergarten to Grade 10.

To recall, Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia has been a vocal lobbyist for the reintroduction of GMRC and English as medium of instruction in schools, noting the decline of the youth's values and manners as well as alarming incompetency in the English language — things which were hardly the case prior to the implementation of the K-12 program of a previous administration.

"GMRC will be back not only to integrate with Values Education, but will be taught of as a separate subject," Paulin said.

It will take effect on school year 2024 to 2025 and is primarily designed to address the challenges of the current K-12 curriculum, such as the congested content, misplaced prerequisite learning competencies and cognitive demand imbalance.