NOTES ON The Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan for the Period 2004-2010: Basic Education

Basic Education




Situationer Ways forward.

“The trends in Philippine education point to an alarming decline in quality, particularly at the primary (elementary) school level. National testing reveals that mean performance scores for elementary school children are only at 50 percent, with no region achieving higher than a score of 61. Students are doing particularly poorly in math and reading, and results are further magnified outside the NCR, where student test scores tend to be significantly lower. International tests bear out similar results, with Filipino school children performing well below average – coming in 36th positions out of 38 test countries – as compared to their peers. It is an increasingly common view that the current educational level is failing to provide Filipino students with the levels of education necessary to find the jobs that they need to pull them out of poverty.” (4) Various studies have sought to examine the many issues in the education sector. These include studies undertaken by the Congres-sional Commission on Education (1993), the ADB and World Bank 1998 Philippine Education Sector Study, and the Presidential Commission on Educational Reform (2000).





Low GDP allocation on education.



[Education was once high in the priorities of government (throughout the 1960s) but such high priority was lost in the 1970s and 1980s.

Years Share in national budget

1965-1970 25 percent (approx.)

1985 12 percent



In response, the 1987 Constitution accorded education with the highest budget priority.



Funding for education was constrained by the country’s slow economic growth or poor economic performance (as compared to other countries in the region), high poverty rates, and misallocation of resources. While the country lagged in economic growth, the other countries also experienced slower population growth during the same period. Resources for basic education were reallocated for tertiary education.



Sen. Roxas accuses government of having failed to support basic education sufficiently, allocating only 2.5 to 3 percent to education as against the global norm of 5 to 6 percent.



Scare financial resources, not to mention the reports of corruption with regard classroom

construction and textbook production, have brought about the low wages of teachers, shortage of and overcrowding in classrooms and school laboratories and other facilities, insufficient and defective textbooks and teaching materials, among others



Low teacher pay.

According to Alliance of Concerned Teachers Secretary-General Francisca Castro, the forthcoming 10-percent salary increase will hardly make a dent on the deficit of teachers pay. While teachers received a PhP10,9162-monthly pay, their “take home” pay is only about PhP 8,000. She cited current data from the National Wages and Productivity Commission showing that, as of April 2008, a family of six living in the NCR needs PhP 871.00 a day to afford basic requirements of shelter, food, clothing and medical services or about PhP19,162 a month. The last figure is PhP8,299.00 more than a teacher’s monthly take home pay. Thus the deficit.



To good teacher pay is attributed the effectual public education systems of Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Private business, out of corporate social responsibility, participates in the DepEd’s Adopt-a-School Program that aims to respond to the classroom shortage problem, e.g. Coca Cola’s “The Little Red Schoolhouse” program. Government, however, must remain as the primary investor and prime mover in public education.



The DepEd’s Adopt-a-School Program generated PhP200 million in 2002, PhP400 million in 2003 and PhP4.05 billion in 2007 when it was relaunched by former banker now DepEd Secretary J. Lapus.



The Omnibus Education Reform Act of 2008 (Senate Bill 2294) , which Sen. Mar Roxas has sponsored, proposes eight (8) measures “that could institute real, meaningful change” in Philippine education. These are (in italics):



Within 60 days after the enactment of the said education reform bill, the formulation by the DepEd of a 10-year Strategic Education Reform Program.



The success of this 10-year Strategic Education Reform Program is dependent on the inclusion of an investment plan to fund the recommenda- tions and activities to be contained in the said long-term plan.





Mother tongue as medium of instruction.

A proof that students learn better when the medium of instruction is their mother tongue is the outcome of the 2006 National Achievement Test (NAT) Grade 3 Reading Test where students of Lubuagan in Kalinga, M.P. topped the said test for both English and Filipino, with mean scores of 76.55 percent and 76.45 percent, respectively. These good test scores are attributed to the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction, in this case Kalinga, for teaching content and our two national languages. Mandating the use of the mother tongue – the language or dialect first learned by the child and customarily spoken at home – as the medium of instruction for Grades 1 to 3 and the teaching of Filipino and English as separate subjects.



Intensive training and upgrading programs for teachers, e.g. training on teaching methods using the mother language/dialect for teachers in Grades 1 to 3 and upgrading courses for English, Science and Mathematic teachers who did not take the said subjects as their majors.

Lack of mastery of subjects that are said to bring about national development; poor reading skills.

There are so-called “international averages” that we subscribe to in the matter of subject proficiency. Sen. Roxas reveals that the Philippine average for Math in the 2003 Trends in Match and Science Survey (TIMSS) is 378, over a hundred points below the international average of 467.



Philippine average in Science is 377 where the international average is 474.



He attributes this sorry national performance to our “incomplete” Philippine education that continues to subscribe to a shorter 10-year basic education cycle as compared to the 12-year global norm. He adds that there are now just three countries with 10-year basic education cycles: the Philippines and two equally depressed African states.



Only 23 percent of the 65 out of every 100 children who enter Grade 1 and who reach Grade 6 can comprehend what they can read.



Only 16 percent of senior high school acquire mastery of Math; 7 percent for English; and 2 percent for Science.



Sen. Roxas that their lack of mastery in these subjects make them not effective enough in their jobs. Increase of the education cycle from 10 years to 12 years by adding a seventh grade in elementary school and a fifth year in secondary school.



Sen. Roxas set the following “qualitative” targets in the next 10 years:

- literacy and numeracy by Grade 3;

- a solid foundation in Math and Science by Grade 6 (or 7, if his Omnibus Education Reform bill is enacted);

- Proficiency in English and Filipino by Grace 6 (or 7, as the case may be); and

- Attainment by high school students with sufficient competency to pursue higher learning or a productive career;



His quantitative targets within the same period are:

- For 83 percent of first-graders to reach Grade 6;

- For 99 percent of sixth-graders to reach the first year of high school;

- For 85 percent of high school freshmen to reach 4th year; and

- For 70 percent of first-graders to reach fourth year high school.



Imposition of performance standards, particularly a diagnostic test to be administered to students at the end of Grades 3 and 6 to identify those who need special learning assistance as they proceed to the next grade level.

Staggering dropout rate nationwide.

Of every 100 children who enter Grade 1, only 65 reach Grade 6, of which only 43 finish high school and only 2 enter college. Data on poor rural areas record higher dropout rates where 25 percent of students enrolled in Grades1 and 2 stop schooling.



Sen. Roxas cites the strong correlation between poor nutrition and high dropout incidence. Many grade school pupils children are not properly nourished (and a great number come to school without breakfast). Some 30 percent of grade-schoolers are underweight or “underheight” (or both).

That children have to walk great distances to get to school and extreme poverty, such that parents are unable to even send their children to public schools that charge minimal fees, also contribute to the high drop out rates.





Social and political analyst Juan T. Gatbonton says that school dropouts make up our biggest social problem because they perpetuate poverty.



School dropouts make poverty a generational problem as lack of education causes them unable to function in the modern economy. Dropout parents raise dropout children who, in turn, raise drop out grandchildren.



He further cites call centers as an example, where, at most, only 5 percent of interviewed applicants are hired because school dropouts are also unable to fill the jobs that are created by the so-called modern economy.



Ms. Castillo shatters the myth of the school-dropout-who-made-good as she declares that only 3 percent of farmer’s children become modern professionals. Establishment of a mandatory in-school direct feeding program for Grade 1 and 2 , to sustain the nutrition and health of children and prevent drop-outs.



The DepEd and the DSWD have partnered in providing incentives for parents to keep their children enrolled. The sustainability, however, of this rice-and-cash dole outs is held suspect in the light of severe inflation and widespread corruption that is bleeding government coffers, ours included.



Mr. Gatbonton, in addition to the DepEd-DSWD effort, also cites in-school feeding program and the Latin American “wages for learning” model as workable schemes to keep students in school.



The office- and factory-based on-the-job-training for students that have been made mandatory by the Swiss government has been enhanced by the requirement of parents’ support and participation.



Offering of electives to help equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to pursue further studies or a line of work.



Mr. Gatbonton also stressed that, for a poor country such as ours, “public education must be geared primarily to the needs of those who have only a minimum number of years … that we return early public education to the basics – to reading, writing and arithmetic – to making the experience of book-learning, no matter how brief, as nearly complete and as useful as possible.”





Decrease in enrolment from 2003 onwards. While school enrollment increased during the period 1995 to 2002 at an average of 1.98 percent each year, from 2003 until the opening of classes this June, there has been a decline by almost 1 percent. It should be noted that this condition prevails even as 6-year-olds have been allowed to enroll in Grade 1.



Sociologist Gelia Castillo warns that inflation and the crisis of surging food and commodity prices will cause dropout rates to increase.



Note however that these same sad conditions are also driving students from private institutions to public schools so that relying on statistics or incomplete headcounts might not be all too good at this time.

Brain drain “complication”.

Ms. Castillo also revealed that only 9 percent of Filipinos are college graduates and that 51 percent of those leave to work overseas are college graduates. Call centers and business process outsourcing companies are said to be encountering difficulties in hiring better-than-average accountants and computer technicians.

A personal observation is that pre-school education as a pre-requisite to Grade 1 lightens the Grade 1 teachers burden of having to teach “too basic” skills, e.g. alphabet, vowels and consonants, cleaning up, etc.



MMDA Chairman claims to have done away with day care/pre-school centers while mayor of Marikina because he found many of the enrolled children’s parents engaging in unproductive endeavors while they let government take care of their children. He thought that government personnel and facilities could be put to better use. Compulsory pre-school education year.



To rise from poverty, a nation’s population must obtain sufficient “leaning to know”, “learning to do”, and “learning to be” – learning and able to act productively, with discipline, and with responsibility for the environment. In addition, they must also obtain “learning to live together” with others – as members of the community, as a citizen of his country, and as a citizen of the world. (UNESCO Four Pillars of Learning)



Possession of these competencies that may, hopefully, be obtained through good primary education is a very basic need so that information and education campaigns and advocacy activities undertaken by government and NGOs are “appreciated” by their target publics and, thus, put to action in terms of the desired attitude change. What good are the glossy, expensive posters and flyers if the target groups are unable to read and fully understand the many and important issues and concerns that government and other sectors need to regularly inform the public about.



The role of education, IECs and advocacy in the Philippine Sustainable Development Agenda. The attainment of the goals of Philippine Agenda 21 – “the document that will guide Filipinos in their quest for genuine implementation of our commitments to the Rio Declaration” (1992) – and the targets of the MDG (Millenium Declaration 2000) both rely heavily on improvements in education, sustained IECs and advocacy. Together, functional literacy, education and IECs are vital if our generation is to bequeath social capital (defined in the first part of this paper) to future generations.



Among the “descriptors” or strategies to attain the goals of sustainable development are:

(1) developing the quality of human resources, (2) developing resource conservation technology, (3) stakeholders participation in the various stages of public project planning and implementation, (4) upholding human rights, (5) effecting change in values and attitudes through environmental education and ethics, and (6) professionalizing careers in sustainable development management.



“developing the quality of human resources”. There are various options available to government to develop the quality of its human resources – its people – but education, formal or non-formal, leads all others on account of its time-tested efficacy, aside from being a basic right of a child and a dream to almost all Filipinos, regardless of age.



“developing resource conservation technology”. The development of resource conservation technology requires sound official policy on education and science and technology and sufficient public investment to produce a well-remunerated and inspired “scientific community” – a legion of dedicated savants who will work out timely solutions to the country’s problems of rapidly denuding forests and dwindling resources in our soils and seas.



“stakeholders participation in the various stages of public project planning and implementation. The beneficiaries of public works can only meaningfully participate in the planning and implementation of projects that may drastically changes their lives and the future of their children if they can read and fully understand information beyond signboards that announce which local politician has pushed for the digging up of new wells (that, unregulated, actually destroy our aquifers and lets in salt water that decreases water potability).



“upholding human rights”. The task of defending human rights of victims would have been less difficult is the victims have long been informed, through education, of their basic rights and the recourses available for their protection.



“effecting change in values and attitudes through environmental education and ethics”. Inculcating values and attitudes through environmental education is actually “old hat” now; trees and mountains, the birds and the bees, and flowers and butterflies, and how they came to be are long-time favorite objects in elementary education. But it is a great source of wonder to many that many kids who once loved these beautiful (but at times, non-renewable) creations of God transform into adults who dump their garbage in streams and street corners, indulge in illegal logging, indiscriminately dump mine tailings and smuggle endangered species. And there are many who, in exercise of local autonomy, also make a killing from garbage hauling contracts. Environmental education appears to fail on the ethics component.



“professionalizing careers in sustainable development management” As to professionalizing careers on SD management, how can little Juan dela Cruz possibly fulfill his dream of becoming an SD manager when he spends his nights earning some money selling sampaguita garlands on Ortigas Avenue as his share of an x-deal with his drunkard father so he will be allowed to attend his early public school classes?



References

1. The Sunday Times Special Report on Basic Education Reform, Rene Q. Bas, “Same old problems still bedevil basic education”, June 15, 2008 issue, pp. 1-2

2. The Sunday Times Special Report on Basic Education Reform, “Lack of facilities, low pay for teachers bug public basic education”, June 15, 2008 issue, pp. 1-2

3. The Sunday Times Special Report on Basic Education Reform, “Increasing dropout rate destines more millions to endless poverty”, June 15, 2008 issue, pp. 1-2

4. AIM Policy Center, ed. Luningning Achacoso-Sevilla , “The Ties that Bind: Population and Development in the Philippines 2nd ed.”2004

5. Department of Environment & Natural Resources- Integrated Environmental Management for Sustainable Development Programme, Sustainable Development Operational Framework (Sustainable Development Handbook), 1996