THE Department of Education (DepEd) yesterday said the implementation of the “strengthened senior high school program” starting on school year 2025-2026 will be piloted in 727 schools nationwide.
DepEd assistant secretary for operations Malcom Garma told the Senate Committee on Basic Education that the 727 schools are composed of 160 private and 567 public learning institutions, which represent 5.76 percent of the 12,821 total number of schools nationwide that offer the senior high school program.
He said the DepEd is eyeing the full implementation of the new SHS program by school year 2026-2027, adding that the department’s Central Office-Selection Committee has received the initial nomination of 1,277 schools from regional offices, and has started to assess the capability of each one of them for the new SHS curriculum.
Garma said the DepEd committee narrowed down the selection to 755 schools “based on final readiness scores” for them to be considered in the pilot testing of the new program.
He said the factors considered in choosing the schools include school size, rural versus urban location, track offerings, public versus private management, and stand-alone versus integrated models.
“The committee encoded and validated the reports of the ‘highly ready’ schools. School reports with multiple deficiencies, i.e. lacking the list of electives, teacher workload etc. were removed. This process resulted in a final list of 727 schools participating in the pilot. Only 20 schools are rural, while 707 are urban,” Garma said in the DepEd’s report to the Senate committee chaired by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian who called for the hearing to find out the readiness of DepEd in implementing the new SHS curriculum in the next school year.
DepEd assistant secretary for curriculum and teaching Janir Datukan said the new SHS curriculum will bring down to five the number of “core subjects” from the present 15.
The five core subjects include effective communication, life skills, general mathematics, general science, and study on history and society of the Philippines.
He said that from the four tracks or strands, the new SHS curriculum will now offer only two — Academic, and Technical professional (TechPro).
Six hundred thirty-two schools will offer both Academic and TechPro tracks, while 93 will offer the Academic track only. Two schools in the National Capital Region will offer TechPro only.
“In the previous structure of the SHS curriculum, apart from the core subjects that are taken by all students, students can take applied and specialized subjects based on their track and strands,” Datukan said.
“In the new curriculum, students can take any subject from any of the clusters of subjects their school offers. Students may also take subjects from other strands. This flexibility is called the ‘doorway option’,” he added.
SURVEY
Gatchalian said a Pulse Asia survey done from March 23 to 29 this year showed that 42 percent of Filipinos were “dissatisfied” with the government’s K to 12 program.
The survey, which Gatchalian’s committee commissioned, said 47 percent of those dissatisfied with the program were from the National Capital Region, 35 percent from Luzon, 47 percent from the Visayas, and 51 percent from Mindanao.
Forty-three percent from social classes A, B, and C were among the 42 percent dissatisfied, 41 percent were from class D, and 59 percent were from class E.
The same survey showed that 32 percent of the respondents were “satisfied” with the K to 12 program, while 25 percent said they “cannot say if satisfied or dissatisfied.”
The survey also said that 46 of the respondents were not satisfied with the SHS program, of which 37 percent were from the NCR, 34 percent from Balanced Luzon, 47 percent from the Visayas, and 51 percent were from Mindanao.
The respondents were asked to choose from the list of reasons why they were dissatisfied with the SHS program and 51 percent picked “parents have to shell out more money for transportation and food for the education of their children;” 52 percent chose that a “senior high school diploma is not enough to get a better job;” 43 percent believes that “every family dreams of having their children to graduate from college, and not only SHS;” 39 percent said drop-out rate will increase due to the two extra years in SHS, 35 percent believes “we need to have better education, not more education;” 22 percent said that the DepEd must first resolve the lack of classrooms, furniture and equipment, qualified teachers, and error-free textbooks, while seven percent said that businesses only want to hire college graduates more than those who finished SHS.
Gatchalian said comparative data of satisfaction with the government’s K to 12 program showed that 50 percent of Filipinos satisfied with the program as of September 2019; 39 percent satisfied as of June 2022, it went down to 32 percent satisfaction in September 2023, climbed to 34 percent in June 2024, and 32 percent in March this year.
He said 28 percent were dissatisfied with the program as of June 2019, 44 percent in June 2022, 52 percent in September 2023, slightly went down to 50 percent in June 2024, and 42 percent as of March 2025.
On the satisfaction rate on the SHS program, he said 41 percent were satisfied in June 2021; 35 percent in June 2024, and 33 percent in March 2025; while 42 percent were dissatisfied in June 2021, 48 percent were not satisfied in June 2024, and 40 percent in March 2025.
He said there were no surveys conducted on 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gatchalian said to his analysis, the dissatisfaction rate over the years was due to the pandemic.
“The pandemic exposed a lot of weaknesses both economically and also in our education system. I think during the pandemic, a lot of people were jobless, their income went down, their livelihoods disappeared,” he said.
“So, because of those economic factors, the senior high school in particular became a burden rather than an asset to them,” he added.
He said parents did not see any benefit or “return” for the family from the SHS program during the pandemic.
“You’re shelling out money in the form of ‘baon,’ uniforms, projects. But what’s the return to their value? The return should be in the form of college readiness, job readiness…Thess are the returns that our families should see but they are not seeing it,” he said.
Gatchalian said that the good thing in the comparative trending of dissatisfaction rate is narrowing down in recent years.
“Hopefully in the next few years, when we see a reversal, more people will be happy because they see great value in senior high school and K to 12,” he said.
“In other words, our constituents are generally not satisfied with the K-12 system. They are also not satisfied with the senior high school program. This is something that we should take note because if parents and constituents are not happy with that then they don’t see value in the nation’s basic education program,” he added.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Gatchalian asked the Commission on Higher Education about its stand on whether to scrap physical education subjects in college.
He said PE subjects, which were usually taken from first year to second year — are eight units of subjects which only adds to the students’ burdens, aside from the additional costs in tuition.
He said PE is taught from elementary to high school adding that he thinks that is enough.
“You already have PE for 10 years. When you enter college, you will also take up PE subjects. It’s really about time, to be honest, eliminate and push this down to basic education so that when you leave basic education, you just focus on your specialization. Why do you have to teach that in college?” he said.
Gatchalian said he is aware that taking PE subjects in college is under the law but assured that he will introduce amendments to the measure to remove that subject in the college curriculum.
