The Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) are set to integrate voters’ education program into the high school and college curricula after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) announced its plan of incorporating the program to educate the public on the elections and to strengthen the electoral process as a whole.
 
According to Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal, further meeting will be set with newly appointed Education Secretary Armin Luistro to discuss how to integrate the concept of voters’ education in the curricula and how to effectively teach it to the students.
 
Larrazabal said that the matter was briefly discussed with Secretary Luistro during the inauguration of President Benigno Aquino III. He also plans to meet with the new CHEd chairman Dr. Patricia Licuanan after the formal turnover on July 19.
 
"We will be meeting with DepEd and CHEd in the coming days to discuss how we intend to do this," he said.
 
Larrazabal explained that the voters’ education would not only educate the public—particularly students in all public schools nationwide—more about the elections but would also touch on the acceptance of electoral defeat.
 
"We want to have a greater reach and we are looking at ways on how we can do that,” he said. Aside from strengthening voter education, he added that this will also strengthen the electoral process that will assist the commission better in future elections.
 
Larrazabal explained that the implementation of the project is what needs a more thorough discussion since DepEd and CHEd will bring the modules to the schools.

"We'll take the lead and we will be providing them with materials which they can put in the libraries of their schools,” he explained.
 
In other countries, specifically in the United States, Larrazabal said that courses related to elections are already being taught to the students.
 
Meanwhile, Comelec spokesman James Jimenez revealed that the commission is also considering the integration of voters’ education in kindergarten believing that the “values connected to the electoral exercise, like election defeat, should be taught at an early stage.”
 
The initial plan, said Jimenez, is to include voters’ education in the curriculum of third and fourth year high school students “but as much as possible, we want to start young with kindergarten or those belonging to 2.6 years and above because as you can see the most difficult to accept in electoral exercise is defeat.”
 
He added that to entice children to learn more on the electoral and democratic process, the commission is intending to use a mascot.
 
However, DepEd said that the integration of voters’ education is still in the planning stage. Like in other projects, this will be pilot tested in selected schools hopefully by next school year to assess its effectiveness.