Sports in Senior High School: No takers yet among the public schools

With about twenty months to go before the Department of Education rolls out the K-to-12 program's senior high school (SHS) grade levels, physical education teachers attending a conference learned over the weekend that not a single public school in the country has yet applied to implement the sports component of Grades 11 and 12.

At the Third National Conference on Sport Pedagogy, DepEd education program specialist Marivic Tolitol said it was “unfortunate” that public schools have yet to sign up. She said these schools may not have yet found ways to have the facilities and teachers needed to conduct the nine tracks of sports subjects in the proposed SHS curriculum.

The DepEd expert however was quick to suggest that public schools may want to follow the example of Rizal High School (RHS) in Pasig City and the University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P) which have teamed up to develop the expertise of RHS teachers on specialized sports topics.

DepEd documents show that there are 17 public high schools offering a Special Program in Sports (SPS) curriculum. Rizal High is one of the 17.

Tolitol clarified, however, that it did not automatically follow that the SPS schools get to roll out the SHS sports component. She said the public schools have to first apply, and then be evaluated for readiness.

She said the SHS sports track is the basic education culmination of K to 12 PE, which now has PE in Grades 1 to 3. Previously, PE was introduced only at Grade 4.

The DepEd envisions that after graduating from senior high, the sports track student would be able to earn a living or find employment as an athlete, coach or PE teacher assistant, sports official or tournament manager, or fitness, sports and recreation leader.



Peter Dajime of the Philippine Science High School also spoke before the NCSP and he said there were many more schools offering the SPS aside from the lead 17.

He said SPS was originally created to develop athletes, but has since been reoriented towards school-sports balance, as well as prepare students for work and higher education.

Form partnerships on SHS sports

Tolitol said the answer and key to the public high schools' problem on implementing SHS sports and physical education is in DepEd Memorandum No. 4 (series of 2014), which allows universities, colleges, corporations, foundations, and even private individuals to offer SHS.

The DepEd representative to the 3rd NCSP urged public schools to follow the example of Rizal High School by partnering with competent entities and people to implement the nine sports tracks/subjects.

To be qualified to teach, SHS faculty, according to Tolitol, should be “a bachelor's degree holder with at least 15 units of specialization in ,subjects of the SHS sports track.”

She also said the SHS sports teacher must have attended relevant training and earned certification from any respectable and highly regarded local and international PE, health, fitness, recreation, and dance associations or organizations.

UA&P Professor Stella Urbiztondo, a consultant of the DepEd on K to 12, said, in an interview with GMA News Online, that the UA&P teamed up with Rizal High as a form of capacity-building outreach.

She said perhaps after developing Rizal High, UA&P would partner with another public high school. — DVM, GMA News