EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Special Education in the Philippines Special education (also known as special needs
education, aided education, vocational education, and limb care authority education) is
the practice of educating students with special educational needs in a way that
addresses their individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the
individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures,
adapted equipment and materials, and accessible settings. These interventions are
designed to help learners with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-
sufficiency and success in school and their community, than may be available if the
student were only given access to a typical classroom education.
Common special needs include learning disabilities, communication disorders,
emotional and behavioral disorders, physical disabilities, and developmental disabilities.
Students with these kinds of special needs are likely to benefit from additional
educational services such as different approaches to teaching, the use of technology, a
specifically adapted teaching area, or a resource room.
Intellectual giftedness is a difference in learning and can also benefit from specialized
teaching techniques or different educational programs, but the term "special education"
is generally used to specifically indicate instruction of students with disabilities. Gifted
education is handled separately.
Whereas special education is designed specifically for students with special needs,
remedial education can be designed for any students, with or without special needs; the
defining trait is simply that they have reached a point of under preparedness, regardless
of why. Like people of high intelligence can be underprepared if their education was
disrupted of any incidents.
In most developed countries, educators modify teaching methods and environments so
that the maximum number of students is served in general education environments.
Therefore, special education in developed countries is often regarded as a service
rather than a place.
When the School for the Deaf and Blind in the Philippines was established in 1907, this
was the birth of Special Education (or SPED) in the Philippines. Then, in 1976, the
Philippine Association for the Deaf (PAD) spearheaded the Hearing Conservation Week
which was born through the Presidential Proclamation 1587, duly signed by then
President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
Activities for the Hearing Conservation Week were used to be taken care of by a sole
committee but, during the early 80’s, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and
other schools for the deaf were invited. It was also during this time that the celebration
of the Hearing Conservation Week, initially the third week of October, be celebrated the
third week of November.
In 1991, this time initiated by the Philippine School for the Deaf (PSD) and the
Philippine Institute for the Deaf (PID), then President Corazon C. Aquino signed
Presidential Proclamation 829 declaring November 10-16 as Deaf Awareness Week
(DAW). As stated in the proclamation it is in recognition of the deaf as a vital segment of
society which can be transformed into a significant force in the efforts for national
development and the need to focus public awareness on deafness, its prevention and
rehabilitation.
The Sped program of DepEd provides a holistic approach in catering to the needs of
learners with various exceptionalities. This program ensures that learners with
exceptionalities will have access to quality education by giving them their individual and
unique learning needs.

This initiative caters to learners with visual impairment, hearing impairment, intellectual
disability, learning disability, autism spectrum disorder, communication disorder,
physical disability, emotional and behavioral disorder, multiple disability with visual
impairment, and to those who are orthopedically handicapped, chronically ill, and gifted
and talented.

To date, DepEd has recognized a total of 648 Sped Centers and regular schools
offering the program—471 of which are catering to elementary students and 177 are
catering to High School students.

The Education Department has recorded around 250,000 enrollees with certain
exceptionalities at the elementary level and around 100,000 at the high school level in
School Year (SY) 2015-2016.

Instructional programs

The parents or guardians of learners with certain exceptionalities may reach out to
principals or guidance counselors of schools where they wish to enroll their children to
determine the necessary instructional program that their children need best.

The instructional programs that the SPED teachers shall implement the following:

1. Self-contained/Special Class – a separate class for only one type of exceptionality

which serves moderate to severe types of disabilities;

2. Itinerant Teaching – a traveling teacher reaches out to children with special needs in
other schools or at home to provide direct and consultative services;

3. Resource Room – a designated place where the child with special needs enrolled in
the regular school program goes to in order to make use of the specialized equipment,
either in a tutorial situation or in a small group session handled by a SPED teacher;

4. Pull-out – a kind of program where the child enrolled in the regular class reports to
the resource room for a period of time for special instructions by the SPED teacher;

5. Integration/Mainstreaming – refers to the enrolment of a child with special needs in

a regular class with support services. There are two degrees of integration: Partial
Integration and Full Integration. In Partial Integration/Mainstreaming, a child with special
needs enrolled in a special class is integrated with regular children in non-academic
activities like work education, physical education, arts, school programs, etc, then
gradually integrated in the academic subjects if qualified. Meanwhile, in Full
Integration/Mainstreaming, a child with special needs sits in the regular class in all
academic and non-academic subjects; and

6. Inclusion – all children with disabilities, regardless of the nature and severity of their
disability and need for related services, receive their total education within the regular
education classroom.

5.3 Definition and classification of educational programmes

The educational programme is the basic unit of classification within ISCED-97 and as
such is the main building block for international statistical comparisons in education.
This section first of all provides a definition of an educational programme and then
describes the various ways in which such programmes can be classified: by level, field
of education, vocational/general orientation, school based or combined school and
work-based programmes.
5.3.1 Definition of an educational programme
An educational programme is defined as a collection of educational activities which are
organised to accomplish a pre-determined objective or the completion of a specified set
of educational tasks. The term educational activities has a broader meaning than for
instance the terms “course” or “class”. Educational activities can be courses (e.g. the
study of individual subjects) organised into programmes as well as freestanding
courses. They can also include a variety of components not normally characterised as
courses, for example interludes of work experience in enterprises, research projects,
and preparation of dissertations. Objectives can, for instance, be the preparation for
more advanced study, the achievement of a qualification, preparation for an occupation
or range of occupations, or simply for an increase in knowledge and understanding. So,
an educational programme could simply be the study of a single subject leading to a
recognised qualification or it can be the study of a collection of subjects, along with
perhaps a period of work experience, all of which contribute towards the same
qualification aim. When a national programme has programme options or paths of study
that differ with respect to one or more of the criteria that are used to classify educational
programmes within ISCED (see Section 5.3.2.1), then it should be broken apart and
reported as separate programmes under ISCED-97. For example, if it takes four years
to train a teacher and seven years to train a medical doctor in a country, then the
corresponding activities should be reported as separate programmes under ISCED-97,
even though they may be considered as one single type of programme from a national
perspective (e.g. university education).
5.3.2 Classification of educational programmes by level
In summary, the levels to which programmes are assigned within ISCED-97, are as
follows: ISCED-97 Level Description 0 Pre-primary level of education 1 Primary level of
education 2 Lower-secondary level of education (sub-categories 2A, 2B and 2C *) 3
Upper secondary level of education (sub-categories 3A, 3B and 3C*) 4 Post-secondary,
non-tertiary education (sub-categories 4A, 4B and 4C*) 5 First stage of tertiary
education : not leading directly to an advanced research qualification (sub-categories
5A and 5B*) 6 Second stage of tertiary education : leading to an advanced research
qualification * Distinguishing between the destinations that the programmes are
theoretically designed to prepare students for. A detailed description of each of these
levels is given in Section 5.4. It is worth noting that in the original ISCED-97 framework
approved by UNESCO, Level 4 was divided into two sub-categories only: 4A and 4B.
However, in order to maintain a parallel structure to the threeway split of educational
and labour market destinations of Level 3, Level 4 was split into three categories in the
implementation of ISCED (see also Section 5.4.5). In ISCED-97, a ‘level’ of education is
broadly defined as the gradations of learning experiences and the competencies built
into the design of an educational programme. Broadly speaking, the level is related to
the degree of complexity of the content of the programme. This does not, however,
imply that levels of education constitute a ladder, where access of prospective
participants to each level necessarily depends on the successful completion of the
previous level, though such progression is more likely between the lower ISCED levels.
It also does not preclude the possibility that some participants in educational
programmes at a given level – most probably at post-compulsory levels - may have
previously successfully completed programmes at a higher level.
5.3.2.1 Criteria used in allocating programmes to levels
Section 5.4 describes in detail the criteria – main and auxiliary– that should be used in
the allocation of programmes to each respective level within ISCED-97. A number of the
criteria are specific to individual ISCED levels (e.g. the requirement that an ISCED 6
programme should include the submission of a thesis or dissertation) but there are
some criteria which are more commonly used and these are described here.
• Ages of participants- it is important to distinguish between theoretical ages and
typical ages:
- Theoretical ages refer to the ages as established by law and regulation for the entry
and ending of a cycle of education whereas typical ages refer to the ages that normally
correspond to the age at entry and ending of the programme (usually the most common
age for entry or ending a programme).
- Starting age: the age at the beginning of the first school/academic year of the
corresponding level and programme.
- Ending age: the age at the beginning of the last school/academic year of the
corresponding level and programme.
- Graduation age: the age at the end of the last school/academic year of the
corresponding level and programme when the degree is obtained. Note that at some
levels of education the term “graduation age” may not translate literally and would be
equivalent to a “completion age”; it is used here purely as a convention.
- Theoretical ending ages are derived by adding the theoretical duration of the
programme (see below) to the theoretical starting age, where the theoretical duration
assumes full-time attendance inthe regular education system and that no year is
repeated.
• The duration of the programme - the standard number of years (or days or weeks or
months) in which a student can complete the education programme. The duration can
be either theoretical or typical. The theoretical duration of the programme is that which
is set out in law or regulations and may differ from the typical or average duration of the
programme which reflects the time that students take in practice to complete the
programme. The “full-time equivalent duration” refers to a weighted average of the
length of time it takes a full-time student to complete and the length of time it takes part-
time students to complete. Tertiary programmes and particularly ISCED 5 programmes
use the “Cumulative theoretical duration” which represents the full-time equivalent
duration of the programme from the start of level 5. Thus if a programme requires the
completion of another tertiary programmes prior to admission, the cumulative duration
includes the duration of the programmes required for entry.
 • Typical entrance qualifications and minimum entrance requirements - this may
be the successful completion of the previous ISCED level or simply any qualification at
the previous or current level. Entry qualifications can also be the demonstration of
skills/knowledge/competence or experience that is equivalent to a particular qualification
or it can be the completion of a particular number of years schooling. Minimum entry
requirement are those which it is necessary to have to join programme whereas typical
entry requirements are those which students have in practice. • Qualifications awarded -
the type of certifications or diplomas that are awarded upon successful completion of
the programme (Section 4.2.3 deals with the definition of successful completion). • Type
of subsequent education or destination - the destination for which the programmes have
been theoretically designed to prepare students (see Section 5.3.5). • Programme
orientation - the degree to which the programme is specifically oriented towards a
specific class of occupations or trades and is generally oriented towards an immediate
transition into the labour market (see Section 5.3.4).
5.3.3 Field of education of programmes
Programmes are classified into fields of education as defined in the 2-digit classification
of fields within ISCED-97. An exception to this is where the single ISCED-97 category
‘Teacher training and education science’ is split into two separate categories. The
classification is also consistent with the fields defined in the Fields of Education and
Training – Manual (EUROSTAT, 1999) which disaggregates the ISCED field
classification to a lower level.
In summary, the classification distinguishes the following fields:
• Education - Teacher training (Category 141) - Education science (142)
• Humanities and Arts - Arts (21) - Humanities (22)
• Social sciences, business and law - Social and behavioural science (31) -
Journalism and information (32) - Business and administration ( 34) - Law ( 38)
• Science - Life sciences ( 42) - Physical sciences ( 44) - Mathematics and statistics
( 46) - Computing ( 48)
• Engineering, manufacturing and construction - Engineering and engineering
trades ( 52) - Manufacturing and processing ( 54) - Architecture and building ( 58) •
Agriculture - Agriculture, forestry and fishery ( 62) - Veterinary ( 64)
• Health and welfare - Health (72) - Social services ( 76)
• Services - Personal services (81) - Transport services ( 84) - Environmental protection
( 85) - Security services ( 86)
This classification applies to all levels of education. Students not classifiable by field of
education should be allocated to the category “Field of education unknown”. Annex 5
provides details of the coverage of each of the two digit fields.
5.3.4 Programme orientation
Programmes at ISCED levels 2, 3 and 4 are sub-divided into three categories of
programme orientation based on the degree to which a programme is specifically
oriented towards a particular class of occupations or trades and leads to a labour-
market relevant qualification:
• Type I (general): Covers education which is more general and is not designed
explicitly to prepare participants for a specific class of occupations or trades or for entry
into further vocational or technical education programmes. Less than 25 per cent of the
programme content is vocational or technical.
• Type II (pre-vocational or pre-technical): Covers education that is mainly designed
to introduce participants to the world of work and to prepare them for entry into further
vocational or technical education programmes. Successful completion of such
programmes does not lead to a labour-market relevant vocational or technical
qualification. For a programme to be considered as pre-vocational or pre-technical
education, it should comprise at least 25 per cent of vocational or technical content.
• Type III (vocational or technical): Covers education that prepares participants for
direct entry, without further training, into specific occupations. Successful completion of
such programmes leads to a labour-market relevant vocational qualification.
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