Now that Republic Act 11476 or the Good Manners and Right Conduct (GMRC) and Values Education Act has been signed into law, schools will be offering Values Education again as part of the K to 12 curriculum. But how should teachers teach the subject?

Teaching Values Education should begin in pre-service education when teacher education students are being honed and prepared for the real world of teaching. RCTQ, together with the Teacher Education Council (TEC) as lead, in partnership with select Centers of Excellence (COEs) and Centers of Development (CODs) in Teacher Education, put together a compendium of prototype syllabi based on the Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers (PPST) for Values Education specialization courses intended for use by Bachelor of Secondary Education students.

For Dr. Twila Punsalan, teacher education and Values Education specialist and former dean of the College of Arts and Social Sciences of the Philippine Normal University (PNU), the lack of qualified/trained teachers to teach the subject needs to be addressed by encouraging more TEIs to offer a program to produce Values Education teachers.

“There are actually just a few educational institutions offering Values Education as a degree course in the Philippines to supply the demand of basic education teachers in teaching the subject. With the latest version of the teacher education curriculum for the preparation of Values Education teachers, this problem should be reduced as more TEIs are encouraged to offer the values edducation program,” Dr. Punsalan said in her article titled “How comprehensive is our values education vis-a-vis the whole school approach?” published in June 2020.

Dr. Punsalan added: “A very useful material that accompanies the curriculum is a set of PPST- based prototype syllabi for all the professional education courses including the specialization courses in Values Education is now easily accessible. This compendium was developed together with other specialization degree programs, through the collaboration of selected TEIs led by RCTQ, through a project supported by the Australian government.”

PNU pioneered the teacher training in Values Education by offering Bachelor of Secondary Education major in Values Education since the then Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) made it a separate subject in 1989.

At the Senate hearing for the said bill, PNU submitted a resolution supporting its passage. PNU’s Dr. Wilma Reyes and Prof. Nonet Marte also attended the hearing as resource persons. Another resolution was submitted by the Pambansang Samahan para sa Edukasyon sa Pagpapahalaga (PSEP), a national organization of Values Education educators that PNU and Dr. Punsalan founded.

“The new law will certainly attract more students to become Values Education teachers. VE will now become a core subject and will be accorded proper appreciation by other educators,” Dr. Punsalan said.

In December last year, TEC and RCTQ jointly launched the first of the 10 compendiums–the Professional Education Courses–during the 7th National Convention of Centers of Excellence and Development in Teacher Education in Clark, Pampanga. More compendiums were developed in the succeeding months.

RCTQ and TEC partnered with select TEIs in developing the prototype syllabi compendiums since 2018. Two to three TEIs collaboratively worked on one compendium/priority program, while three to four writers per institution were sent to attend a series of writeshops, reviews and validation to finalize the outputs.

Each compendium contains prototype syllabi that TEIs could either adapt or adopt. Parts of the prototype syllabi template were benchmarked from local and international sources and were agreed upon by the technical working group and partner institutions.

With guidance from RCTQ and TEC, the syllabi for Values Education were written by Dr. Arnulfo C. Capili, Dr. Jingle P. Cuevas and Dr. Erlyn Honeylette C. Marquez from the Benguet State University; and Dr. Maureen Jane O. Bandoc, Dr. Carmelita B. Caramto, and Dr. Geraldine S. Wakat from the Saint Louis University – Baguio City.

After being previously dissolved as a subject under the K-12 Program in 2013, GMRC will be institutionalized again through RA 11476, replacing the current Edukasyon sa Pagpapakatao curriculum. (Arvin Yana/RCTQ)

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Now that Republic Act 11476 or the Good Manners and Right Conduct (GMRC) and Values Education Act has been signed into law, schools will be offering Values Education again as part of the K to 12 curriculum. But how should teachers teach the subject? Teaching Values Education should begin in...