Argumentative Essay: K+12: Good or Bad Idea?

August 24, 2011

The Philippines ranks seventh among nine Southeast Asian nations in the area of education and innovation (Luz, 2011). The article, taken from ABS-CBN news website, stated that in the area of primary education, the Philippines is ranked 99thout of 138 nations. We are ranked 69th in the Educational system, 112th in science and math and 76th in Internet Access. As we can see, the Philippine educational system is not that good. One of the steps the government is taking in order to improve the Philippines educational system is through the K+12 Program. The K+12 program is an educational system started by the Aquino Administration. The Government would add two years plus Kindergarten to the ten years of basic education, hence the name of the program: K+12. Many people think that this program is unnecessary and insignificant but the others think that it will help improve not only the educational system but the Philippines as a whole. There are many pro arguments for the K+12 Program but there are three which I think are the most important. The first argument is Enhancing the Quality of Education. This is very much needed in the Philippines because we have, as stated before, a poor educational system. This program helps make the standard of education higher because we can add more to the present curriculum and therefore add to the students knowledge. The next argument is the preparation for students to work. Lets face it, not everyone who finishes high school in the Philippines will go to college. Most high school students will look for work after they graduate and most of them graduate at around 16-18 years old and are therefore too young to earn a living. The third and final argument is for current curriculum to be loosened. This is because

twelve years of education is crammed into only ten years and this can stress a student out. With the K+12 program, the curriculum would be loose and students would have a less stressful, albeit, a longer time in school (Padre, 2010). If there are pro arguments, there are also counterarguments. Like the pro arguments, there are three best con arguments. The first one is money. People complain that they have to spend more on transportation, food and school supplies for their children now that the K+12 is to be implemented. This is bad because many families in the Philippines are not privileged and therefore cannot afford many things. This will just make their lives harder. On the governments side, many anti-K+12 people say that the government cannot afford more years of free education. The second argument is that the drop-out rate will increase. Many students drop out for many reasons and some of which are financial constraints and loss of enthusiasm to study. Critics say that if students cannot even go through all ten years of education, what more the extra two years? The final argument is that the newly implemented K+12 will cause financial problems for Higher Education Institutions. This is because they will not have freshmen for two years because of the extra years in the primary education. This will be hard on Universities since they need a constant flow of students in order to maintain facilities and the like(Padre, 2010). These arguments, whether good or bad, are good points of view on the K+12 program but I am for this program. This is because I feel that there are a lot of good things that can come out of this program and they outweigh the bad things. Sure, more money will be spent by both the people and the government and that there will be two more years of education but at least the children get quality education which will prepare them for the future. Some people might ask what the K+12 program means to the Philippines. What this means is that the quality of Education in the Philippines would be improved that we would not be ranked so low in the area of education. When our students get quality education

they will be able to secure jobs in the future even if they do not continue to college. The K+12 program will give the Philippines what it needs and what it needs is a good educational system so that our youths future will be secured.