A BILL has been filed in the House of Representatives seeking to integrate lessons on environmental protection, entrepreneurship, and reproductive health in primary and secondary school subjects to help nurture the young towards responsible adulthood.
House Bill 5202, also known as the Responsible Youth Act, mandates the Department of Education (DepEd) to adjust elementary and high school lessons to include age-appropriate topics on these various topics.
The proposed measure also adds population control and drug prevention to the curriculum.
“Discussion of these programs or courses paired with broader and more comprehensive instruction as early as childhood can help prepare youth to reach intellectual and emotional maturity leading to a responsible and healthy life decisions,” Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert S. Barbers, author of the bill, said in the explanatory note.
“Early intervention has a life altering impact on changing a child’s life path away from problems and toward positive behaviors,” he said.
Under the proposed measure, the education department will also provide additional free training to teachers and staff to help them incorporate a “reality framework” in teaching students.
“In order for these programs to produce positive results, the content of the course or the teaching modules to be developed by the Department of Education must be ‘age-appropriate’,” Mr. Barbers said in a statement on Sunday. — Matthew Carl L. Montecillo