K-12 and the MATATAG Curriculum

• The K to 12 Basic Education Program aims to address local and global community needs by strengthening Filipino values, developing nationalism, and producing productive citizens who contribute to a progressive society.
• Implementing the K to 12 Basic Education Curriculum is a major educational reform designed to expand and improve Philippine basic education, equipping learners with skills and competence for the 21st century.
• Standardized assessments reveal stagnation in Filipino learners' academic performance.
• Emerging research emphasizes the need for basic education institutions to adapt to global future trends and address changing learning challenges.
• The Department of Education (DepEd) and the Assessment Curriculum and Technology Research Centre (ACTRC) reviewed the curriculum to improve the quality of basic education.
• The MATATAG Curriculum communicates the review process and sets future directions.
• Adapting the curriculum to dynamic societal changes is vital.
• The MATATAG agenda sets the direction for resolving basic education challenges, emphasizing:

Key Components

• Curriculum relevance
• Accelerated delivery of facilities and services
• Learner well-being and inclusive education
• Teacher support
• The MATATAG agenda aims to improve access, equity, resiliency, and well-being with support from education stakeholders.

Responding to Changes

• 21st-century learners must navigate rapidly changing environments amid technological progress and digitization.
• Information literacy skills are crucial to discern credible and useful information.
• Digital technology offers innovative learning experiences but requires learners to update digital skills, address online privacy and cyberbullying, and balance digital engagement.
• The job market demands creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and emotional and digital intelligence.
• As learners become more globally connected, they develop cultural awareness and global citizenship skills while facing international crises.
• Lifelong learning, resilience, and mental strength are essential.
• Improved curriculum ensures relevance by integrating contemporary topics and cultivating critical 21st-century skills.
• Curriculum enhances inclusivity by teaching about global citizenship and diversity, promoting a future-oriented mindset.

Indicators and Results

• Clear baseline data and parameters are necessary to ensure a positive impact of educational reforms and to serve as reference points for educational goals.
• National and international large-scale assessment results indicate the current state of basic education.
• Triggers for curriculum review include student learning assessment data.
• System assessments at the end of each key stage are designed to provide baselines for curriculum implementation and generate data for policy formulation.
• The Early Language, Literacy, and Numeracy Assessment (ELLNA) is given at the end of Grade 3.
• The National Assessment Test (NAT) are exit assessments given at the end of Grades 6, 10, and 12.
• The ELLNA and NAT help determine if learners meet standards and provide data for policies and programs.
• ELLNA results from S.Y. 2016-2017 indicated issues in English, Filipino, Mother Tongue, and Math, implying the need for curriculum and delivery improvements.
• The first Basic Education Exit Assessment (BEEA) was conducted for SY 2018-2019.
• SHS graduates were at a low proficient level in problem-solving, information literacy, and critical thinking skills
• Local large-scale assessment results are parallel with the World Bank's Philippine Report on the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment or PISA.
• The results of the PISA and 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study or TIMMS point to the need to revisit the existing curriculum.

Curriculum Recalibration

• DepEd initiated a curriculum review as a quality control mechanism that examines the curriculum in its intended, implemented, assessed, and achieved phases.
• The curriculum review aims to ensure quality, relevant, and liberating basic education.
• The review focused on the articulation of learning competencies and identified gaps, issues, and concerns.
• The current curriculum has a substantial number of essential learning competencies, indicating curriculum relevance.
• The curriculum needs to be decongested to provide instructional space for implementers.
• Reviews explore factors that help or hinder teachers in implementing the curriculum, providing insights into what is working well and what could be strengthened.
• Few teachers report having adequate time to teach all learning competencies.
• Many teachers identified a mismatch between the prerequisite skills and knowledge.
• Reduce the amount of learning required by the intended curriculum
• Revise the sequencing, clarity of expression, cognitive demand etc

MATATAG Curriculum Goals

• The vision of DepEd is realized through a standards-based curriculum.
• Learning standards are classified into content standards and performance standards.
• Curriculum Standards ensure that mastery of concepts and skills is attained
• Graduates are prepared for any of the four curriculum exits as below:
• Tertiary education
• Middle-level skills development
• Employment
• Entrepreneurship

MATATAG Curriculum Learning Areas: Goals

• Kindergarten: Produce active, holistically developed young Filipino learners equipped with 21st-century skills.
• Filipino: Develop students' literacy, communication skills, critical understanding, and appreciation for Filipino language, culture, and texts.
• English: Develop English proficiency for effective communication in diverse situations, critical analysis, and cultural literacy.
• Language: Develop oracy in L1, promoting engagement with various texts based on real-life experiences and understanding how language and culture are related.
• Reading and Literacy: Learners demonstrate basic literacy in their first language.
• Good Manners and Right Conduct/Values Education: Produce Filipino youth who decide with responsibility and act with right conduct.
• Mathematics: Learners become mathematically proficient and critical problem solvers.
• Science: Achieve scientific, environmental, technology and engineering literacy.
• Araling Panlipunan: Develop learners' socio-civic competencies, critical understanding of Philippine issues, and global awareness.
• Makabansa: Active learning through the integration of Civics, Arts and Culture, History, etc.
• EPP/TLE: Learners apply life skills, engage in entrepreneurial activities, and explore higher education.
• MAPEH: Develop learners' multicultural literacy, artistic and creative expression, and holistic national identity as Filipinos.

Key Features of the Matatag Curriculum

• The curriculum is focused on foundational skills.
• The MATATAG curriculum for Grade 1 has been shifted from offering seven learning areas to only five.
• New Learning Areas
  • Language
  • Reading and Literacy
  • Makabansa
• Language learning area focuses on developing oral language skills for communication.
• Reading and Literacy learning area aims to develop foundational reading skills essential for early literacy.
• The new learning area called Makabansa intends to provide learners with essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes enabling them to develop personal and cultural consciousness.
• Makabansa prepares learners to better understand and appreciate Music and Arts, Physical Education and Health, and Araling Panlipunan.

Literacy and Numeracy

• Strengthened Literacy and Numeracy in the First Key Stage through the National Reading Program and the National Mathematics Program.
• Designed to ensure that literacy and numeracy are at the center of the teaching and learning experience
• Literacy abilities are developed through standards that give prime attention to phonological awareness, phonics and word study, vocabulary etc
• Children become numerate as they explore mathematical ideas and engage in problem-solving.
• The National Reading Program (NRP) aims to make every Filipino learner literate.

MTB-MLE Program

• Redefining the Interplay among Languages in the MTB-MLE Program
• This emphasizes the role of a child's first language.
• The current policy is to use the Mother Tongue as the primary MOTL for the first four years of education.

21st Century Skills Framework

• A clearer articulation of the DepEd's 21st Century Skills Framework.
• To produce holistically developed Filipino learners with 21st century skills or the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and competencies.

The detailed 21st century comprises the four same domains:

• Information, Media, and Technology Skills
• Learning and Innovation Skills
• Communication Skills
• Life and Career Skills
• 21st century skills, foundational skills and discipline-specific skills/competencies equip Filipino learners towards success in the future. The are the description of each domains:
• Information, Media, and Technology Skills: gather, manage, use, synthesize, evaluate, and create information through media and technology.
• Learning and Innovation Skills: think critically, reflectively, and creatively and analyzes and solves problems.
• Communication Skills: skilled oral and written communication in the mother tongue and foreign languages and team-working especially in heterogeneous environments,
• Life and Career Skills: make informed life and career decisions.

Decongested Curriculum

• The current curriculum is decongested by 70%.
• The heavier weight of the learning areas would be on English, Filipino, Science, Mathematics, and EPP/TLE or Technical Livelihood Education.

Intensified Values Education

• The MATATAG K to 10 Curriculum addresses the need to complement the knowledge and skills development of learners with values development.

Peace Education

• The MATATAG Curriculum will ensure systematic and intentional peace education integration not only to guarantee that the country will meet the 2030 target but also to improve the overall quality of education.

Other Features of the MATATAG Curriculum

• Redesigned Kindergarten Education Curriculum espouses a learner-centered, learning-centered, integrated, developmentally appropriate approach
• The Kindergarten curriculum presents curricular themes
• Domains of development in the redesigned Kindergarten curriculum are socio-emotional, values, physical health and motor, aesthetic/creative, cognitive and language, literacy, and communication.
• Emphasis on the Engineering Design Process
  • Though Science, Mathematics and Technology and Livelihood Education (TLE) are distinct and separate learning areas, the skills and competencies are interrelated and cut across subject areas.
• Pedagogical modifications have proved to be critical as conventional in-person classroom instruction does not translate well to a remote learning environment.

The Instructional Design Framework

• The four instructional principles are inclusive, ideational, integrative, and innovative.
• "Inclusive" emphasizes creating accessible and meaningful learning experiences for all learners, regardless of their backgrounds or abilities.
• "Ideational" involves fostering a creative thought process and idea generation without judgment or criticism.
• "Integrative" involves combining different elements into a unified whole, building on learners' prior knowledge, utilizing real-life situations.
• "Innovative" explores creative ways of designing and delivering instruction.
• The 4Cs: context, connection, collaboration, and creativity represent key aspects of instructional design, impacting the planning, delivery, and assessment of the teaching and learning process.