REAL EDUCATION IS EVERYBODY'S CONCERN

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Filipinos have a deep regard for education, which they view as a primary avenue for upward social and economic mobility. From the onset of United States colonial rule, with its heavy emphasis on mass public education, Filipinos internalized the American ideal of a democratic society in which individuals could get ahead through attainment of a good education. Middle-class parents make tremendous sacrifices in order to provide secondary and higher education for their children.

But now, the state of the educational system in the Philippines is a great cause for worry. We used to produce students who were well-rounded and ready for the challenges of the real world. According to a study, for every 10 children who start their primary education, only 6 go on to continue with their secondary education, and 4 will manage to enter college. What happened? Other countries used to send their students to the Philippines to learn, now they've overtaken us and are the experts. Isn't that frustrating?

It is said that, literacy rate in the Philippines has improved a lot over the last few years. This is attributed to the increase in both the number of schools built and the level of enrolment. The number of schools grew rapidly in all three levels - elementary, secondary, and tertiary. There was an increase of 58 percent in the elementary schools and 362 percent in the tertiary schools. For the same period, enrolment in all three levels also rose by 120 percent. More than 90 percent of the elementary schools and 60 percent of the secondary schools are publicly owned. However, only 28 percent of the tertiary schools are publicly owned.

            A big percentage of tertiary-level students enroll in and finish commerce and business management courses. But, the difference between the number of enrollees in the commerce and business courses and in the engineering and technology courses may be small - 29.2 percent for commerce and business and 20.3 percent for engineering and technology. However, the gap widens in terms of the number of graduates for the said courses.

            On gender distribution, female students have very high representation in all three levels. At the elementary level, male and female students are almost equally represented. But female enrollment exceeds that of the male at the secondary and tertiary levels. Also, boys have higher rates of failures, dropouts, and repetition in both elementary and secondary levels.

            Aside from the numbers presented above, which are impressive, there is also a need to look closely and resolve the following important issues: 1) quality of education 2) affordability of education 3) government budget for education; and 4) education mismatch.

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1. Quality - There was a decline in the quality of the Philippine education, especially at the elementary and secondary levels. For example, the results of standard tests conducted among elementary and high school students, as well as in the National College of Entrance Examination for college students, were way below the target mean score
                               
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2. Affordability - There is also a big di sparity in educational achievements across social groups. For example, the socioeconomically disadvantaged students have higher dropout rates, especially in the elementary level. And most of the freshmen students at the tertiary level come from  relatively well-off families.

3. Budget - The Philippine Constitution has mandated the goverment to allocate the highest proportion of its budget to education. However, the Philippines still has one of the lowest budget allocations to education among the ASEAN countries.

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4. Mismatch - There is a large proportion of "mismatch" between training and actual jobs. This is the major problem at the tertiary level and it is also the cause of the existence of a large group of educated unemployed or underemployed.

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There are reforms proposed such as;

1. Upgrade the teachers' salary scale. Teachers have been underpaid; thus there is very little incentive for most of them to take up advanced trainings.

2. Amend the current system of budgeting for education across regions, which is based on participation rates and units costs. This clearly favors the more developed regions. There is a need to provide more allocation to lagging regions to narrow the disparity across regions.

3. Stop the current practice of subsidizing state universities and colleges to enhance access. This may not be the best way to promote equity. An expanded scholarship program, giving more focus and priority to the poor, should be more equitable.

4. Get all the leaders in business and industry to become actively involved in higher education; this is aimed at addressing the mismatch problem. In addition, carry out a selective admission policy, i.e., installing mechanisms to reduce enrollment in oversubscribed courses and promoting enrollment in undersubscribed ones.

5. Develop a rationalized apprenticeship program with heavy inputs from the private sector. Furthermore, transfer the control of technical training to industry groups which are more attuned to the needs of business and industry.

            
          In the analysis of Engr. Herman M. Lagon according to him; Reform efforts have been relatively successful in places where “a determined commitment from local communities, parents and teachers” has been obtained, backed up by “continuing dialogue and various forms of outside financial, technical or professional assistance.” Former Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus, in a seminar conducted in Ateneo de Manila University last July, 2009 which this reporter incidentally attended, commented that all initiatives to improve the quality of education are laudable, but they have to be at a sufficient scale to make significant change. In this context, decentralization makes a lot of sense. Our collective experience with forming local education alliances shows that organizing communities—including the teachers and school personnel—for school-level reform is a very viable and cost-effective education quality initiative.

            It is said that learning begins with teachers, and empowered teachers and school heads are at the heart of genuine education reform. It is not enough that our teachers just go along for the ride in our drive toward quality education. They must lead the way in preparing our children and young people for lifelong learning. While doing this, it is just common sense to say that they must be given enough opportunity, tools, and motivation to achieve this.

Other social issues that our government should look into:

1.  Development of Instructional Materials particularly in the core subjects.  Teachers must be trained and be given financial support in the development of much Instructional Materials like modules, standardized validated rating, achievement and diagnostic tests via qualitative ones.  Books backlog has been reduced tremendously but text books don’t contain enough exercises and testing materials that teachers could use in their daily instruction.  As a result, most of the time, the teacher is required to write all the exercises on the board taking a lot of time or not at all.

2.  Teachers' Training and Development.  It has been observed that most of education graduates except of course the graduates of institutions designated as CHED center of excellence have a lot of deficiencies particularly in the immediate grasp and knowledge of the content areas.

3.  Palakasan System, Utang na Loob, Pakikisama System the negative side of these all must totally be eradicated by professionalizing all the ranks from the top to bottom just like the corporate world does.  Still, much of those who are getting promoted don't necessarily have the guts to become an educational leader.  Many are just after the salary increase and most of all of the prestige that goes with being a school manager!  The worst, having no real concern and dedication to initiate reforms for the betterment of the system.

4.  The Multi-grade System of Education as a viable alternative to depopulated areas must be strengthened by providing the teachers and all the schools with enough resources just like each counterparts on other parts of the world experience.

5.  Performance-Based Management and Assessment must not only be a by-word but an actual rule to all.  In other words, strengthened accountability of all.  In this way, they could recognize the deserving and possibly replace those who don't by the deserving ones.

6.  Establishment of evaluative tool or continuous impact assessment of trainings made and a strict standards and guidelines for those who will undergo free trainings with pay to maximize the resources that will be made available.

7.  Outstanding teacher practitioners must be hired or given an opportunity to teach and share their knowledge and expertise in the existing TEI's so that the products of these institutions will really be professionally equipped once they are hired as teachers. 

8.  DepEd must be depoliticized by trying to install department secretaries who rose from the ranks instead of the regular trend of installing political appointees under the auspices of the office of the republic of the Philippines.

           

            It must be impressed upon us all that this issue does not only pertain to the three-core subjects, or to academic freedom, or to the accessibility of education, but to the aspirations, visions and ambitions of the Filipino people in making this land at par with, or more progressive, than other countries. What we want is to emancipate endless quicksand of poverty and apathy- not for the expanding global empires.
Education- this is not the only concern of our government, education officials, academic sector and the industry. Real education is everybody’s concern.