Please mind the curriculum gap

The ongoing academic year 2018-2019 is critical for Philippine higher education institutions as it is when they have to admit the pioneer batch of senior high school (SHS) graduates under the K-12 basic education reform program of the Department of Education (DepEd) into college. According to DepEd, of the more than 1.2 million graduates from public and private SHS’s in 2018, twenty-five percent (25%) or 300,000 learners will be able to obtain a college degree in the next four to five years. Factoring in the college completion rate of 30% as per Commission on Higher Education (CHEd), we are talking about 1 million (300,000/30%) learners entering college this year.
Reflecting on the situation, I could not help but ask, “How would these learners be any different from their predecessors? How would our newly minted college curriculum be more sensitive to what these learners bring and need?”
I am writing from the perspective of an accounting teacher who has handled classes in both SHS (the first and second batches) and college (intakes from the first batch of SHS graduates). In addition, I have conducted certification visits to feeder SHS’s of our university. Needless to say, my views are directed at the Accountancy, Business, and Management (ABM) strand of the academic track.
The main motivation behind this education reform is to ensure that graduates of our basic education system are at par with global standards. In more practical terms, the shift to K-12 aims to provide graduates with life skills in dealing with changes brought about by globalization, regulation, and technology. The reform is supposed to result in graduates who are prepared to analyze and solve problems, respond and adapt to changes, and internalize and live by the learning skills.
An important component of program management is monitoring and evaluation. DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones announced in July the plan to review the K-12 curriculum after two years of implementation. Responsive to feedback being received from the public, DepEd also welcomes inputs about the curriculum content.
Pondering upon the questions I posed earlier and appreciating the openness of DepEd to feedback have made me more enthusiastic about demystifying the concept of curriculum gap on this respect. Technical and complex as it may seem, the gap can be broken down into three sub-gaps: what to teach, how to teach, and whom to teach. For this article, I intend to delve on the first sub-gap, what to teach. Essentially, should shortcomings surface from this sub-gap, the learners are not to be blamed at all as this article focuses on content or subject matter.
The first shortcoming is the non-inclusion of basic partnership and corporation accounting in the curriculum. The non-inclusion is an oversight as this topic is necessary for learners to understand better financial statement analysis, which are covered in both Fundamentals of Accountancy, Business and Management 2 (FABM2) and Business Finance courses.
The second shortcoming is the non-inclusion of basic manufacturing accounting in the curriculum. This topic is integral for learners as they complete their capstone projects, which are usually on production of goods for sale.
The last shortcoming is the marginal regard for taxation, which was included only as a topic in FABM2. This topic may be enriched in college, but a deeper appreciation for preparing tax returns and eventually paying them early on is vital to honing responsible and honest business owners and taxpayers.
One suggestion to remedy the first two shortcomings is to re-plot the distribution of topics in FABM1 and FABM2. In line with outcome-based education, this may mean focusing on salient differences among basic financial statements of businesses according to activity (service, merchandising, and manufacturing) and according to ownership (sole proprietorship, partnership, and corporation).
The third shortcoming may be addressed by creating an additional basic course on regulatory requirements, which may include business permits, income and business tax returns, and remittances of mandatory payroll deductions to appropriate agencies.
Finally, I strongly suggest that DepEd create an alignment committee, with members representing entrepreneurs, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the accountants, and the academe (SHS and college) to complement its own review process.
For now, let us be constructive in floating critical issues and providing creative recommendations concerning K-12 implementation. At the end of the day, we are all one in this noble endeavor of minding the curriculum gap.
 
Dr. Florenz C. Tugas is a full-time faculty member of the Accountancy Department of the Ramon V. Del Rosario College of Business of De La Salle University. He specializes in Basic Accounting, Auditing and Assurance, and Management of Information Technology courses
florenz.tugas@dlsu.edu.ph