Marites of Please register to see links. points out eight things that can be done regarding Philippine education:

1. More ladderized courses in the technical and vocational areas, to easily start a student on the earning path.
2. More technical and vocational courses - apparently we are producing too many accountants and managers but too few builders and operators.
3. Increasing teachers' proficiency and qualifications, esp. through mandatory required graduate studies.
4. Professionalization of the educational system and minimizing politics inside DepEd.
5. Lesser brain drain.
6. Bilingual education.
7. Better access to education.
8. Better population control.

Read her two posts on the matter:
Please register to see links.
Please register to see links.

I agree with five of her eight points, have reservations for two (no. 3 and 6), and strongly disagree with the last one.

I am all for increasing teachers' competence and I am aware that there are a lot of incompetent teachers in the field. However, this should be looked at in the proper context, and the truth is, our public school teachers, who are the backbone of the Philippine educational system, are grossly underpaid and immorally overworked. How can we expect these teachers to get PhD's, or even finish masters degrees, if they don't have enough resources to do that?

Rather than eight, I have one suggestion. My suggestion, assuming it gets implemented, should result in significant improvements in the state of public education in the Philippines. The reader can make up his/her mind about that after reading this.

My suggestion is this: pass a law to require all our public ofiicials, from the president, the senators, congressmen, judges, etc to send their children to public schools. It is possible that this law will have to have provisions to stop anyone from circumventing the law. For instance, if a public official's child needs tutoring, the law must require that the tutor come from a member of the faculty of the school itself. Right now, I am guessing, our public officials tend to send their children to private schools.

I did not give this idea more than a passing thought before, because I assumed it might not be workable. But I have since revised my opinion on that -- the idea could very well have legs, as they say.

I once read an article about the Katrina disaster in New Orleans USA. According to the author, the oft stated reason that the Katrina became a major disaster in New Orleans was because the levees (dikes) that was supposed to prevent the disaster was not maintained, is valid, but misses the point. It is the obvious reason: the New Orleans engineers whose job it is to warn the government of the need to maintain those levees, and of the dire consequences that will befall New Orleans if the levees are not repaired, had been producing such reports year in and year out, over a very long period of time.

Clearly, the warnings failed to rouse to action the powers that be; it failed to loosen the purse strings of both the state and the Federal government of the US. The deeper question, according to the author, is why not.

The author of the article then asks the reader to consider the case of the Netherlands. The country is almost entirely below sea level, and like New Orleans, faces a disaster of equal or greater magnitude than the Katrina disaster in New Orleans, if the levees fail to hold up against the sea during a category five storm. But unlike New Orleans, the Dutch has no problems finding the will and the money to adequately maintain their dikes/levees.

What then is the reason for this major difference in providing for an impending disaster between the Dutch, on the one hand, and New Orleans (and the federal and state governments of the US)?

The author of the article points out that one major difference between New Orleans and Holland is that in New Orleans, the rich generally live in areas that are elevated, whereas the poor of new Orleans live in the low lying flood-prone parts of the city. Floods, it is said, do not worry the rich and powerful of New Orleans, the way it does the poor.

That, apparently, is not the case in Holland. The place is as flat as a pancake. Everyone, including the rich, will suffer from the adverse effects of flooding.

So my point is this: unless the children of the rich and powerful in the Philippines are forced to experience the "benefits" of the public education meant for most of the Pilipinos, our public education system will always be a mess.

Consider the US. They have excellent private schools, but their public school system is in as much mess as ours, despite the US being one of the richest country in the world.

Now, consider the Europeans, particularly countries like Finland, Sweden, etc, where the state is, for all intents and purposes, the sole provider of education. These countries' educational system are working very well, in comparison.

But maskiepop, is that not discriminating against our public school officials? Why would the children of public officials be not allowed to the best schools that they could afford?

I suggest the following:

1) Longer and better instruction in basic education (Elem and HS). Our high school graduates can't even be admitted to a university in africa owing to the short duration of our basic education.
2) More stringent rules to enter university studies. This is the reason why Chinese, Japanese and Koreans study hard in elementary and high school go get into a university. In the Philippines, anybody can be a university student, even those who don't know basic arithmetic.

alexmag3,

Re your #2: Is this not supposed to be the goal of the NCEE?

(04-12-2009 05:01 PM)admin Wrote:  alexmag3,

Re your #2: Is this not supposed to be the goal of the NCEE?

Actually yes! I was one of the last high school graduates who took the NCEE. Many would disagree with me, but I think students who are not prepared should not really be allowed to pursue university education. Our educational system does not get the respect of other countries because the competencies of our graduates are not up to par with international standards. We are wasting much of our resources in a watered-down university education.

I answered about the NCEE here: http://eduphil.org/should-the-ncee-be-re...t-971.html

(04-05-2009 11:25 PM)admin Wrote:  But maskiepop, is that not discriminating against our public school officials? Why would the children of public officials be not allowed to the best schools that they could afford?

Ah. The matter of freedom of choice. I doubt if a public official's freedom to choose the schools his/her children are to attend should be taken seriously.

Everyone should have the freedom to choose. But sooner or later, one has to choose; and then one must abide and be honest about ones choices. Otherwise we end up representing ourselves as something else, and that makes us a liar.

Just as in the marketplace, one must be truthful about what we claim a product can do. One can't sell snake oil as a cure for all sorts of illnesses, real or imagined.

So, Filipino politicians claiming to be as one with the "masa", or "maka masa", has a case to prove. Why shouldn't they be judged on whether they send their children to public schools? After all that's where the "masa" send their children, right?

Wow, that's good reasoning. But on the practical side, how do we make this into a law? Apparently we have to get the support of the lawmakers, and this is not in their best interests.

(04-14-2009 04:32 PM)admin Wrote:  Wow, that's good reasoning. But on the practical side, how do we make this into a law? Apparently we have to get the support of the lawmakers, and this is not in their best interests.

In a democracy, new and/or radical ideas oftentimes are forced down the throats of lawmakers via pressure groups. Take your case: you are, as you claim, a crusader for teachers' rights. If you can unite the country's teachers to support this idea, chances are you will get the law passed.

I think people living in a democracy must master the art of organizing and mobilizing at the grassroots level. Unless of course one is of the opinion that lawmakers can be left alone to get the job done. If you think that, then your understanding of how democracy works needs some serious reality check.

Actually the Filipinos are not doing too badly in this regard. I understand that the Filipinos have some of the best NGOs in the developing world. A big part of what an NGO does is precisely that: to influence policymaking.