MANDATORY KINDERGARTEN EDUCATION BILL NEARS PASSAGE

The Kindergarten Education Act of 2011 has been passed on Second Reading before the Senate adjourned for a recess yesterday. This measure seeks to make kindergarten education mandatory among five year pupils.

It will be taken up again upon the resumption of Congressional sessions on November 14.

"Our six years of primary schooling fall well below international standards," said Senator Edgardo J. Angara, author and sponsor of the measure. "Because we lack the prescribed number of years in school, our engineering graduates are only hired as engineering assistants, and our nurses as nursing aids, when they go abroad.

"Why did we add a year before Grade 1 and not after Grade 6? Because in the Philippines, we have the highest drop-out rate in grades one to three--partly because of poverty, but also because so many of these children begin school ill-equipped for the rigors of the new environment of the classroom," explained the Chair of the Senate Committee on Education, Arts and Culture.

"By requiring them to go through a year of kindergarten before they enter Grade 1, we teach and prepare these children to adjust to the school environment, helping them become more receptive to their lessons later on," said Angara, former UP President. "We will also teach Kindergarten in children's mother tongues."

According to Angara, the Kindergarten Education Act was written to be as flexible as possible--the curriculum is unspecified, and dependent on the educational establishment implementing the measure. Local government units also need not worry about a lack of funding for infrastructure because they can make use of the day care centers established in almost every barangay as classrooms for Kindergarten.

Angara believes that the measure, especially when coupled with the K12 curriculum which will add two more years of senior high school, will raise the quality of Filipino education.