THE SECOND Congressional Commission on Education, or EDCOM 2, is exploring concepts from Science High Schools that could be implemented in regular schools.

“We’re trying to identify which concepts from science high schools we can apply to our regular schools,” said EDCOM 2 Co-Chairperson Senator Sherwin Gatchalian.

One key practice identified by a Philippine Science High School (PSHS) teacher was the importance of teacher training.

“Teachers really need training. It’s fundamental to have teacher training from the ground up. That’s very important,” the teacher said.

Other factors discussed were competitive teacher salaries and strict assessments.

Another major point was the non-implementation of the spiral curriculum in PSHS.

“Definitely, the spiral curriculum is one major difference between general education schools and science high schools,” Gatchalian pointed out.

EDCOM 2 acknowledged that implementing spiral progression in general schools under DepEd has been challenging.

PSHS Executive Director Dr. Ronnalee Orteza noted that since PSHS is under the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) rather than DepEd, it is not required to follow the spiral curriculum.

“Most of our curriculum is discipline-based. We tried the spiral progression, but the discipline-based approach prevailed,” she said.

Under RA 10533, the K-12 Curriculum mandates a spiral progression approach.

Consultations with teachers have revealed criticisms, including content repetition across grade levels, lack of depth in science subjects, the omission of fundamental concepts, challenges with teacher expertise, and resource constraints.