2021 年 12 巻 2 号 p. 71-76
The Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, also known as K to 12 Program, primarily aims to bring the Philippine education system at par with international standards through preparing graduates for college education, employment, or entrepreneurship. The Philippines has a clearer model with four Senior High School tracks compared to other countries. As the new program puts focus on student-centered learning, the quality of agriculture teacher education seems to be left behind. Previous literatures show that majority of the Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) still has not aligned their curriculum to the needs of the K to 12 Program while current high school agriculture teachers have insufficient relevant trainings or seminars that relates to teaching strategies and in-service specialization. Aside from the effect of TEIs, one of the factors that can affect the quality of teachers is their teaching attitude. Teaching attitude encompasses complex topics, but this study focused only on preferences and motivations of high school agriculture teachers as these can be reflected to the interventions done in concurrent challenges in the Philippine education and agriculture. This study employed a semi-structured questionnaire for preferences on teaching and teaching agriculture and motivations in teaching. A five-point Likert-type scale revealed that the median for both preferences was ’5’ which means most of the respondents have ’very high’ preferences. This is despite only one (1) among seven (7) respondents stated that the first choice of profession was teaching. Qualitative analysis revealed that respondents encountered challenges in school facilities, professional development focusing on content knowledge, and lack of teaching and non-teaching personnel. The recommendation of this study is to focus on improving the holistic skills of high school agriculture teachers not only in teaching strategies but in content knowledge as well since these relate to their professional development.
