Students can do better with decongested curriculum

The House Committee on Basic Education yesterday underscored the crucial need for a decongested curriculum to provide learners with focused learning competencies.

Pasig Rep. Roman Romulo, the panel's chairperson, said Filipino learners, who scored among the lowest in the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), have the potential to perform better in basic subjects through a streamlined curriculum.

"We just have to focus on the basics. Filipinos are smart. Maybe what we did is that we just bundled everything and wanted them to learn everything all at the same time," Romulo said.

He strongly posited that learners would do far better in the basic subjects if given leeway or "breathing space."

The Department of Education uses the MATATAG Curriculum, a revised K-10 curriculum, which reduces the number of learning areas for students to focus on foundational skills such as literacy, numeracy, and socio-emotional skills from kindergarten to grade 3.

Romulo said that the DepEd's pilot MATATAG Curriculum places greater emphasis on reading, comprehension, mathematics, and GMRC or Good Manners and Right Conduct.

Launched in August to decongest the current K-12 curriculum, the revised curriculum aims to strengthen the country's "international score," especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics or STEM subjects.

In the 2022 PISA results released recently, the Philippines obtained 353 points, placing it among the ten countries with the lowest scores.

The Philippines ranked 77th out of the 81 countries globally.

The PISA, designed and developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, is a periodic international comparative study that tests 15-year-olds' ability to use their reading, mathematics, and science knowledge and skills.

According to the PISA report, the mean scores of participating countries were 472 for mathematics, 476 for reading, and 485 for science.

The Philippines obtained scores about 120 points lower than the average: 355 in math, 347 in reading, and 373 in science.

Vice President Sara Duterte, who heads DepEd, attributed the Philippines' poor ranking to the Covid-19 pandemic, which prompted the absence of face-to-face classes for two years, a learning setback for students.

The DepEd pledged to adopt the best practices of other countries that performed well in the PISA global survey.

Filipino learners who participated in the 2022 PISA lagged behind their 15-year-old counterparts from most of the participating nations by five to six years in the fields of mathematics, science, and reading, according to PISA.