Makabayan curriculum for secondary schools in the Philippines: An impression in the development of citizenship

The Department or Education (DepEd) in the Philippines has undertaken in initiatives to restructure the curriculum for secondary schools as part of its ongoing effort to improve the quality of learning. After more than a decade of thoughtful study, the DepEd came up with a new basic education curriculum referred to as the 2002 Basic Education Curriculum or BEC. All public schools in the country were mandated to implement the BEC at the start of school year 2002-2003. Makabayan (nationalistic or patriotic) is one of the learning areas in the OEC besides English, Filipino, Science and Mathematics. Based on its formulation, Makabayan, from First to Fourth Year is a learning area designed to develop the personal, social and work special skills of learners especially their interpersonal skills, empathy with other cultures, vocational efficiency, problem-solving. and decision-making in daily life. More specifically, Makabayan shall develop socio-cultural and politico-economic literacy. This paper describes the context and content of the Makabayan curriculum as one of the learning areas of the 2002 BEC. In an exploratory manner, the paper address the question: Does the Makabayan curriculum with its present emphases develop in the learner a sense of citizenship, that is, a healthy personal and national self-concept and a constructive or healthy patriotism that is appreciative of global interdependence? To delimit scope, this paper focuses on the study of geography. only. Geography is one of the components of Araling Panlipunan (Social Studies) in the secondary school level. Araling Panlipunan (Social Studies) is one of the components of the Makabayan Curriculum. The main assumption of the paper is that the development of citizenship depends significantly on Geographic literacy and competency. In a modest attempt to draw an impression of whether current curriculum could develop citizenship among students, this paper uses the results of a study or third year high school \u27 students\u27 pre-tests in the Social Studies focused on the learning or geographic knowledge and skills as bases of empirical data