Armin Luistro

President Benigno Aquino III, Corazon's son, appointed him as the secretary of the Department of Education.[11] He was inaugurated on June 30, 2010,[12] becoming the second De La Salle brother to hold the post—the other was Gonzalez who was in office from 1998 to 2001.[6][13]

Aquino gave Luistro two years to address problems, including insufficient books, classrooms and teachers. Luistro estimates a lack of 130,000 teachers, 72,000 classrooms, 7 million desks, 141,000 comfort rooms and 96 million books.[22]

As of December 2010, Luistro has the least net worth among Aquino's cabinet. He had ₱89,000 (US$2,060).[14] In contrast, the richest—Cesar Purisima who is Secretary of Finance—had ₱252 million (US$5.84 million).[14] He declared an annual gross salary of ₱989,496 (US$22,900).[14][15]

Given his affiliation to a Catholic religious order [sic], his constitutionally mandated obligation to uphold secular education will immediately be put to the test on the issue of sex education. Is he prepared to stand up to opposition from the Catholic church?

— Antonio Tinio (ACT spokesperson), Manila Bulletin[16]

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) have expressed skepticism over Luistro's stand on sex education citing his religious background. Meanwhile, Luistro's predecessor, Mona Valisno expressed her confidence with Luistro.[16]

The Department of Education has included sex education in its curriculum for grade 5 to fourth year high school. Roman Catholic groups have criticized it for allegedly not covering the emotional, psychological and spiritual dimensions of sexuality.[17] Likewise, former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan Oscar V. Cruz criticized Luistro for his alleged lack of comment regarding the Reproductive Health Bill, which proposes to integrate sex education in public schools. He appealed Luistro to "stop teaching lewd studies [sex education] in schools" (trans.).[23]

Luistro stated that sex education was not his priority.[17] He instead wanted to focus on streamlining the bureaucracy of DepEd, which employs 600,000 employees (501,158 of which are teachers).[24] In line with this, he announced on December 28, 2010, that DepEd would terminate all of its 67 consultants by the end of the year. The DepEd-National Employees Union, in response, has called for his resignation. Luistro argued, however, that "streamlining is a must" as bulk of the department's budget goes to funding the salary of its employees.[25]

Luistro is a major proponent of the K+12 Basic Education Program in the Philippines. The program seeks to add two years to the current 10-year basic education curriculum, and make graduates more competitive. The program involves kindergarten, six years of elementary, four years of junior high school, and two years of senior high school. Kindergarten was required in 2012 while senior high school is planned to be included in the curriculum by 2016.[26] DepEd said that 77 percent of its participants in fora are in favor of the change.[18][19] Before its implementation in 2012, the Philippines was the only country in Asia which employed 10 years of basic education—all other countries had 12.[27] Numerous parties have opposed the plan including Ateneo de Manila University President Bienvenido Nebres and progressive groups of students, teachers and parents.[20] A spokesperson of No To K–12 Alliance said:

The fact that it will aggravate the financial burden of parents and that the Aquino proposed education budget cannot resolve the shortages even under the current 10-year system clearly explains the program's foolishness. The education budget clearly explains why the K-12 program is a stupid move. Education budgets for the past years were unable to resolve the ballooning shortages in basic education and with the current proposed budget under Aquino, the shortages will continue to balloon. Adding two years will just add salt to the already rotting wound of basic education.

— Ayla Garduce, The Daily Tribune[20]