Of Taking on CHANGE and Transforming Education System
We all have heard of this popular African proverb which says “It takes a village to educate a child”. This mantra has been used by many inspirational speakers to encourage everyone to put value in education and consider it as a powerful weapon to change the world. Everyone has a role to play in educating a child. For a developing nation, education is the key to keep abreast with the challenges of globalization. With globalization process comes great changes that may bring either opportunity or threat to the humanity. The challenge for the education sector is to turn these changes into opportunities for our learners to be competent and productive citizens of the future.

The generation today is being confronted with so many challenges of globalization. Few years from now, the world may be different. How do you think will our children respond to such changes? How do we prepare our children for this? We need to give them the best quality education they need. We have to transform our educational system into an excellent structure that is adaptive to global changes. We need leaders who are empowered to make a difference in the educational system…Innovative leaders who are ready to embrace change, adapt change, and even initiate change.

The K-12 Curriculum and Senior High School Program provides a wide latitude of opportunity for every Filipino learner to compete globally. It offers meaningful learning that the future can benefit most. How we educate our children determines the future of our nation. But, with the economic and political crisis the country is facing, it would be hard for DepEd to stand single-handedly in educating our children. In our quest against poverty, we need our stakeholders to help us equip the youth with the skills they need to compete with the fast-growing countries.

The implementation of the Rationalization Plan in DepEd is another way to ensure right placement of employee vis-à-vis their functions to improve the quality and efficiency of the education services and to properly respond to the needs of the students, teachers, and schools. The change in the organization structure may have affected us, but one thing is for sure – it will improve the quality of service we give to the community.
Another milestone in the government service is the Results-based Performance System (RPMS). This is an adoption of the Civil Service Commission’s (CSC) Strategic Performance Management System. The evaluation of employee’s performance shall be based on its Individual Performance Commitment which is also aligned with the functions indicated in the RAT structure. All these reforms are aligned with DepEd’s vision, mission and core values.
With these changes in our workplace, we remain steadfast in our hope that our country will have competent caretakers – our learners. We believe this will happen only if we embrace CHANGE.