EDITORIAL

In good hands
Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:13 AM June 21st, 2016

WHEN incoming Secretary Leonor Briones and her staff take over the
Department of Education, they will be faced with a lack of classrooms,
inadequate learning materials, teacher shortage, and the usual school woes.
This is not saying that the outgoing education officials did nothing to solve
these problems. Br. Armin Luistro FSC and his team have reported reducing
the classroom-to-student ratio from 1:53 in 2010 to 1:48 in 2015, and the
average teacher-to-student ratio from 1:39 (2009) to 1:33 (2015), and from
1:38 to 1:27 for elementary schools and high schools, respectively.
A new team can be brought in to try and do better, but the reality is that
these challenges are a function of urban congestion, a runaway birthrate and
the scale of the system, meaning the problems keep growing too big to solve
once and for all. So lets not go there. Instead, lets look at what Luistro and
company have accomplished, or started, that deserve to be continued and
improved by Briones.
On top of managing 58,811 elementary and secondary schools for 23.7
million students in 18 regions and 218 division offices, the outgoing team has
been phasing in the K-to-12 enhanced basic education program these past
six years.
Luistro and his team of educators, finance experts and development planners
created the K-to-12 curriculum, collaborating with the Commission on Higher
Education and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority on the
changes and enrichments, particularly for the senior high school specialized
subjects. To ensure the reforms full implementation, they crafted the law
that was legislated in 2013 and fought for a budget that would enable them
to build stand-alone senior high schools, furnish classrooms in existing high

schools, and provide new labs and workshops, tech-voc and livelihood
equipment, teacher training, among other things.
Multiple consultations, held by the DepEd with students, teachers, parents,
school heads and other stakeholders nationwide, gained understanding of
and support for the massive reform. More than a million Grade 11 students
are now enrolled in 11,000 senior high schools run by the DepEd, state
universities, local universities and private schools.
Briones and her team will now be responsible for implementing Grade 12
next school year and for keeping the K-to-12 program in full swing, amid
strong opposition from certain legislators and interest groups. The new
secretarys buy-in is also important in the DepEds push for technology. In
time for school opening and the Grade 11 rollout, the DepEd showed off its
nationwide Learner Information System, which generates enrollment figures
in real time.
Included in the technology infrastructure set up by the Luistro team are data
centers for the input of all school-related information and a mirror site for
backup and redundancy measures. Regional and division offices have been
given the budget to procure more internet services. Schools have been
provided hardware, as well as mobile teachers and Alternative Learning
System facilities.
This push for technology has resulted in the creation of the Enhanced Basic
Education Information System, the Learning Portal, and the impressive
DepEd website.
The upgrade of servers that began in 2015 and the improvement of the data
centers are expected to be completed in 2017. Without Briones blessing, the
technology will become obsolete.
The National Indigenous Peoples Education Program is another
worthwhile framework for the incoming team to consider adopting
because of its goal of correcting the miseducation of IP learners.
Under Luistro, the DepEd has adopted the landmark policy that
seeks to give IP learners a more culturally-based and more
accessible education. It has created the Indigenous Peoples

Education Office, issued guidelines on the conduct of activities and

use of materials involving aspects of IP culture, and adopted the IP
Education Curriculum Framework.
Yet another ongoing project that will need a boost from Briones is the title
transfer for the properties on which some public schools stand. When Luistro
came on board, schools were in danger of losing the lots for lack of legal title
ownership. In some cases, the heirs of the lot donors wanted to retrieve the
property. Through the teams efforts, a total of 20,663 schools now have
clean transfer certificates, deeds of donation, and other legal proof of
ownership, representing a huge jump of 424 percent from when Luistro
started, according to Undersecretary Rey Laguda.
There is more to be done. If Briones indeed shares the same perspective on
education with Luistro, the DepEd will be in good hands.