1.
GRAFT AND CORRUPTION
HE CITED EVELYN CHUA'S BOOK ENTITLED "ROBBED" BY PHILIPPINE
CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM (PCIJ) TELLING HOW THE
CORRUPTION IS GETTING WORSE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
(DEPED). HE SAID THAT LEEWAYS FOR CORRUPTION IN THE AGENCY ARE
THROUGH BOOKS AND TEACHERS' SALARIES. THE BOOKS, HE POINTED OUT,
ALSO HAS A LOT OF PROBLEMS SUCH AS WRONG INFORMATION AND
TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. "THE BACK PROBLEM IS CORRUPTION. EVEN THE
SALARIES OF THE TEACHERS ARE BEING CORRUPTED".
2. REALITY IN THE PHILIPPINE BUDGET
EDUCATION AS A SECOND PRIORITY IS THE TOP PROBLEM IN THE
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. EVEN THOUGH THE 1987 PHILIPPINE CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE XIV SECTION 5 (5) STATES THAT " THE STATE SHALL ASSIGN THE
HIGHEST BUDGETARY PRIORITY TO EDUCATION AND ENSURE THAT TEACHING
WILL ATTRACT AND RETAIN ITS RIGHTFUL SHARE OF BEST AVAILABLE TALENTS
THROUGH ADEQUATE REMUNERATION AND OTHER MEANS OF JOB
SATISFACTION AND FULFILLMENT," IN REALITY, MOST OF THE BUDGET OF THE
GOVERNMENT GOES TO THE PAYMENT OF DEBT.
3. LOW OF SALARY ON THE TEACHING WORKFORCE
THE LOW OF SALARY FOR THE TEACHERS "DEMORALIZES" THEM. "IF
YOU WANT THE BEST MINDS TO TEACH, YOU MUST GIVE GOOD SALARY TO
THEM. " EVEN THOUGH PRESIDENT BENIGNO AQUINO III SAID THAT THERE ARE
NO BUDGET TO RAISE THE SALARIES OF THE TEACHER, SALGADO SAID THERE
ARE ADEQUATE FUNDS BUT THAT THERE IS MISAPPROPRIATION LIKE THE P10
BILLION PRIORITY DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE FUND (PDAF) CONTROVERSY.
"WE DO NOT HAVE MUCH MONEY IN THE WORLD, BUT IT COULD BE DONE BY
THE GOVERNMENT," HE SAID ABOUT RAISING THE SALARIES.
4. TUITION AND OTHER FEES INCREASE
HE POINTED OUT THAT THERE IS A PROBLEM ON THE
COMMERCIALIZATION OF EDUCATION THROUGH THE CONTINUING
INCREASE OF TUITION AND EDUCATION BECOMING MORE EXPENSIVE. HE
CONCEDES THAT PRIVATE SCHOOL RAISING THEIR FEES IS JUSTIFIABLE BUT
THE QUESTION LIES NOW ON THE JUSTIFICATION AND APPROPRIATION OF
THE FEES COLLECTED.
5. BULLYING
STUDENT RIGHT VIOLATIONS, HOWEVER, DEPEND ON THE
STRICTNESS OF A SCHOOLS DIVISION OF THE STUDENT AFFAIRS, HOW TIGHT
THEY ARE IN SCREENING AND COMPOSING A STUDENT ORGANIZATION. THE
PROBLEM ON BULLYING, FOR HIM, ALSO LIES ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF
THE LAW IN SCHOOLS. "IF SCHOOLS CAN'T IMPLEMENT IT, THERE IS
SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE SCHOOLS, HE SAID". IT WOULD BE GOOD IF
THE SCHOOL WILL INSTANCE CLOSE CIRCUIT TELEVISION (CCTV) CAMERAS
IN THEIR AREAS TO MONITOR THE ACTIVITY OF THE STUDENTS. TEACHERS
MUST ALSO BE TRAINED TO HANDLE BULLYING. "THE LAW IS THERE, BUT THE
LAW IS GOOD AS THOSE WHO IMPLEMENT IT".
AS FAR AS I OBSERVED, THERE ARE A LOT OF PROBLEMS IN OUR PHILIPPINE
EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM AND THIS IS VERY ALARMING. AND BASED ON MY
RESEARCH ALL OF THEM HAVE SIMILARITIES LIKE "LOW OF SALARIES OF THE
TEACHERS". BUT MY BIG QUESTION IS, WHY ALMOST OF ALL STUDENTS WANT
TO BE A TEACHER IF THE SALARY OF TEACHER IS TOO LOW?. MAYBE
BECAUSE THEY ARE LIKE ME, ALL I WANT IS TO HELP THE STUDENTS OR THE
LEARNERS TO HAVE A BETTER UNDERSTANDING IN WHAT OUR COUNTRY IS
FACING TODAY. ALL WE NEED NOW IS TO HAVE A BETTER LEADERS THAT
ARE NOT CORRUPT. CORRUPTION IN OUR COUNTRY IS WIDE-RANGING AND
AFFECT A GREAT VARIETY OF AREA OR DIFFERENT THINGS IN OUR
COUNTRY. SO HOW OUR COUNTRY DEVELOP OR IMPROVE IF OUR OWN
LEADERS ARE THE ONE WHO COMMIT CORRUPTION. I THINK WE STAY THE
SAME OR REMAIN THE SAME THAT WE ARE INCLUDED IN THE POOR
COUNTRY AROUND THE WORLD. SOMETIMES I THINK IT VERY DEEP FOR ME
TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR COUNTRY ESPECIALLY IN THE
PHILIPPINE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM. BUT NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE IF WE HAVE
FAITH IN GOD, THERE ARE NO PROBLEMS THAT HAVE NO SOLUTION. ALL WE
NEED TO DO IS TO BE STRONG ENOUGH TO FACE EVERYTHING AND THE
REALITY IN THIS WORLD. AND I'M DOING ALL OF THIS BECAUSE SOMEDAY I
WILL HELP MY COUNTRY EVEN IF IN A SMALL WAY.
Across the years our educational system has been rocked by controversies
which have remained unabated up to this day. Amidst the welter of issues,
two of them have managed to stand out in
importance: quality and relevance. The major difficulty in education in the
Philippines is the short-sighted policy of sacrificing the quality and quantity
of education for reasons of economy.
The key issues and problems in Philippine education which need further
debate and depth analysis as well as immediate resolution include the
following:
1. Deteriorating quality of education
It is uncommon to hear college teachers decry the quality of students that
come to them. They lament the students’ inability to construct a correct
sentence, much less a paragraph. Private schools have been assailed as
profit-making institutions turning out half-baked graduates who later
become part of the nation’s educated unemployed. All these are
indications of the poor quality of education.
There are multiple factors which have led to low educational standards.
Studies and fact-finding commissions have shown that the deteriorating
quality of education is due to the low government budget for education;
poor quality of teachers; poor management of schools; poor school
facilities such as laboratory and library facilities; poor learning environment;
the content of the curriculum; inadequate books and science equipment;
the poor method of instruction; shortages of classrooms; and others.
2. Colonial, feudal, imperial, commercial, and elitist orientation in Philippine
education
A rather sweeping indictment is that the Philippine educational system has
been and still is basically American in orientation and objectives. Even now,
despite years of independence, our educational system has not
succeeded in eliminating the chronic colonial mentality which abounds
like a mental blight within or without the academe. At present, quality
education is financial-capacity based, making higher education more of
a privilege rather than a right.
3. Shortage of school buildings, textbooks and equipment
Since 1960, elementary enrolment has been expanding at the rapid rate of
4% a year owing to increase in the number of children and in the
enrolment ratio.
The shortages of classrooms and textbooks are particularly severe. The
nationwide classroom shortage is estimated to be 40,000 and the DECS
(now DepEd) operates two shifts in many schools. The textbook problem is
even more serious. A survey done in preparation for a World Bank
education loan found that the pupil-textbook ration in the public
elementary schools is 10:1 and 79% of the textbooks are more than 5 years
old. This situation has persisted for many years.
Other teaching tools, such as science materials, teaching devices and
audio-visual aids, are also in short supply. Perennial graft and corruption in
the acquisition of books and in the construction of school buildings has
often been reported. This situation handicaps the teaching staff in their
work.
4. Overworked and underpaid teaching staff
Teaching has often been referred to as the “most notable of all
professions.” To many teachers, however, the noble image of their
profession has been transformed into an illusion. Over the last three
decades, we have come to think of the Filipino teachers as overworked
and underpaid professionals.
The fact that teachers are paid subsistence wages is only half of their sad
story. Their daily bout with dilapidated classrooms, overcrowded classes,
and lack of teaching materials, among others, make the teachers hardly
rewarded work even more difficult.
Aside from classroom instructions, teachers perform a host of
backbreaking and time-consuming jobs unrelated to the teaching
function. The National Research and Development Center for Teacher
Education under the DECS listed 76 extracurricular activities performed by
public school teachers. Such activities include Operation Timbang, census
taking, tax consciousness drive, Clean and Green
Drive, Alay-Tanim, Alay-Lakad, fund raising campaigns, lining the streets to
welcome foreign dignitaries, etc. To do all these, teachers are forced to
work two or three hours overtime everyday. They also have to report during
weekends and holidays and even during their yearly vacation time.
5. Bilingual policy and the problem of a national language
The bilingual policy in education aims to develop a Filipino who is proficient
in both English and Filipino. For the past 20 years, since the DECS adopted
the bilingual policy, Tagalog-based Pilipino has been used to teach over
half of the subjects in the elementary and secondary curriculum of both
public and private schools. Mathematics and the natural sciences
continue to be taught in English. Despite the findings of the Ateneo Social
Weather Survey that 92% of Filipinos already speak and understand
Tagalog, many provinces north and south of Metro Manila still encounter
problems with the language. This is unfortunate because Pilipino is used in
nationally conducted exams and tests. While the bilingual policy is a law
which not even the Secretary of Education can change, it has become a
growing concern that many students are deficient in communication skills.
6. Mismatch
The major problem of the tertiary level is the large proportion of the so
called “mismatch” between training and actual jobs, as well as the
existence of a large group of educated unemployed or underemployed.
The literature points out that this could be the result of a rational response
to a dual labor market where one sector is import-substituting and
highly-protected with low wages. Graduates may choose to “wait it out”
until a job opportunity in the high paying sector comes.
To address this problem, it is suggested that leaders in business and industry
should be actively involved in higher education. Furthermore, a selective
admission policy should be carried out; that is, mechanisms should be
installed to reduce enrolment in oversubscribed programs and promote
enrolment in undersubscribed ones.
7. Globalization issue in education
It is in the educational sector where the concept of globalization is further
refined and disseminated. It comes in varied forms as “global
competitiveness,” “the information highway,” “the Third Wave Theory,”
“post modern society,” “the end of history,” and “borderless economy.”
The so-called Philippines 2000 was launched by the Philippine government
to promote “global competitiveness,” Philippine Education 2000 carried it
to effect through training of more skilled workers and surplus Filipino human
power for foreign corporations to reduce their cost of production.
The Philippines, including its educational sector, is controlled by US
monopoly capital through loan politics. This task is accomplished by the
IMF, the World Bank and a consortium of transnational banks, called the
Paris Club, supervised by the WB. The structural adjustments as basis for the
grants of loans, basically require liberalization, deregulation and
privatization in a recipient country.
As transplanted into the educational sector, deregulation is spelled
reduced appropriation or reduced financial assistance to public schools
through so called fiscal autonomies; privatization and liberalization is
spelled commercialized education or liberalization of governments’
supervision of private schools and privatize state colleges and universities.
The WB-IMF and the Ford Foundation have earmarked $400M for Philippine
education. These loans financed the Educational Development Project
(EDPITAF) in 1972; the Presidential Commission to Survey Philippine
Education (PCSPE) in 1969; the Program for Decentralized Educational
Development (PRODED) in 1981-1989. As pointed out by many critics, “the
massive penetration of WB-IMF loans into the Philippine Educational System
has opened it wide to official and systematic foreign control, the
perpetuation of US and other foreign economic interest, and to maximize
the efficiency of exploiting Philippine natural resources and skilled labor.”
A number of studies and fact-finding commissions such as the Sibayan and
Gonzales Evaluation (1988), the Presidential Commission to Survey
Philippine Education (PCSPE, 1969), and the Congressional Commission on
Education (EDCOM, 1991-1992) have pointed out that the problems of
Philippine education are the problems of quality and political will.
