VERA FILES FACT CHECK: K to 12 is NOT abolished, 10th graders still need to complete SHS

Viral status updates circulated by several Facebook (FB) pages and groups falsely claim that Grade 10 Filipino students can now “directly attend college” after graduation as the K to 12 curriculum has been scrapped. This is false.

The Department of Education’s (DepEd) K to 12 program which covers 13 years of basic education from Kindergarten to Grade 12 has not been abolished. A review of the curriculum is ongoing.

First shared on May 7, the identical status updates read: 

“Yeahhh!!! G-10 Next yr Direct to College na Wla (sic) Ng K-12 (G-10 next year can now directly go to College K to 12 is already gone).” 

Several netizens fell for the wrong information while others doubted the posts’ legitimacy. 

The false status updates circulated two days after the DepEd extended the public review of the draft revised curriculum for kindergarten to Grade 10 until May 13.

A review of the senior high school curriculum is also underway.

During her Basic Education Report 2023 presentation on Jan. 30, Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte said the department will revise the K to 12 curriculum “to make them more responsive to our aspiration as a nation, to develop lifelong learners who are imbued with 21st-century skills, discipline, and patriotism.”

House Senior Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo filed House Bill 7893 in April which seeks to replace the current curriculum with a “K + 10 + 2 program.” This aims to make the last two years in high school only required “for those seeking to proceed to professional degree studies such as accounting, engineering, law, medicine.” Filing a bill is just the first of the many steps before it becomes a law. 

VERA Files Fact Check has previously debunked similar false claims about K to 12’s supposed scrapping. (Read DepEd to revise, NOT abolish K to 12) 

The false posts by the FB pages like WafaAdz TV (created on Oct. 4, 2021 as Positive TV) and Fine (March 2, 2019 as I’m Fine), shared in groups like WEWS 3 (Sept. 8, 2021) and Online Kulitan (Feb. 5, 2021), garnered 122,275 interactions according to the social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle. 

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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)