IT’S good development that the EduAKSyon Party-list has started to gain significant traction ahead of the May 12 midterm elections as indicated by the latest Tangere Pre-Election Party-List Preferential Survey.
With its leading nominee, Michael Alexander Ang, The Manila Times’ chief financial officer, EduAKSyon has shown notable momentum across different regions, buoyed by widespread public sentiment on the importance of education.
The survey, conducted from April 8 to 10, revealed that a significant majority — seven to eight out of every 10 respondents — identified education as one of their top advocacies when selecting a party-list group.
Although EduAKSyon, which advocates transformative educational reforms, currently ranks 51st overall with 0.7 percent voter preference, it’s expected to climb steadily as the campaign season gains steam.
Ang, a seasoned media executive and diplomat with a strong background in international business and education advocacy is joined by second nominee Kristjan Vincent Gargantiel, a respected lawyer and educator, and Dr. Aldrin Darilag, the third nominee.
EduAKSyon deserves full support from many concerned sectors come May polls for it pushes genuine educational reforms that other similar groups in the past failed to deliver.
Primarily, it advocates the reduction of the standard four-year college curriculum to three years in a bid to streamline education and make it more accessible and efficient for Filipino students.
The three years will be broken down into two years of classroom learning and one year of on-the-job training, Gargantiel said.
This is really logical and since general education subjects like Filipino and Natural Science were already taken up during secondary education, the three-year curriculum would instead focus on core subjects specifically made for the specific course.
The country’s current four-year system is outdated and no longer reflects the realities of a rapidly changing job market, the top nominees said.
The party-list group hopes to align education more closely with the needs of modern industries where specialized skills are increasingly valued over general knowledge.
With the proposed change, Ang said this would effectively reduce both financial strains on families and student debt.
He said that education shouldn’t be a burden but a pathway to opportunity.
EduAKSyon has pointed to other countries where three-year degree programs are common, particularly in Europe, as evidence that shorter programs can be just as effective.
