Gulang-Gulang National High School Students' Perception in Social Studies as a Subject for the School Year 2009 – 2010

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Gulang-gulang National High School is one of the public secondary school of Lucena City located at Zaballero Subdivision, Brgy.Gulang-gulang, Lucena City. It envisions creating an academic institution that produces students who are wholesome and productive members of the community.

It has a mission to provide students with an appropriate education that focuses on academic and social aspect of the students. Further, it aims to give them the opportunities, resources and the environment necessary for their development.

As such, the Social Studies subject is one of the pre-requisites on every student for them to complete the secondary level.

Determining the demographic profile of the respondents is also considered as it used to determine when and where the study should be placed so as to achieve maximum results. It is important that the researcher get the most results for his research, and so careful research means accurate study.

Background of the Study

Social studies is the "integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence," as defined by the National Council for the Social Studies. As defined in www.wikipedia.com, it is most commonly recognized as the name of a course or set of courses taught in primary and secondary schools or elementary, middle, and high schools, but may also refer to the study of particular aspects of human society at certain post-secondary and tertiary schools around the globe. At the elementary school level, social studies generally focuses first on the local community and family. By middle and high school, the social studies curriculum becomes more discipline-based and content-specific. It includes various fields which involve past and current human behavior and interactions, such as sociology, history, political science, economics, religion, geography, anthropology, and civics.

There is a need to study Social Studies because every Filipino citizen must recognize his individual importance in nation-building. Furthermore, as stated earlier, the students-respondents of Gulang-gulang National High School needed it for them to see the need to grasp firmly the lessons of our country's history and apply it to their contemporary lives.

Issues

Aimed to foster "global competitiveness" on the Philippine education sector, the Department of Education issued the "Makabayan" subject Makabayan is one of the five learning areas of the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC).

The Makabayan subject was introduced in 2002 as part of the Revised Basic Education Curriculum. Makabayan is considered as one of the five key learning areas in the newly-revised curriculum. The other four are English, Filipino, Science, and Mathematics. Public schools are required to teach the subject, but private schools were given the freedom to integrate it into their own curriculum or not, according to the needs of their students.

Teachers of the component subjects of Makabayan are asked to teach the components separately. Each Makabayan subject, except for values education, is taught for one hour daily for four days a week, or a total of 240 minutes a week.

It issued that all primary and secondary educational institutions must have only five core subjects: English, Science, Math, Filipino and Makabayan – the combination of Social Studies, PE (Physical Education), Health, and the Technology and Home Economics. The Science subject was phased-out in Grades 1 and 2 and reduced the "contact time" of teaching Science in high school.

In Gulang-gulang National High School, the total student population from freshman to senior year is one thousand four hundred and ninety-nine (1, 499). There are five hundred and fifty-four (554) first year high school students where 299 are male and the rest 255 are females, all taking taking up the Social Studies subject under the "Makabayan" core sixty (60) minutes, four (4) times a week. Selected few freshmen are the target respondents of this educational research. There are four (4) teachers on the school teaching the respective subject.

On the implementation of governmental policies affecting the education sector particularly what they called the "globalization era", Science & Technology, Mathematics and English subjects are the prerequisites. This statement holds true, as our education caters to a free-market globalization economic policy. Thus, this leaves the Social Studies and other subjects left unscathed. Various educational institutions seem to divert their curriculum on globally-oriented courses and subjects. These tend to market the students