Issues in Philippine Education: In Retrospect
(Last of two series)
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.
4. 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.
In summary, like any endeavor, to improve quality education, issues, concerns and suggestions will always be raised. This is true with innovations, be it small or big. Just like when we want to change for the better there will always be obstacles to overcome, or when we are removed from our comfort zones, we will always have some complaints. For every action, there will always be a corresponding reaction. Each enumerated issue and concern gets a corresponding response. This is natural law.
Due to its vast and complicated nature, the following issues and trends in the country’s educational curriculum are enumerated for purpose of reflection:
Bridge Program, Sex Education Curriculum and RH Bill, Random Drug Testing, CAT and ROTC retro, Use-English or Vernacular policy, Additional Year in Basic Education, Understanding by Design (UBD) and Whole Brain Learning System (WBLS), Erratic books and reference materials, Lack of facilities, Low and unreliable salary and benefit of teachers, Traditional politics in the DepEd and Ched world, Technical-vocational trend, Five years in college plan, Malnutrition and sanitation, Alleged DepEd Mafia, Time assignment of subjects, Teachers’ training, Cheating in assessment and aptitude tests, Unsupervised, unevaluated programs, Collaboration with community and business sector, and SEDP vs BEC (SEDP is said to be overcrowded, putting together too many competencies and topics. This results to the loss of mastery of basic skills, narrow opportunity to process and contextualize major concepts and weak interconnections of competencies. On the other hand, BEC (according to IBON Facts and Figures) caters to the needs of multinational corporations for highly skilled and technically proficient workers at the expense of nationalism. To note, BEC aims to produce more functionally literate students by empowering them with life skills and promote more ideal teachers that will perform collaborative teaching and transcending knowledge in a non-authoritative way of instructing. It has reduced the number of subjects from an average of eight to five, focusing on Filipino, English, Science and Math, which according to former Education Secretary Raul Roco, will prepare students for global competitiveness. A fifth subject, Makabayan, also called as the “laboratory of life,” instructs complete learning to students.
After understanding all these, what is to be done? In my own limited knowledge of the state of curricular condition of the nation, I have learned the following:
- All reform efforts must be anchored on learning and improving student performance. The Philippines signed the UNESCO Education for All Jomtien Declaration in 1990 and the Dakar Framework 10 years later. Through these landmark documents, the Philippines affirmed that “the focus of basic education must, therefore, be on actual learning acquisition and outcome, rather than exclusively upon enrollment, continued participation in organized programs and completion of certification requirements.” And yet to this day, our best educators continue to decry that our education system puts more emphasis on “credentializing” the learner.
- Quick fixes and a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. Education reform requires “a patient, concerted and negotiated strategy.” Consider, for instance, the existing 10-year basic education cycle vis-à-vis the minimum learning competencies prescribed in the Revised Basic Education Curriculum (RBEC). The cycle is so compressed that teachers barely have enough time to, well, teach. Meanwhile, the learner is hard-pressed to absorb all the things the RBEC says he should be learning within the allotted time frame. On top of that, the learner needs to hurdle the medium of instruction during the early years, which is either Filipino or English. The 10-year basic education cycle and the medium of instruction are education policies crying out for reform, but these two issues are fraught with social, political and cultural ramifications. Simply asking for official promulgations will not be enough. There needs to be a continuing discourse on these issues; otherwise the reform initiative could very likely fizzle out.
- Lack of (or Poor) Regular Monitoring and Evaluation. After a new curriculum has been installed, it is left unattended. Inadequate monitoring activities to find out curricular strengths or weaknesses and problems are being encountered. Very little means is provided to find out if the implementation is running smoothly or not. When the time of implementation ends, sometimes there is no evaluation aspect, thus the innovation cannot be judged as failure or success for it to be continued or not.
- Teacher Burn Out. With so many new changes taking place in the curriculum, many teachers are getting burn out. They get tired so easily and motivation is very low. It is so because—aside from receiving one of the lowest salaries and poorest privileges and conditions in the country—they cannot cope with rapid changes that take place. They themselves cannot adjust to the changes that are being introduced, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. They would prefer the “good old” days and stick to what they had been doing which are not anymore compatible with the times.
- Innovations are Not Communicated to All. Only the managers or the proponents understand the changes. Those who are directly involved merely follow hook line and sinker. This is called regimentation. Changes, when introduced this way, may falter along the way because the people involved are not empowered.
