2018 Graduation Theme (Department of

Education)

2018 Graduation Theme: “Mag-aaral ng K to 12: Handa sa Hamon ng Buhay (K to 12 Learners:

Ready to Face Life’s Challenges)”

As highlighted in the DO 06, s. 2018 – School Year 2017-2018 K to 12 Basic Education

Program End of School Year Rites published on DepEd official website:

(1) For School Year (SY) 2017-2018, the Department of Education (DepEd) announces the
conduct of the following End of School Year Rites:

 Kindergarten: Moving Up or Completion Ceremony

 Grade 6: Graduation Ceremony
 Grade 10: Moving Up or Completion Ceremony
 Grade 12: Graduation Ceremony

(2) The 2018 ceremonies shall focus on the theme: Mag-aaral ng K to 12: Handa sa Hamon ng
Buhay (K to 12 Learners: Ready to Face Life’s Challenges). Schools, divisions, or regions may
translate the theme in Mother Tongue. This theme highlights the role of K to 12 Basic Education
Program in harnessing the skills and competencies of the Filipino learners to face life’s
challenges.

(3) As announced in Enclosure No. 1 of DepEd Order (DO) No. 25, s. 2017 entitled School
Calendar for School Year 2017-2018, the end of school year rites should be scheduled not
earlier than April 2, 2018 but not later than April 6, 2018. Schools, divisions, or regions with an
extended school year will have to be guided by their approved revised school calendar.

(4) All Grade 12 learners are required to take the Basic Education Exit Assessment
(BEEA) which will be conducted before April 6, 2018. Details of the examination will be issued
on a separate memorandum.

(5) In line with the government’s austerity program, DepEd reiterates the following policies:

 Graduation rites should be simple but meaningful which encourage civil rights, a sense of
community, and personal responsibility. While these rites mark a milestone in the life of the
learners, these should be conducted without excessive spending, extravagant attire, or
extraordinary venue;
 Moving Up or Closing Ceremonies should be simple involving only the learners, their parents and
the school; and,
 Non-academic projects such as attendance to field trips, film showing, junior-senior promenade,
and other school events should not be imposed as requirements for graduation or
completion…Read more…
Skepticism, Ignorance, and Miscommunication

A sample graduation speech based on the 2018 theme, Mag-aaral ng K to 12: Handa sa Hamon
ng Buhay (K to 12 Learners: Ready to Face Life’s Challenges)

Nobody knows much the struggles we have been through in the last two years more than we do.
Neither do our parents who have silently tracked our sleepovers with study buddies for our group
research and projects through our Facebook statuses nor our teachers who until now still seem if
not a little guilty about the overwhelming curricular requirements. Totally, we have experienced
the upsurge of the demands and expectations of education in the 21st century.

Distinguished guests of honor, our school principal and assistant principal, teachers, parents and
sponsors, ladies and gentlemen, and the 2018 graduating class, good morning.

We have just survived senior high school. It must be a celebration not just among us, but also
among our parents and the stakeholders of this institution. While this year’s graduation
theme, Mag-aaral ng K to 12: Handa sa Hamon ng Buhay (K to 12 Learners: Ready to Face
Life’s Challenges), highlights the role of K to 12 Basic Education Program in harnessing the
skills and competencies of the Filipino learners to face life’s challenges, I choose to discuss the
blind spots on these challenges that confront the Filipino people in general, and thus focus on the
issues of – skepticism, ignorance, and miscommunication. In our brave admission of these, we
become more cognizant of our self-worth and part in the rebuilding of a great nation.
Admit it, we were at first a little skeptical about the significant change in the Philippine
education system that shortly drew negative public feedback, mostly on the issues of
unpreparedness of the implementing agencies and of additional financial burden on the part of
the sponsoring parents. A Filipino instinct maybe, we suddenly become dubiously vocal with
issues even without our full grasp. As soon as they cool down however, we finally forget and
find ourselves surrendering reservations and resistance.

There is no big problem with skepticism, I must say. In fact, it encourages us to confirm facts,
and hence, make sound judgments and decisions. As a confirmation bias however, with
skepticism, most of us appear to be smart without doing any work. Sadly, this defines many of
us. I stand here today not as a charlatan who falsely claims having special knowledge or skill, but
rather as a representative of these young Filipino learners who have just refused to give up a
good fight for true education.

Ignorance finds no place in our generation. In a world where everybody has access to a vast
resource of information, there is no excuse for us, students, for instance, not to do a little effort to
compensate for the shortcomings of our academics. In a sense, technological disruption in
education has served more pathways for student-teacher collaborations while we develop more
accountability for our own learning.

As technology sweeps through classrooms and shapes the future of education, there shouldn’t be
a collapse of the long been established foundation of Filipino studentry. However, as Manuel
Quezon observed, “Education is collapsing under the weight of poor planning, limited
infrastructure, diminished education, and graft and corruption. Our students are no longer taught
to be thinkers, or artists, or poets, or entrepreneurs, or anything, rather as laborers, not even of
our society, but of other countries.”

It is no longer just an issue concerning selective academic ignorance, but of a blind eye turned
towards other serious problems not just in our educational system, but in many critical aspects of
the Filipino way of life. Worse, our sense of co-ownership and Filipinohood has since been
diminishing with our creation of an imaginary superhero we empowered to do the solving