Matiyaga ka bang magbasa?

uhm. katatapos ko lang ayusin nung research paper ko para sa subject naming english. sobrang sunugan ng kilay ang ginawa ko dito. ilang ulit akong bumisita sa library para mahanap ng libro.

ugh

ilalagay ko siya dito hindi dahil nagagandahan ako sa ginawa ko. sa totoo lang. feeling ko may mali ako dito. like. sa grammar and shit. hahaha. basta. ito yung pananaw ko sa nangyayari ngayon. wala lang.

basahin mo nga kung matiyaga ka.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Country’s Public Education Crisis

Problem Statement and Solution

A country’s economic success is the product of the labors of its citizens. The development of a country therefore relies on the ability of its citizen to make substantial amounts of contribution from his specific industry to the country. An educated person is someone who has entered an institution that provides good quality education and has performed and satisfied all requirements given to him. Educated citizens, without doubt, would more likely be the ones who would contribute more than the uneducated citizens. The educated citizens would most likely be involved in industries that earn huge amounts of money while the uneducated citizens would be involved in industries where they earn the country’s suggested minimum wage. Acquiring quality education not only implies involvement and excellence in corporate industries but also in other various industries like agricultural industries and fisheries. With education, citizens could manipulate factors present in their industries to maximize profits or harvest. Education enables a person to reason correctly when facing a problem. It also gives and enhances skills necessary in performing tasks in a working environment. Theoretically, a developed country would have more educated citizens than uneducated citizens. A country would take a long time to progress if the number of educated and uneducated citizens are equal or if the latter is greater in number than the former.  To prevent this from happening, it is a must that all citizens of a country be educated to give them information and skills necessary for performing well in their occupation. A country’s government should take charge in providing every citizen education sufficient enough to prepare a citizen to efficiently work for a company.

The Philippines is not a developing country. While other nations invest in businesses that earn huge amounts of profits, our country still relies on our export of handicraft products and OFWs to bring in foreign currency into our country’s banks. We used to be second to Japan during the 1960s but something went wrong during and after the Marcos regime that until now, we are left scarred and unable to be competitive against other countries. In terms of economic stability, we are being left behind by other neighboring Asian countries like Taiwan and Singapore.  Undeniably, there are foreign investors in our country who provide occupations for our countrymen but at the end of the day, the money their company earns, less the tax they pay our government, do not really stay in our country but goes to these investors’ bank accounts in other countries. Our country is running out of manpower now that it is trendy and more practical to work abroad. Our country’s engineers are offered high-salary jobs abroad especially in countries in the Middle East. Nurses have been in demand in other countries where a Filipino nurse could earn more than what any Philippine hospital could pay. As an effect, our doctors leave their clinics and return to school to study nursing. Why would any Filipino want to stay in our country when they could just work abroad and earn more than what they could ever earn here in our country?

One of the reasons why our country takes so long to develop and progress is that our country’s education system is flawed. Our country does not have enough pubic schools and classrooms to accommodate the increasing number of students thus, students are cramped inside these classrooms which no longer become conducive to learning. It is rational and logical to think that one nation’s economic development relies on how much educated its people are. The more educated the citizens are, the better the chances of a country to develop and progress economically. This has been our obstacle in pursuing economic development: Filipino people are not adequately educated. Most Filipinos do not even reach or finish high school. Most only reach sixth grade and are still not knowledgeable of the lessons taught to them in elementary school because of the poor system of public schools. The government fails to fully support the country’s education. It has never completely implemented its laws on education. The budget it provides for our country’s education, 134.7 Billion Pesos to be exact, is not enough to provide students with better classrooms, teachers, and books (Analysis President’s Budget 44 ). The curriculum designed to be taught to every student in the country at the same time doesn’t allow students to learn according to their pace. The curriculum hinders teachers from incorporating lessons which would be necessary and useful for the students because it is the Department of Education that dictates what should be taught to the students. The teachers also contribute to the flaws present in our education system. There have been reports of teachers teaching incorrect facts to students. Some teachers have difficulty in efficiently teaching lessons due to their poor training. These are some of the problems present in our country’s education system.

These problems serve as hindrances in achieving economic development and success. The existence of these problems had already brought us a lot of inconveniences in our pursuit of national progress. The Filipinos should act as early as now to eliminate and remove these problems in order to provide good quality education which, once attained, would serve as an advantage to any working individual. Every Filipino should unite in achieving this goal. It is the Filipino citizens’ duty to abide by the changes to be applied which would improve the condition of the country’s education system. This aim of solving the country’s education system would require everyone’s commitment, compliance and perseverance. The Philippine education crisis may only be solved if the government would strictly implement its laws on education, if the basic education curriculum is improved and reformed, and if we let the teachers achieve better training.

Government’s Role

The government is a political organization made up of individuals and institutions authorized by the citizens to formulate public policies and conduct affairs of state (Government). Also, the government is empowered to establish and regulate the inter-relationships of the people within their territorial confines, the relations of the people with the community as a whole, and the dealings of the community with other political entities. Without the government, a country would lose peace and order resulting to crimes and pandemonium. It is the government’s task to look upon matters present in the community and make sure that these matters do not interfere or disrupt the existing peace and order. It is also their duty to make sure that citizens are able to exercise their rights. One of these rights heeded by the government is the citizen’s right to good quality education. The government’s laws on education are stated in the 14^th Article of the 1986 Philippine Constitution including five sections articulating the duties of the government on education (Bernas 383-393). Section 1 expresses how the state shall protect and promote quality education making it accessible to all. Section 2 has five provisions which in general discusses how the government aims to establish, maintain, and support a complete, adequate, and integrated system of education in the elementary and high school level and to provide scholarship grants and other incentives which would be provided to deserving and promising students. Section 3 specifies that educational institutions must include in their curriculums lessons on the country’s Constitution including patriotism and nationalism, patriotism, and role of national heroes in national history. Section 4 states how the government recognizes the complementary roles of public and private educational institutions and shall exercise supervision and regulation on it. Section 5 articulates how the state encourages local involvement for the betterment of education and also how the state aims to allocate the highest budget to education. These sections state what the government aim to do or it sets what is ideal to do about the country’s education.  

Fully implementing laws stated in Article 14 would mean applying what is ideal and exceptional as stated in that article. However, the laws stated in these laws of the constitution remain written on paper and are not fully implemented. The government has a tendency of preaching for ideals but not realities. For example, Section 1 of Article 14 states  that “[t]he state shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels of education and shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.” (Bernas 383). This section of Article 14 states two tasks which the government aims to do: to protect and promote education of good quality and to make education affordable, that is financially reachable, not only to the wealthy but also to the poor. It seems that the government is unable to implement or make real what is stated in this section of Article 14. It is true that acquiring free education may never be always possible and therefore, as stated in Section 5 of Article 14, the government aims to provide good education which is affordable to the poor. However, the fact that there are children outside of school proves that schooling is not that affordable and accessible for all citizens.

Has the government really been providing the country and its citizens good quality education? In a recent report of UNESCO, the Philippines ranked 74^th in terms of the Education Development Index or  EDI – composite measure that is based on enrollment ratio, literacy rate ,gender-specific index and quality – falling below Mongolia (61^st), Vietnam (65^th), Indonesia (58^th) and China (38^th) ( Analysis President’s Budget 83 ). Also, poor quality of education is evident as proved by low test results obtained by Filipino students in standard tests like the nationally–administered National Elementary Achievement Test (NEAT) and National Secondary Achievement Test (NSAT) in which students correctly answered only less than half of the given questions ( Analysis President’s Budget 84; Philippines ). This decline of the quality of education is related and caused by the inadequate budget allocated for basic education.  Compared to other Asian countries, the Philippines’ government spends the least for education.  Even though education receives the most funds for budget every year, it is still not sufficient to create substantial improvements. The budget has actually decreased during the last few years – 2.65 % of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2004, 2.50 % in 2005, and 2.42 % in 2006 were allotted for the country’s education (Analysis President’s Budget 86-87). Moreover, the budget for education is not really spent fully on building schools, training teachers, or buying books but it is also used for other expenditures. The budget allotted by the government for the country’s education is allocated to five parts – (based on the 2007 Basic Education Budget) 109.78 Billion Pesos for Salaries, 2.48 Billion Pesos for GASTPE, 1.76 Billion Pesos for School Building Program, 3.35 Billion Pesos for Capital Outlay and 17.4 Billion Pesos for MOOE (Cost Free Education). GASTPE stands for Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education. The allotted money for GASTPE is paid to private schools so that lower-income families could enroll their children in those schools. For the DepEd, the GASTPE is a cheaper approach than building more classrooms that could accommodate 50 students which costs 625 000 Pesos while DepEd would only have to spend 200 000 Pesos to allow 50 students under the GASTPE program to study for one school year. However, this strategy executed by the DepEd is not practical. It is better to spend 625 000 Pesos to build one classroom since generations of students would also benefit from this while only one batch of 50 students would benefit from the 200 000 pesos approach of the GASTPE. The School Building Program is self-explanatory but notice how little is the 1.76 Billion Pesos allotted for the program. The country is definitely in need of more classrooms and school buildings to accommodate the increasing number of students and the 1.76 Billion Pesos allotted for constructing school buildings seems to be such a small amount. As a result, schools with not enough classrooms are forced to hold classes outside school buildings under mango trees. Alterations and replacements, meaning major and extensive repair, remodeling, or alteration of school buildings and its classrooms are included in the Capital Outlay with only 3.35 Billion Pesos. These repairs and improvements funded by the Capital Outlay are important because an environment conducive to learning must be provided and broken windows and ceilings would be a distraction to students. MOOE, which represents operating expenses like electricity, gasoline, telecommunications and the others, is allotted with 17.38 Billion Pesos. Money expenses for this allocation should be monitored and supervised as it may be spent for excessive and irresponsible use of resources. The big part of the budget, 109.78 Billion Pesos, goes to the salaries of teachers and other personnel and staff working in schools. Despite having the biggest share of the entire Department of Education budget, the money allotted for school teachers is still not enough. Also, teaching staffs present in school are many considering that each section has nine subject teachers who the government has to pay.

The government, which the citizens elected to oversee and take charge of our country, should initiate and take action in solving the worsening education condition present in our country. Other countries like Thailand and Malaysia have started to invest more in education upon realizing the necessity of citizens possessing quality education to be able to move up the development ladder into more knowledge-intensive economy (Analysis President’s Budget 83).  What the government should do is to further implement its laws on education and provide what schools need by further increasing the budget and strictly monitoring how this allotted budget is spent. As I stated earlier, it is written in Article 14 of the constitution what the constitution desires the state to do and it sets standards of what education condition is ideal. Achieving what is ideal may take a long time but it should not hinder the government from starting right now. What they should do is start working on making what is written on Section 1 of Article 14 a reality. The government must find a way to ensure and maintain good quality in schools. A set of standards on what constitutes a good school and education should be made by the government and this set of standards should be met by all public academic institutions in the country. The government should act and make good quality education available and affordable to every citizen. The government should continue on allotting more and more budget to the country’s education every year but should be more vigilant on supervising and monitoring how the budget is spent. What the government provides for education has never been enough to create a development on the crisis. More money should be allotted for the Capital Outlay and the School Building Program because spending more on these factors would result to more and better learning environments.

Basic Education Curriculum

The Basic Education Curriculum is the backbone of our country’s education system. It articulates what should be taught to every Filipino student in a public school. In simpler terms, it serves as a lesson plan for all educators across the country. It was developed by the Central Office Bureau of Elementary and Secondary Education, Curriculum Development Divisions (Philippines). The Basic Education Curriculum serves as a guideline on what should be taught to children, and it is the school’s duty to innovate and enrich methods of teaching these lessons. The Basic Education Curriculum exists in a national level meaning lessons taught to public school students are the same in all public schools. Other factors such as what subjects are taught and time allotments for each subject are also articulated in the curriculum (Cost Free Education).

The Basic Education Curriculum provides an organized and uniform set of lessons to be taught to public school students. Even though this may prove to be a good way of providing the same level of education among public school students, flaws in the said curriculum are still at hand. The uniformity brought by the curriculum has caused negative psychological effects on the teacher and other public school staff and personnel (Bernardino 9). These people have a tendency to be subservient to and habitually wait for instructions from higher offices and therefore fail to develop initiative and creativity. This effect resulted to teachers imposing strong discipline and control upon students who become passive and submissive to the teacher’s domination and opinion. In both elementary and secondary levels, students are required to study and satisfy requirements in five subjects, namely English, Filipino, Mathematics, Science and Makabayan which is further subdivided into Social Studies, Music and Arts, PE, Technology and Home Economics, and Values Education (Philippines). Technically, public school students are taking nine subjects. Because of this, students receive less time allotment for subjects of greater significance like Math, Science, and English. As a result, the subjects Math, English, and Science receive the same amount of time spent for each of the Makabayan subjects. The basic curriculum also specifies the use of the English language as medium of instruction for the subjects English, Mathematics, and Science (Cost Free Education). However, there has been less emphasis on using the language and teachers more emphasis on teaching using Filipino.

The Basic Education Curriculum is naturally sound in its objective of providing good quality education to the citizens. However, despite its aim of providing good education to the students, its flaws hinder it from doing so and also contribute to the worsening condition of the country’s education. The Basic Education Curriculum must be reformed and revised to stop the decline of education’s quality. The curriculum should provide guidelines of what should be taught to students and let teachers teach according to their style and pace. What happens with the present curriculum is that teachers are forced to teach according to the schedule following the pacing of the curriculum. What happens is that lessons may not be taught well and not every student is able to understand the lesson. The curriculum should also focus on giving more emphasis in teaching Mathematics, Science, and English. These subjects are necessary in almost anything that acquiring mastery in these subjects would be such an advantage. The time allotment for the subjects should be adjusted so that students would have to take up more sessions in subjects Math, English and Science and equally divided hours of session for the Humanities subjects. Teaching more subjects would be costly since more shall be needed. One concrete example that it is costly to teach more subjects is that more teachers would be needed and therefore, the government would need to fund more money for the teachers’ salary which is apparent in the amount of money allocated for teacher salaries based on the 2007 Basic Education Budget. Finally, using the English language as medium of instruction should also be strictly implemented. It would help greatly in teaching the students the English language because students would always have to speak or write the language when reciting and writing compositions.

Teacher Factor

The teacher is the most important factor in any education system. It is the teachers who interact with students who desire and expect to learn values and lessons necessary in their journey to success. Without teachers, knowledge would be imparted to students through other means like books or computers. Although this is quite possible, I think that information is still best shared through teachers. Information is efficiently transferred to students if the teachers are able to meet these qualifications: competent in his field of expertise, mastered instructional techniques, resourceful and creative, conducts periodic evaluation, desires to teach, able to create good personal relationships and possesses a proper sense of values (Andres 1-2). These characteristics should be evident in every teacher in order to ensure that lessons are taught well.

Possessing these traits require good training for the teachers. The good training of teachers is of a development through involvement and entails development of an individual in terms of new ideas, facts, habits, proficiencies, sense of values, sense of responsibility and others (Andres 52). Reported inefficiencies of some public school teachers may be the results of having mediocre training. For example, one out of every five public high school teachers is proficient in the English language (Bonabente). Yes, there are institutions which provide fast-track courses guaranteed to give a student a diploma which should merit him a right to teach. It would be acceptable if these fast-track courses produce graduates who are efficient in their task of educating the masses but instead, they produce graduates who are not trained fully to be able to effectively teach students.  For example, only one out four teachers who take the Licensure Examination for Teachers pass is an indication of the less than ideal competence of teachers (Gonzales 34). Science subjects, like physics or chemistry are taught by teachers who did not acquire a bachelor’s degree in this field because of the lack of teachers who specialized in these fields. This could be acceptable as long as non-degree teachers in charge of science teaching posts are knowledgeable in that field and are capable of teaching the subject well. Some teachers have a hard time expressing themselves using the English language as proved by the quality of their writing and their speaking abilities (Gonzalez 35). As a result,  these teachers resort and tend to focus more on teaching using Filipino as their medium of instruction thus the use of the English language is starting to be valued less by the students.

If this cycle of producing less effective teachers continues, our education crisis would never be resolved. In order to resolve this flaw in our education system, public school teachers should be given better training to enable them to properly and efficiently teach students. The government should implement laws describing how applying public school teachers should be required to acquire education degrees from college. This would ensure that graduates of education are able to meet standards set by the government. Teachers who had earned themselves master’s degree may be exempted from this law since they have attained mastery and are knowledgeable in their fields even if they weren’t necessarily education graduates. Ideally, teachers who achieved bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and Sciences such as Biology, Chemistry and Physics should be the only ones allowed to take teaching posts in high school for the science courses.  Their training in college should have allowed them to earn competence and mastery in these fields. If shortages of teachers are inevitable, non-degree holder teachers who would teach in any of these Science posts should be tested to see if their knowledge on that subject is sufficient enough to let them teach students. These teachers should be given supplementary schooling for the subject their teaching to further deepen their knowledge in that subject.  Mastery of the English language among teachers should also be reinforced because of the language’s importance in communicating with other foreign countries. Colleges of education should emphasize teaching and improving the English skills of future teachers.

Refutation

What I have proposed and discussed in the previous paragraphs reflect my thoughts on how our country’s worsening education crisis may be finally resolved. These proposals present solutions that should have been carried out long ago to have prevented the decline of our country’s education system. However, as proven by our country’s education condition, what is ideal may never be always implemented. For example, the government’s laws on education should, ideally, be implemented at all costs throughout the country but what happens is that everything stated in our laws remains on paper and is not performed in real life. Article 14 Section 2 Provision 2 of the Philippine Constitution states that elementary education is compulsory for all children of school age (Bernas 384).  As stated in this provision of Article 14, ideally, every child of school age should be in school but in reality, not all children are able to enter school; streets are still filled with children who do not go to school. The government does not have the capacity to round up all these children and send them to school. The government just does not have the capacity to completely implement its laws and most of the Filipino citizens are instinctively defiant to the laws. Also, the revision of the basic education curriculum may also be a tedious task. The basic education curriculum is a summary of what lessons are to be taught to students in public schools. Revising it entails the involvement of educators who are knowledgeable in their specialization and who have seen the performance of public school students to be able to know what lessons should be taught at a certain level and at what pacing. Determining who these educators are may also prove to be a difficult task. Lastly, providing the future teachers good education and training may be hard given that these future teachers are trained in different institutions. How do we know if an institution does provide good training and education to future teachers? A set of standards defining what is a good training and education for future teachers should be made which should be met by institutions who train teachers. The question posed by this solution is who would create these standards and who would be the ones checking if these standards are met by institutions.

Apparently, our country faces a lot of hindrances in its goal of resolving our education problems. Applying these proposals would definitely be costly. At first glance, these proposals may seem too demanding and too quixotic to be executed and at some point, they are, but doing them nonetheless would guarantee a big change in our current situation. Effects of doing these proposals would not be immediately seen but once it is seen, people will see how invaluable education is and that it really is a requirement in achieving national progress. As citizens, we must cooperate and unite for what we aim for, for it would not only solve this crisis but would also be the foundation of a better future.

Conclusion

Nelson Mandela said that “[e]ducation is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” (qtd. in Stokes). Education is something that we Filipinos give value to. Whatever a person’s status in the society is, it is a must to be able to go to school and learn because through education, citizens are able to ensure themselves of a better future. If the Filipino citizens still see education as something invaluable, they must start now in reforming the education system. If the Filipinos would allow the current condition of the education system to go on and worsen, what future does the country’s youth have? As I have proposed in the previous paragraphs, the only way to address the crisis in education, the government must reform fully and implement its laws on education, improve and revise the national curriculum to ensure that good education is provided to the citizens and let teachers have good education and good training to prepare them do well in teaching students. Once done, the education crisis would finally be resolved and the country would definitely begin to improve and progress because of the increase in number of educated citizens working in the country. Once the education crisis is resolved, the country would once again be among the best countries. In order to achieve this, what all the Filipino citizens need to do is to participate and cooperate in this objective of resolving the education crisis.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

kung tinapos mo. hahaha. Apir. ang tiyaga mo naman.

go

balik na sa tunay na mundo