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Bella Cariaso - The Philippine Star
February 1, 2026 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Officials of the Department of Education met with the leaders of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) as part of the collective effort to push for basic education reforms.
The CEAP said that more than 800 school heads and administrators joined the meeting of the CEAP National Basic Education Commission (NBEC).
The DepEd discussed agenda items related to the K-10 curriculum implementation for school year 2026-2027 such as the revised grading system, strengthened senior high school curriculum, SHS recognition and reproductive health education (RHE).
CEAP executive director Narcy Ador Dionisio underscored the need for a turnaround leadership mindset change amid ongoing reforms in basic education, stressing the need for policy shifts, adding that the revised grading system must be supported by structured interventions, literacy programs and clear institutional mechanisms.
DepEd assistant secretary for Learning Systems Strand Jerome Buenviaje discussed key policy updates, including the revised standard grading system, addressing common concerns such as perceptions of mass promotion, grade inflation and mismatches between grades and actual learner performance.
Buenviaje outlined phased implementation of policies beginning SY 2026-2027, including descriptive, non-numeric grading for early key stages and adjustments in transmutation and assessment practices.
Meanwhile, DepEd assistant secretary Janir Ty Datukan clarified curriculum-related concerns, including the spiral progression approach in junior high school science, flexibility in implementing curriculum changes, the delivery of subjects such as Mabisang Komunikasyon and Effective Communication and the integration of RHE competencies.
Datukan said the RHE is already embedded in the curriculum and integration guides and CEAP-led workshops will further support schools.
Not job-ready
The promise that senior high school graduates under the K-12 program would be job-ready by the time they finish Grade 12 did not materialize, House committee on basic education chair Rep. Roman Romulo said yesterday.
Romulo made the remarks in reaction to the findings and recommendations of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) as lawmakers weigh reforms to the K-12 system rather than its outright repeal.
As discussions shifted to why that pledge did not materialize, Romulo pointed to the structure of senior high school itself, explaining how enrollment patterns across tracks undermined the original intent of producing job-ready graduates at scale.
“It has four tracks that include academic, tech-voc, arts and music and sports. In sports, there is less than one percent enrolled; in arts, only one to two percent; in tech-voc, around 30-36 percent are enrolled there. Around 50-50 percent, more or less, in academic,” Romulo said.
That distribution, Romulo explained, meant that only a fraction of students was even positioned to benefit from the job-ready promise, and even among those in the technical-vocational track, structural gaps remained between schooling and real employability.
Romulo zeroed in on certification, which he described as a critical missing link between skills training and actual work readiness.
“What are we giving, the national certificate after Grade 12? If you have NC2 (National Certificate 2), you have skill, but cannot be alone (unsupervised). So, it is not yet job-ready,” he added.
Romulo said this reality is precisely why EDCOM 2 and education stakeholders are now pushing for higher certification outcomes earlier in the education cycle.
“What is important is after Grade 12, they should get NC3 or diploma, they are employable,” Romulo said. — Jose Rodel Clapano
