09 May Fr. Yalung Presents K-12 Paper on Diocesan Forum

Father Oliver G. Yalung, Institue of Theology and Religious Studies director, presented a paper entitled “Coping with K-12: The UA experience” during the 3 rd Diocesan Forum of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines and its sub-committee National Tertiary Educational Commission (CEAP-NTEC) in Butuan, City on April 27-28, 2017.

During the forum, Yalung discussed his paper which speaks about the challenges surrounding the K-12 implementation in the University of the Assumption as well as how UA addresses these concerns. He explained that the paper was an assessment from study interviews of the UA Research and Planning Office regarding the implementation of the program.

In his article, Yalung used the image of the ‘Woman in Labor’ to describe how higher educational institutions (HEIs) such as UA are dealing with K-12. He refers to the K-12 challenges as the ‘birth pains’ which involves the development of curriculum, enrolment uncertainties, faculty displacements, senior high school identity, facilities, and the school’s finances and operations.

He also highlighted the efforts of the university to handle these concerns including the establishment of a K-12 working committee which eases out the pains of birthing the program and ensuring its smooth transitions.

“I took it from the scriptural text of St. John 16:21. Our schools are in labor. They are in anguish because K-12 has arrived. But when they have given birth to their child, they no longer remember the pain because of the joy that the child has been born,” he explained.

He added that papers and reports regarding K-12 are essential for institutions like UA to be more introspective and conscious of the new challenges in private higher education.

“I think this is something that we have to do really in the university… We expect more researches like this, more assessments and eventually, more sharing and benchmarking to other institutions, “ he said.