Group opposed to K-12 asks SC to allow students to take college entrance exams

BAGUIO CITY—Students and their parents and the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), who are opposed to the government’s K-12 enhanced basic education program, have asked the Supreme Court (SC) to allow Grade 10 pupils to take the college entrance examinations.

They earlier challenged the constitutionality of the program in a case they filed in May in the Supreme Court but the tribunal has yet to act on it.

In an urgent motion for temporary restraining order (TRO) they filed on July 20, they also asked the high court to stop the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) from directing universities and colleges to first get certifications from entrance test applicants that they would graduate from high school in 2016.

According to the petition, CHEd had directed colleges and universities “not to admit high school graduates starting 2016 unless they show proof that they had complied with the policies set under the K-12 program.”

“If this honorable court will not urgently issue a TRO, petitioners, specifically those who are or will be in Grade 10 this academic year and their class[es], will suffer irreparable damage should [the SC] later on rule in their favor and find that the K-12 program is unconstitutional,” the petition said.

Schools like the University of the Philippines (UP), University of Santo Tomas and Ateneo de Manila University have scheduled their entrance examinations in August and September.

“Disallowed from taking the UPCAT (UP College Admission Test) and other college admission tests the application deadlines for which are due very soon, they will have been denied options of universities from which to earn their tertiary education,” it said.

The petition said that “under the 10-year basic education program, [Grade 10 students] would be the fourth year students graduating from high school in 2016.”

The K-12 program requires Grade 10 students to take two additional years of secondary education before they would be eligible for high school graduation in 2018 at the earliest.

“As things currently stand, only graduates of early implementers of the K-12 program as well as high school graduates prior to the program” can take the college entrance examinations. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon