Teachers, parents welcome Brigada Eskwela with protest, signature campaign vs K to 12

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MANILA – Public school teachers under the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and parents greeted the Department of Education’s (DepEd) annual Brigada Eskwela with a protest against the K to 12 program at the Ramon Magsaysay High School in Manila on Monday, May 18.

Benjie Valbuena, ACT national chairperson, said the DepEd’s K to 12 caravan campaign cannot cover up the truth that meeting the physical and instructional needs of senior high school of the K to 12 still remains a plan.

Brigada Eskwela is the annual school maintenance project of the DepEd in preparation for the opening of classes on June 1.

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Valbuena said the DepEd, during the past month, has conducted gatherings of parents and teachers all over the country to show its readiness for SHS.

Teachers, together with the parent-participants of the DepED’s 2015 Brigada Eskwela, launched a signature drive calling for the immediate suspension of the K to 12 program. The signature campaign is led by the Suspend K to 12 Alliance, of which ACT is one of the conveners.

“Through a petition, we want to show DepED and Aquino that the Filipino people are not in favor of this K to 12,” Valbuena said. He cited that critics of K to 12 were heartened after the Supreme Court granted the petition of Tanggol Wika for a temporary restraining order against the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) Memorandum Order 20 which removes Filipino Language, Philippine Literature and History as mandatory subjects in the college curriculum.

Valbuena stressed that to achieve quality education, the government must first address the backlogs and needs of the education sector.

“K to 12 will in no way address our problems. This will just worsen the present state of Philippine education that continue to serve foreign interests instead of contributing to the development of our country towards national industrialization,” Valbuena said.

Photos by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers
Text by Anne Marxze D. Umil

(https://www.bulatlat.com)

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