The education sector notched numerous accomplishments in the year that was, recovering slowly but surely from the pandemic.

The Department of Education, the country's largest bureaucracy, focused on learning recovery and addressing the educational crisis by fully reopening schools to in-person classes in August 2022.

"We are continuing what we started last year by going back to in-person classes," DepEd spokesperson Undersecretary Michael Poa told Daily Tribune.

But he said the biggest milestone of the education department this year was its successful launch of a road map for the next few years — the so-called MATATAG Agenda.

"First of all, we launched the MATATAG Curriculum, meaning the revised or recalibrated K to 10 (Kindergarten to Grade 10) curriculum," Poa said.

Among the revisions in the K-to-10 program are the reduction in the number of competencies and placing greater emphasis on the development of foundational skills such as literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional skills for Kindergarten to Grade 3 learners.

Seven competencies

The current curriculum has seven competencies, namely, Mother Tongue, Filipino, English, Mathematics, Araling Panlipunan, MAPEH and Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao.

Under the MATATAG Curriculum, there will be five competencies, namely, Language, Reading and Literacy, Mathematics, Makabansa and GMRC.

The DepEd official clarified that the senior high school (Grades 11 and 12) program has not been removed from the current curriculum.

"We are currently reviewing the senior high school program. Hopefully, we will finish it by May 2024," he said.

The DepEd also built more classrooms last year, most especially in the far-flung areas or the last-mile schools.

"As we reported in our year-end report, over 2,000 new classrooms were constructed. But we haven't stopped building more classrooms until now; we still have ongoing constructions, of course, in coordination with the Department of Public Works and Highways," Poa added.

Just recently, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte turned over new classrooms in the last-mile schools.

"In fact, we had a simultaneous turnover of classrooms during the opening of classes back in August, and again sometime in November," Poa said.

Apart from the physical infrastructures, the education department is also providing e-learning carts or mobile computer labs to public school students, he pointed out.