When I first heard the issue, I overlooked it. That when our professor asked if we are in favor of the additional two years in basic education, I immediately answered “yes” without looking at the whole scenario. I realized that there are some more solutions that must first be taken into account that there is still a number of education issues not yet resolved. For example, we must first attend to the primary problems about insufficient instructional materials such as textbooks and workbooks, lack of classrooms, incompetent teachers, illiteracy of students in technology, inconvenient school facilities and even the tremendous need for adequate school supplies.

Because if we will not able to solve these primary dilemmas, it would still profit us nothing even if we extend the years of schooling. If the government cannot even support every Filipino child with a ten-year learning process, what is the reason of adding two more years in the basic education? It is true that we will not just sit and watch our people die without tasting the goodness of education. But the extension of schooling years is not the solution. According to Abbe Dimnet, “Children have to be educated, but they have also to be left to educate themselves.”