Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City

FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
First Regular Session

HOUSE. BILL NO. 328

EXPLANATORY NOTE

The three main pillars of any education system as
internationally structured are, CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, and
ASSESSMENT, where all three pillars should be strongly linked and
networked. The CURRICULUM, well defined, and ladderized, with
every curricular subject duly described and particularized in
measurable units; INSTRUCTIONS, aimed and strategized for
learners to attain Required (as opposed to desired) pre-formulated
Minimum Knowledge and competencies for every curricular subject
in every grade and year of the Education Ladder; and ASSESSMENT
of Learning Outputs duly calibrated and assiduously measured in
every ladder step all the way up, such that when a student
graduates or is promoted to the next higher ladder grade/year level,
the learner is fully equipped with the Required Minimum Knowledge
and Competencies (RMKC) and is learning-ready for the next level
as his/her graduation certificate or diploma or report card should
attest to. The herein proposed pre-formulated RMKC are designed
to fully equip the students the RMKCs in order to improve the
extraordinarily low cohort survival rate in elementary and in high
school and to negate the need for costly and acrimonious Readiness
Tests and Bridge Remedial Programs, like what happened in the
Controversial 2004 National Standardized High School Readiness
Test with its companion HS Bridge One-year Extension Program,
which metamorphosed without any logical explanation from the
original concept of a mandatory HS Admission Test, then to
becoming optional. Worst, judging from field situation reports the
Program is now drastically made un-enforced as most of the parents
in the majority of Secondary Schools, notwithstanding a
Department Policy Order mandating the contrary, have availed of
the option to proceed to the regular first year high school rather
than elect to participate in the Bridge Program. Thus, most of the


students reverted to the old system of a “Bridgeless” HS Regular
Program; but only after leaving in its wake an ocean of ruffled
nerves and unresolved issues which almost divided the nation as
students, parents, even teachers and other stakeholders spilled out
into making objections or protests.

To avoid another misadventure of this kind, which one
national broadsheet editorial pooh-poohed as another weird
experimentation in the likes of the infamous 2001 Revised Basic
Education Curriculum or RBEC, which the same editorial ridiculed as
a “Mishmash Curriculum”. For verily, as one Written Questionnaire
Survey in one Schools Division, confirmed: 85% of 8,375 of
Elementary and Secondary Teachers; and 77.41% of 991 Principal
respondents in 833 Elementary Schools and 152 High Schools rated
the RBEC as “counter-productive”. This bill seeks by enactment into
law, a remedial system designed to improve the quality of Philippine
Education; and in the process not unduly penalize our elementary
graduates into going into a bridge program. This bill seeks to
prescribe what specific learning outputs the students were expected
to have acquired; and testing them on what they would have
learned based on the RMKC and not what they have not been
taught.

Corollary to this bill moreover, is the need to review and re-
evaluate the RBEC with a view to integrating therein the RMKC in
every subject in the public elementary and secondary school levels
and reverting, if found practical, to a revised and improved PRODED
and SEDP Curricula for Elementary and High School which a
majority of teachers, students and parents surveyed and
interviewed prefer over RBEC as it presently stands.

In view of the aforementioned intentions, the immedfate
passage of this bill is requested.

w
LUIS Rj VILLARUERTE



Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City

FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
First Regular Session

AN ACT PRESCRIBING REQUIRED MINIMUM KNOWLEDGE AND
COMPETENCIES (RMKC) FOR EVERY CURRICULAR SUBJECT
IN EVERY GRADE AND YEAR LEVEL IN BASIC EDUCATION IN
ALL PUBLIC ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS; AND
FOR OTHER PURPOSES

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress
assembled:

SECTION 1. Short Title. - this Act shall be known as the Required
Minimum Knowledge and Competencies in Basic Education, or the *RMKC.
Act".

Sec, 2. Declaration of Policy. - It is hereby declared the Policy of
the Government that Students in Basic Education in Public Schools have
to acquire and/or be equipped with Required Minimum Knowledge and
Competencies for every grade and year level before qualifying for
promotion to the next higher grade or year.

Sec. 3. Implementation of Policy. - In order to ensure that the
declared policy of this Act shall be implemented in an appropriate and

efficient manner,


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(a) The Department of Education (DepEd), not later than
December 31, 2007 shall formulate the Required Minimum
Knowledge and Competencies (RMKC) for every curricular
subject for every grade and year level in the public
elementary and high schools.

(b) The DepEd shall also, to incorporate in the textbooks

prescribed for every subject the RMKC and thereby make it

mandatory for every teacher in a given subject to teach and

the students shall be tasked to learn the RMKC corresponding

to the student's subject in the grade or year level to which the

student belongs.

(c) The DepEd furthermore, shall design and conduct a

training program for public school teachers that will ensure

the appropriate teaching method for teachers and the learning

style for students that will ensure that the RMKC shall be

absorbed. Accordingly, the necessary supporting tools and

equipment for the teaching and learning interaction shall be
provided.

Sec. 4. RMKC Design and Formulation. - The RMKC for every
curricular subject in basic education as provided under this Act shall be
formulated with specificity and particularity such that they are measurable
as to be coefficient to the learning level prescribed for students in every

curricular subject.


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That while students may be taught to acquire knowledge, skills, and
competencies beyond the RMKC, the assessment and tests to be given
students to determine whether or not a passing score has been achieved
shall be based on test items within the relevant RMKC. Thus, lesson plans
to be formulated as teaching guides shall be confined to items within the
RMKC_ before additional components for knowledge, skills, and
competencies are introduced to students.

Reference materials for supplementary instruction in classrooms or
as assignments to students for self-study shall also be designed,
formulated and implemented.

Sec. 5. Diagnostic and Performance Examinations. - A national
standardized test shall be administered with such frequency within a
school year for every curricular subject for evaluation and diagnostic
purposes only, in order to determine and assess the learning progress of
the students in order that remedial measures can be introduced to
students not meeting the learning rate for the RMKC expected at the
various phases and periods of the school year.

Sec. 6. Honors and Rewards System. - While tests, quizzes and
examinations based on items from the RMKC shall provide the benchmark
Passing scores or grades of students in basic education, supplementary
learning competencies shall also be prescribed to further upgrade the
quality of learning beyond the RMKC in order to reinforce and improve the
learning curve of students; to spur their spirit of competitiveness and

drive for higher levels of performance, and to instill in students proper


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conduct, diligence, and discipline to aspire for greater levels of
achievement and/or drive for excellence.

And, accordingly, the DepEd shall also formulate, develop and
implement a system of honors, rewards and recognition to students with
exemplary performance or achievement.

In addition, an acceleration policy of promoting students to the next
higher grade or year within a school year shall also be adopted and
thereby provide inspirational models for excellence.

Sec. 7. Repealing Clause. - All laws, presidential decrees,
executive orders, rules and regulations contrary to or inconsistent with
the provisions of this Act are hereby repealed or modified accordingly.

Sec. 25. Effectivity. - This Act shall take effect immediately upon
its approval.

Approved,