Economic Implications of Senior High School to Parents in Southern Philippines: A Rural-Urban Perspective

This pioneer study unravelled the economic implications of Senior High School (SHS) curriculum to parents in the rural area of Jolo and the urban center of Zamboanga City. Finding out the significant difference of said implications to parents clustered according to: Area Status, and Children’s Grade Level and Children’s School Type, and SHS - Associated Factors causing financial difficulty to them in both areas are also within the confine of this endeavour. As an expose facto cross-sectoral and evaluative survey, this research employed a qualitative descriptive approach. One hundred twenty seven (127) respondents comprising of parents and senior high principals/coordinators/directors were determined through a Purposive sampling method. Weighted Mean, t-test (Independent Sample-Test), and Ordinal Scales were utilized in analysing the data. The findings are forwarded - The economic implications of the curriculum to parents in both areas are as follows: more spending for school and non-school needs of children, compromised other household expenses and needs of the family, difficulty to support the education of senior high and non-senior high children, compromised expenses on non-senior high children, increased in educational expenses, costly secondary education, increased of daily expenses, financial burden, difficulty to manage income, difficulty to deal with tuition and miscellaneous fees, difficulty to save money, compromised personal and social expenses, need to generate extra income and borrow money to support the education of children, difficulty to extend financially assistance to needy relatives and friends (rural respondents), and difficulty to attend to social obligations on regular basis (rural respondents). As to the extent/intensity of the implications, parents in SCT-SHS and NDJC-SHS in rural area are more affected by the curriculum than the rest. While in urban center, parents in DPLMHS-SASHS and TTNHS-SHS are more affected than those in the four senior high schools. Generally, the extent/intensity of the economic implications of the curriculum to parents in both areas is slight. Income and tuition fee are among the top-ranking pre-determined SHS-Associated Factors causing financial difficulty to parents in rural area and urban center, and in the twelve senior high schools in both areas. Specifically, parents are shelling-out an average of PhP35,000 to 45,000 every year for the senior high education of their children. From the study findings, the researcher developed a model dubbed as Cycle of Despondency. The curriculum increases the private costs of education and burgles effluent family of two years of indispensable child’s contribution in terms of labor opportunity cost. Above all, it is taxing to parents beyond their financial capability to cope. Scrapping it, however, is indubitably not an astute plan. Instead, immediate and sweeping review and modification are prudent stratagems to undertake since it is already running for four years now. Program mitigating its pecuniary repercussions to parents have to be devised, along with inflexible regulation of school fees and charges. The Civil Service Commission (CSC) and corporate entities have to amend some job “educational requirements” to accommodate senior high graduates in the labor market. Studies on the economic aspect of the curriculum must be launched by various social divides - to spot genuine recommendations in aid of legislation and curriculum planning in general and map out alternative methodologies to minimize its impacts to family in particular. Otherwise, the curriculum will completely end up in fiasco.


Introduction
In recent years, Philippines embarked on a daring initiative of restructuring its basic education This study endeavours to determine and analyze the economic impact of the curriculum to parents.
Since it started, studies on the curriculum mainly focused on its efficiency in relation to students' two-year extension and is now on its fourth year of implementation, it is highly timely and reasonable to subject the program to keen scrutiny. Above all, the curriculum is a major scheme and a national concern that merits stern attention and critical analysis vis -àvis its economic aftermath should a comprehensive and unprejudiced perspective of this vital educational paradigm shift is to be sought.

Methods
This study is an expose facto cross-sectoral survey and evaluative research that utilized a qualitative descriptive approach. As a descriptive study, this research is an attempt by which the researcher examines the effect of the naturalistically-occurring treatment after the treatment has occurred rather than creating a treatment himself (Tuckman, 1975).
One hundred twenty seven respondents (115 Parent-Sample and 12 Principal/Coordinator/Director-Sample) were randomly selected using a Purposive Sampling method from twelve senior high schools in rural area (Municipality of Jolo) and urban center (Zamboanga City). The data were generated via a Six -Point Likert-Type Questionnaire (1 -Strongly Disagree, 2-Disagree, 3 -Slightly Disagree, 4 -Slightly Agree, 5 -Agree and 6 -Strongly Agree) and Interview Checklist, and analyzed using Weighted

Mean, t-test (Independent Sample Test) and Ordinal
Scale processed through SPSS Application.

Result
This portion contains the findings and analysis on

280
The Economic Implications of Senior High

Rural Area
The parent-respondents were randomly selected Specifically, the respondents claimed that they are economically affected by the implementation of the curriculum. They asserted that the additional years entails more expenses for both school and non-schoolrelated needs of their children and compels them to spend more for education. They also asserted with a mean score of 4.32 that it makes education costlier to them than before. In general, the respondents admitted with a mean score of 4.68 that the added years is a big financial burden to them as parents. believed that unless all the support systems are provided, the curriculum will certainly fail to realize its contemplated goals and objectives.

Urban Center
The parent-respondents were selected randomly from six senior high schools in Zamboanga City.

Table 2. Mean Scores of the Economic Implications of SHS Curriculum to Parents in Urban Center
Total Mean Score = 4.27 Furthermore, the respondents confirmed that their personal needs are often set aside and that they are currently suffering from financial difficulty due to this curriculum as manifested by their mean score of 3.64. They claimed that they need to engage in extraincome generating endeavor and even see the need to borrow money to sustain the education of their children. This is because they confirmed with a mean score of 3.63 that the curriculum makes it hard for them to attend to other school needs of the rest of their children. In spite of this, the respondents confirmed that they can still manage to extend financial assistance to their needy friends and relatives, and attend to their social obligations regularly.
Parents in the urban center are receptive of this curriculum although some of them are appealing for its abolition. In general, they confirmed of being bothered by the volume of school projects and requirements of their children, and that their children are unable to rest due to school activities even during weekends. Parents with children in private school appealed that voucher amount has to be increased, while those in public school appealed that voucher program should be expanded to cover those in the public school. They assailed that the curriculum has to be re-structured, especially with the offering of subjects. The respondents pointed out that most subjects taught in senior high have already been taught in the junior high school and that some subjects taught in college are just duplication of subjects being taught in senior high. As such, they manifested that subjects taught in senior high must be given academic credit in college for the students to save time, energy, and expenses.

Children's School Type
The parent-respondents grouped according to Children's School Type are composed of fifty nine.

Urban Center
Children's Grade Level The parent-respondents grouped according to Children's Grade Level are composed of fifty six.  Table 3 below revealed the pre-determined SHS-Associated Factors causing financial difficulty to parents in rural area. These factors were ranked by the respondents according to the extent/intensity of its impact to them using the ordinal scales of 1stto 15th -i.e. 1st being the one they are mostly struggling to cope with. Generally, parents in rural area asserted with a mean score of 4.87 that they are shelling-out an average amount of Php35,000-45,000 every year for the senior high education of their children.

Urban Center
Table 4 below exposed the ranking of the predetermined SHS-Associated Factors causing economic difficulty to parents in urban center.

Flawed Curriculum
SHS is a sub-standard curriculum hastily forged and implemented during Aquino administration in order to meet less resistance from fellow party members who dominated the political system during that period. It is laden with imperfections as indicated by several glitches in its implementation. In a paradox, while it aims to develop students' job skills through work immersion, it is devoid of necessary support system from the government and stakeholders. Above all, the curriculum does not turn students into confident, job-ready, and employable students/graduates.
The curriculum is a replica of the senior high school system of American with only few modifications. Patterning a system after a progressive nation as America -an indication of our never-ending dependency -having its own dynamics and distinct socio-political-economic and natural endowments then transfer that system for mandatory adoption into an under-privileged country with its surrounding limitations and underdevelopment will only result to the waste of limited resources in the latter. As Crisotomo further commented, the K to 12 program is "flawed, problematic framework which will only worsen the education crisis unlike what Aquino is promising. It is not a solution to education and employment woes. Instead, it will further worsen and deepen the problems."

Misallocation of Public Resource
Typically, in a developing society the 'social' cost of education (i.e. the opportunity cost to society as a whole resulting from the need to finance costly educational expansion at higher levels when these limited funds might be more productively used in other sectors of the economy) increases rapidly as students climb the educational ladder (Todaro,1983:259). Operating under the pretext of constitutional mandate, the new educational system in the country in regard to public school offers free basic education from kindergarten to senior high school which subsequently leads to the rising social costs of education. Table 5 below indicates this trend with senior high in effect. to 2018, DepEd has been receiving the highest budget among national departments. One of the alarming issues in this sense is the tendency towards misallocation of resources. As asserted by Crisostomo, "the government spending for education, as it is, is not enough to meet the shortages at present. The shortages will worsen and we will be faced with greater problems; that tuition rates for tertiary education will further hike as the government's K to 12 will also mean abandonment shell-out an additional PhP100,000.00 to PhP200,000.00 for a student to finish senior high." These amounts are hard to bear, if not impossible, by many Filipino families who are sunk in economic deprivation.
Just as private costs of education increases, the curriculum robs parents of the child's labor contribution (opportunity cost) to the family. In poor families, children of primary school age are needed to work family farms or at any family income-generating endeavours, usually at the same time they are required to be at school. If a child cannot work because he/she is at school, the family will either suffer a loss of a valuable subsistence output or he be required to hire paid labor to replace the absent child. Either way, it caused financial loss to the family. In any case, there is a real cost to poor family of having an able-bodied child attending school when there is a productive work to be done on the farm. As Todaro (1982:267) explained why: First, the private costs of primary education, especially the "opportunity cost" of a child's labor to poor families, are higher for poor students than for rich students.
Second, the expected benefits of primary education are lower for poor students than for rich students.
Together, the high costs and lower expected benefits of education for the poor means that a family's rate of return from investment in a child's education is lower for the relatively poor than for the relatively rich.
Another implication of the curriculum to the parents is the loss of potential opportunity benefits bring about by their children. With the old curriculum, students would graduate after four years and can proceed to college and earn degree four years later (for four-year degree program). This gives them the opportunity -by saving two years -to find job with attractive credential. Consequently, they can contribute to family income, lessening the burden parents' for daily sustenance and make parents save money they are supposed to spend for two years in senior high.

Intensifying Poverty
Poverty is one of the perennial problems in

Rising Dropout Incidence
The concern over high school dropouts stems from the importance of having an educated workforce. However, with senior high the acceleration of high school dropout incidence is inevitable. Looking keenly at the larger picture, one cannot help but notice that said non-economic variables were triggered by economic realities. It is nearly impossible for an individual to be passionate for schooling, develop desirable study habit and attain satisfactory academic performance on an empty stomach.
Without money for transportation, and for school projects and requirements, schooling is surely not enjoyable.

Unemployable Graduates
One of the curriculum exits of senior high is is required to make the curriculum more responsive.
Indeed, to refuse change is to become irrelevant -to become dysfunctional.
SHS curriculum is a product of educational innovation to cope with the inexorable forces of globalization. It is an ill-planned educational reform hastily implemented to please the member states of the ASEAN community. It is plagued with profuse impediments in its very design of which the school system, parents, and students are feebly left to deal with. Being patterned after America's senior high system with only few modifications, SHS has little or no chance at all in realizing its desired outcomes.
With the curriculum, the educational system; instead of becoming a general force for equality, will inevitably tend to act to increase rather than decrease income disparities. This places the entire educational system in an unlikely position of becoming a stumbling block to economic parity rather than a champion of national progress. In spite of its profuse flaws, the curriculum can still be a forerunner of social transformation and prosperity. Abolishing the curriculum will not only undermine the integrity of the educational system in shaping didactic paradigms for the country, but may as well result to a nation-wide outrage from the affected parents and students especially the pioneering batch. However, perpetuating its implementation will only lead to the incessant waste of resources on a large scale, and continuously burden the parents economically.
Whether or not this new curriculum managed to deliver its envisioned potentials and paybacks remain to be a crucial point of analysis for intellectuals in the field of social sciences. But one thing is certainthe need to produce high caliber citizens have always been the constant concern of countries the world over. This explains why educational systems have been undergoing transformation. It only attests to the truism that even the advanced societies where its educational system is closely matched with its manpower requirement there is always the phenomenon of a shortage of educational manpower.

Recommendation
The curriculum has to be restructured in line with the country's natural endowments and aligned with the demands of the local market. National whims have to be the target of the curriculum. Attending to the clamour of global or regional community at the expense of national interests is definitely not a practical plan worth considering. It must undergo extensive review of its vital components.
Nevertheless, curriculum planners should undergo massive modifications of several features and components of this scheme with particularly reference to enhancing Career Guidance and Work Immersion system.
All the necessary support systems have to be adequately provided to the school system to ensure that its mandate of developing students' skills and competence to the fullest level possible is attained.
More school buildings must be constructed to accommodate the increasing number of senior high enrolees each year to prevent shifting of classes which can impede students' learning brought about by insufficient classroom instruction period.
Standardization of hiring standard for senior high teachers has to be formulated and stringently enforced.
Scheme design to diminish the financial impact of the curriculum to parents must be devised should dropout incidence is to be minimized. In particular, cover two years regardless if it is consecutive or not.
This motivates students to continue rather than halt their study. Since it is a needs-based with no grade ceiling, it has to be extended to students enrolled in public school in the form of stipend to alleviate their parents' burden. It should be noted that students enrolled in public school most belong to low-earning family as opposite of those in the private school. A grades-based scheme has to be developed.
Assistance in this type should come in the form of a scholarship grant that will cover not only tuition fee but other senior high-related expenses of parents.
This will not only prevent dropout incidence but also generate highly competent graduates as it will encourage students to excel in their chosen career path.