HINIMOK ni Senador Alan Peter Cayetano ang 20th Congress na umaksyon para sa “radical change” sa basic education — kabilang sa K to 12 curriculum — upang tugunan ang matagal ng problemang bumabagabag sa sistema ng edukasyon sa bansa.

“I think the task of this 20th Congress is really the radical change that is needed in the education sector… I say all of this with passion because I saw it before my eyes — kung ano y’ung successful at ano ang mga dumudurog sa ating sistema. The solution is there but we have to be radical,” wika ni Cayetano sa Senate floor nitong Lunes, July 30, 2025.

Ito ang tugon ni Cayetano, bilang chair ng Senate Committee on Higher, Technical, and Vocational Education at co-chair ng Second Congressional Committee on Education (EDCOM II), sa privilege speech ni Senador Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino tungkol sa basic education, kung saan binanggit ang mga isyu sa K to 12. 

Ayon kay Cayetano, ang kakulangan sa mga silid aralan sa buong bansa na umabot sa 165,000 ay maaaring lutasin ng Kongreso sa pamamagitan ng desisyon sa education budget.

“The 165,000 classroom shortage was mentioned by EDCOM… The Department of Public Works and Highway’s budget is P1 trillion. Do you want to end the lack of classrooms in a year? If per classroom costs P1 million, that accounts to only P165 billion — almost half or two-thirds of the DPWH budget,” wika niya.

Pinuna niya rin ang mga bigong pangako ng K to 12, kabilang ang mga specialized track para sa mga high school student at paglipat ng General Education (GE) subjects mula kolehiyo sa high school upang paikliin ang kolehiyo sa tatlong taon.

“The promise in K to 12, even in first year high school, junior high school, there’s already a track… Another promise is that for the GE subjects, we’ll transfer that to high school so that the colleges are promised to be cut to three years,” aniya.

Hindi ito ang unang pagkakataon na tinutulan ni Cayetano ang programang K to 12. Noong 2013 nang ipasa ito bilang batas, isa siya sa mga senador na bumoto laban rito. 

Inulit niya ang kanyang posisyon noong 2022 kung saan binatikos niya ang matamlay na implementasyon ng K to 12. Sabi pa niya, “we have to either i-suspend ang K to 12 for five to 10 years until we have enough resources, or fund the K to 12 now as it was envisioned.”

Binigyang diin din niya na ang puno’t dulo ng krisis sa edukasyon ay sa basic education. Aniya, nakakadagdag sa problema ang kakulangan sa oras ng pag-aaral ng mga estudyante, at mga kakulangan sa mga guro at pasilidad. 

“In Metro Manila and many highly urbanized places, job matching, et cetera is still far away. Why? There are no more classrooms, teachers. Most of them don’t have tablets or Apple computer labs or anything like this. Nag-additional two years ka pa (sa K to 12), pero half day ka naman sa klase. Ano iyon, diba? The problem is really much, much more basic. The bigger part of the problem goes back to pre-K to 12,” paliwanag niya.

Ginamit ni Cayetano bilang halimbawa ang scholarship program ng Lungsod ng Taguig, kung saan sa kabila ng malaking tulong ay nananatiling mataas pa rin ang dropout rate dahil sa mataas na gastos sa pag-aaral. 

“In Taguig, we have a 100 percent scholarship program. If you graduate from high school, we’ll automatically give you P15,000 to enroll, whether it’s for TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) or college. If it’s a center of excellence like UP (University of the Philippines), we’ll give you P50,000. If you’re a teacher or a police officer, we’ll give you P80,000 to P120,000 to enroll for a Masters degree,” wika ng senador.

“But check our dropout rates. It’s still comparable to other places. Because our scholarship program and our full scholarship, that’s only 30 percent of the expenses. The out-of-pocket amounts to 70 percent, which is still massive,” dagdag niya.

Kaya naman nanawagan si Cayetano sa Senado na gumawa ng mahihirap na desisyon sa 2026 education budget.

“Let’s make the hard decisions and put our money where our mouth is,” wika ng senador. (Niño Aclan)