President Benigno Aquino III presented a video showing a girl who claimed to be a graduate of the K to 12 program, which is being fully implemented only this year, in his last State of the Nation Address yesterday.
Aquino said the experience of Rezia Joy Jianoran, a 19-year-old student who worked at CLP Metal Industries and Precision, was proof that the K to 12 program addresses the gaps in the previous 10-year basic education program.
In the video, Jianoran claimed she is a K to 12 graduate even if the full implementation of the program only began this school year.
“I know my family is [unable] to send me to college so I continued my studies using the K to 12 program. I chose drafting technology as my specialization. Part of the K to 12 program is career immersion and I was assigned to CLP Metal where I designed a machine to de-hair pigs,” Jianoran said.
“I am very proud to be a K to 12 graduate because I was able to support my family and I am learning while earning,” she added.
The video elicited queries on the social media networking site Facebook where netizens pointed out that there could be no K to 12 graduate yet as the program's first graduates are scheduled to finish two years from now.
But Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma explained that Jianoran is a graduate of one of the schools that piloted the K-12 program on an experimental basis ahead of the regular implementation.
Coloma clarified that Jianoran's school was a tech-voc institution, but he did not specify if she completed the 13-year program as she appeared to have claimed or just a few years of the experimental program.