Impulses
Catch-22
The government should offer the Filipino people an accessible, relevant, and quality education, The Charter says.
The saddest thing is this continues to remain a constitutional daydream than a crumb of reality.
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Has the DepEd, the agency that is supposed to implement this didactic doctrine, really been educating our children, as it should?
Yes is an unacceptable answer for without fail, the same old problems always haunt our schools: lack of classrooms, lack of textbooks, lack of teachers.
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We have a classroom shortage of 45,000 nationwide. In some schools, about 70 students are crammed into a classroom; some classes are even held under trees or open spaces just to listen to their chalk-less Physics teacher talk about atoms and thermodynamics.
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The government recently tried to solve this by introducing a shifting scheme to other phenomenally-thick schools that will shorten the class hours of students to five thus having three separate classes in one day, one in the morning, another in the afternoon, to be followed by a night class that ends at 8 or 9 p.m. Clearly, this desperate move of the present sly administration does not, in any way, solve the problem. In fact, it adds burden to teachers while it embezzles students with their right to, at the very least, decent education. It guarantees another significant drop in students' learning aptitudes due to the unfair budgeting of their school hours.
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Reports show that we also have a desk shortage of five million nationwide. Hence, students have resorted to bringing their own chairs or endure sitting on the floor for hours on end. Not only that, the DepEd has registered a student-to-book ratio of 3:1 at best. Sometimes four students share one book. Even when there is one book for every pupil, the books are not necessarily of the same title and may not even essentially be error free and reader friendly. In schools here in Iloilo City, there are even libraries that are closed during school days and are only opened when the DepEd supervisors are around to inspect its use!
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We have a teacher shortage of 36,000 nationwide. On top of it is the apparent fall in the quality of public school teachers (this is continually proven by series of assessment and aptitude tests conducted by DepEd itself to its personnel, especially in the areas of Math, Science and English).
So how can teachers give then what they don't have?
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Adding insult to the already cancerous problem are the brain drain dilemma, ghastly teacher-assessment methods of some supervisors, lack of opportunities for teachers to excel or to further study, too much politics and corruption in the DepEd bureaucracy and the decrease in benefits and perks.
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Public schools also suffer from severe lack of health care personnel. There's only one nurse for every 4,000 students, one dentist for every 25,000 and one doctor for every 90,000. Some schools have no janitors and canteen personnel at all!
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This lethal brew of material, structural and operational deficiencies of the public school system have produced half-baked, barely literate graduates. Many public elementary school pupils finish school barely able to read, write and count. Seven out of 10 incoming high school freshmen have not mastered their elementary English, Science and Math subjects.
The results of the first-ever national diagnostic test, conducted in June 2002, showed that only 30 percent passed the English test, 28 percent passed Science and 27 percent passed Math. This is even better than the most recent TIMSS 2006 assessment test that shows only one out of six students can handle the same subjects.
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In the 1999 International Mathematics and Science Study Exams, 6,601 Filipino students got rock-bottom rating. Out of 38 countries that participated in this testing held every four years, the Philippines landed second to the last.
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Although the 2006 national budget allocates more than a hundred billion pesos for education, the truth remains that in the entire Asian region the Philippines spends the least on education. Real government expenditure per student actually shrank from P510 pesos to P134 between 1990 and 1997. How must does it worth today? Your guess is as good as mine.
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Kilometers away schools; sardine-like or pigsty-like classrooms; teachers talking about beakers and how they look (without having such for students to touch and see) under a guava tree with hungry students sharing only 15 500-error-molested books and resource materials for a class of 75; lack of testing mechanisms to evaluate or assess students or teachers educational progress; teachers (at least a few of them) more busy on selling ice candy than selling ideas to kids; principals (again, at least to a significant few of them) concerned more on their promotion or on how they can please the supervisor again when the next check visit happens. And the list goes kilometric.
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What's the point of sending your children to public school then?
Things should be done fast here. And we should start changing our wormed paradigm of what public education must be. The Constitution is clear and simple. It demands for an accessible, relevant and quality education. Then let it be. All we need to do is to follow that doctrine.
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Increase budget for education. Use pork barrels to purchase educational materials. Augment salaries of teachers big-time to what is due to them! In return, stricter and excellence-inspired policies, visitations and rules should be followed in the acceptance and the regular assessment of teachers.
Students must undergo regular standardized tests on all subjects. Add a year more in grade school and high school to bridge learning gaps and for a more acceptable, realistic education time span. Shape a more realistic and comprehensive curriculum and learning strategies.
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Give our talented teachers the chance to do further studies, take part in professional trainings, and be given a just compensation commensurate of what they are sacrificing in school. Here, at least, let them feel that, indeed, there's no other job more honorable than teaching.
Overhaul the DepEd organization and strip it away from its fattening red tapes. Hand down the department under the leadership of hailed professional educators, and not (never!) to knotty politicians. Fix everything in the school: rooms, books, laboratories, offices, playgrounds, libraries, roofs, lawns and what not.
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Are these solutions difficult to realize? Maybe, yes. But do we have any other choice? We are running out of time right now. To do nothing is the stupidest option.
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Remember that education is an end in itself.
We will never complete anything without it.
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Kudos to the Ateneo de Iloilo Basketball Team that reigned supreme against its Cebu and Negros contemporaries in the Milo BEST SBP and Passerelle Finals over the weekend at the Iloilo sports Complex. With this, the school's grade school and high school caging squads will fly to San Fernando, Pampanga for the National Finals late this weekend.
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The same salutations is hereby given to the Ateneo de Iloilo Literary Writing Team that bagged the championship trophy in the 2nd Regional Literary Writeshop and Contests held also over the weekend at Sampaguita Gardens in New Washington, Aklan. Special mention to my co-moderator, Ms. Lally Jane Calagunay, and the winningest Ateneans Jazelle Marie Nufable, Stephanie Keiko Enarbia, Romelaine Arsenio (who got most number of awards received), Leslie Bayona, Trisha Ferraris, Agnes Bofill, and Jane Diane Castor.
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My late congratulations to the following Ateneans: Eddyl Rafael Tolentino (Champion, Rotary Club's Voice of the Youth Impromptu Speaking Contest and UPV Debate Inter-High Competition Best Speaker), and Camille Denise Javellana (UPV Debate Inter-High Competition Best Speaker and PRISAA Spelling Champion).
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Greetings to my fun-loving and highly-competitive journalism training friends in the StarGlow school in Kalibo, Aklan. See you there on Sunday!
(Engr. Herman Lagon can be reached through h_lagon@yahoo.com.)