BEC: The National Standards

9th Reflection Paper for the EDAD 207 Class of Dr. Alonsabe

It was mentioned in the class that the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) is the national standards. It implicates that in spite of the school teachers’ authority to indigenize the said curriculum, they are obliged to adhere to the provisions of the BEC because it serves as the national standards among all the elementary schools under the administrative umbrella of DepEd. This concept was supported by Arends, Winitzky, and Tannenbaum (1998) who asserted that there should be national standards in any kind of curriculum. National standards refer to the levels of knowledge in the schooling experience. This proposition connotes that aside from having the indigenized system of curriculum, the classroom teachers are tasked to conform to the provisions of the BEC as it is the national standards in the Philippine education.

The Department of Education has empowered the school principals which implicates that they have the authority to implement any school activities or intervention programs as long as they conform to the policies of the agency. This includes indigenizing the implementation of the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) in their respective classrooms. The teachers are free to teach the lessons the way they prefer to; provided that they do not compromise any competency prescribed in the Philippine Elementary Learning Competencies (PELC). I believe that the said curriculum has to be indigenized in order to make the lessons best suitable to the needs of the learners in their locality. The learners can also easily relate to the subject matter being taught as they see the objects, examples, illustrations or the like around their community.

As a classroom teacher, I will continue to adhere to the provisions of the BEC because my pupils deserve to learn the competencies prescribed in the PELC. I should not deprive them of the skills that they ought to acquire. I will improve my strategy in indigenizing the curriculum in order that my pupils can easily catch up our lessons. I will cite examples that are applicable to their lifestyle and try to mention objects that they are familiar with. I will also dare to integrate teaching in the mother tongue as there had been copious number of researches that affirm the beneficial effects of MTB-MLE advocacy. More than anything else, I will start to do my best in implementing these plans at my present school station.