The Philippine public education system is in crisis!· Only 6 out of every 1,000 Grade Six elementary graduate students are prepared to enter high school.
Education Secretary Florencio Abad, 24th National Educators Congress, 18 October 2004, Bacolod City, Speech: “There is a crisis in Philippine education. Only 0.64% of some 1.4 million Grade VI students got a score of 75% and above in the 2004 High School Readiness Test (HSRT). The mean percentage score was 32.13%.”
99.36% of Grade VI elementary graduate students failed to get 75 percent and above in the HSRT, a 90-item competency test on elementary English, Science and Mathematics administered by the National Educational Testing and Research Center (NETRC) of the Department of Education (DepED) on May and June 2004 on incoming public freshmen high school students nationwide. Only 7.9 percent got a score of 50 percent and above. The mean percentage score was 29.47 in English, 33.46 in Science, and 33.46 in Mathematics.
· Only 2 out of every 100 Fourth Year high school students are fit to enter college.
Ibid., “97.9% of the more than 1 million 4th Year High School students failed to get 75% and above in the National Achievement Test (NAT) last March 2004. The total percent score of examinees was 44.36%.”
The mean percentage score was 36.80 in Science, 46.20 in Mathematics, and 50.08 in English.
· Only 19 out of every 100 public school teachers have confidence and competence to teach English.
Ibid., “19% of 53,412 public high school teachers of English, Science and Mathematics earned a score of 75% or higher in Self-Assessment Test (SAT) for English Proficiency administered by the DepED in May 2003.”
81% of Public School Teachers failed to earn a score of 75 percent or higher in the SAT for English.
· The Philippines is No. 41 in Science and No. 42 in Mathematics among 45 countries.
Boston College, Quadrennial Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), 16 December 2004, Malaya, page 1, www.timss.org. “In science, Grade 8 (equivalent of Second Year) Filipino students edged out only their counterparts in Botswana, Ghana and South Africa. In Mathematics, they were ahead from the same countries plus Saudi Arabia. “
In science, Philippines got a score of 377; International average is 474. In mathematics, Philippine score is 378; International average is 467. Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan topped the worldwide survey. TIMMSS is administered by the International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement.
The Philippine public education is in distress!
· 1 in every 8 schools has teacher-to-pupil ratio of 1:50 and above.
Department of Education, Fiscal Year 2004 Budget Proposal Submitted to Congress of the Philippines, 01 September 2003, Part II, Page 13: “4,456 schools [3,597 (13%) public elementary schools and 859 (25%) public high schools] with a total enrolment of 2.73 million children have teacher-pupil ratios of 1:50 and above.”
· 1 in every 7 students does not have a classroom.
Department of Education, Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Proposal Submitted to Congress of the Philippines, 14 October 2004, Page 6: “Growing Resource Shortages for Fiscal Year 2005 – Remaining Classroom Backlog: -57,930 based on a class size of 45 children to a room.”
· 1 in every 5 students does not have a desk.
Ibid., “Remaining Seat Backlog: -3.48 million.”
· 1 in every 3 students does not have a single textbook.
Ibid., “Remaining Textbook Backlog: -34.7 million.”
· 2 to 8 students share in a single set of textbooks.
World Bank (WB), Commission on Audit (COA), Ibon Foundation, “Robbed” by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), On-Site surveys by KAAKBAY CDI on Pilot Schools.
The quality of Philippine education is declining continuously. Elementary and high schools are failing to teach the competence the average citizen needs to become responsible, productive and self-fulfilling.
Ibid., Department of Education, Fiscal Year 2004 Budget Proposal, Part II, Page 2.
The principal reasons for this decline are: 1) the country is simply not investing enough in the education system, and 2) the education establishment has been poorly managed.
Ibid., Part II, Pages 3.
The Department of Education, Performance Report January 2001 to June 2004, 12 October 2004, Page 7: “The delivery of basic education has been confronted by the ill effects of continuing, rapid population growth and the dwindling Philippine economy. Public school enrolment… consistently expanded, while government’s spending for basic education has not kept pace with such increases.”
Ibid., Education Secretary Florencio Abad. “The Philippine per-capita budget for education is P7,700 or $138 per student per year. New Zealand and the United States of America’s budgets amount to P125,500 or $2,240 per student per year”
Senator Manny Villar, Chairman of Senate Committee on Finance, Congress of the Philippines, 25 October 2004. “The Philippines allots only 3.2% (P111 billion or $2.1 billion) of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) for education. It is the third lowest compared to other Asian countries: Malaysia 7.9%, Thailand 5%, Hong Kong 4.1%, Japan 3.6%, South Korea 3.6%, China 2.2% and Indonesia 1.3%. Even as a percentage of the national budget, at 14% the Philippines ranks the third lowest in Asia. Debt service payments have soared from only 8.1% of the GDP in 1990 to 19% in 2004, while the increase in education spending is minimal, from 2.9% in 1990 to 3.2% in 2004.”
The per capita government spending on education in the Philippines has suffered due to extremely tight fiscal constraints, yet funds for debt service payments are growing faster than the budget for education.
The rural areas and the countryside are the worst affected areas of the deteriorating quality of public education in the Philippines.
Education has always been viewed as an avenue to a better quality of life. It provides equal opportunities to the rich and poor alike. As such, the development and provision of education should always be discussed and viewed within the context of poverty alleviation.
Poverty in the Philippines, however, has reached a point where education is no longer a right for all but a privilege for a few. If it is indeed a way for a better life, it is one that is narrow and difficult to thread. Education, as an equalizer for opportunities, has become a myth. The rich has a variety of choices offered by the private educational institutions, while the poor has to make do with a public education characterized by dilapidated school facilities, lack of materials and textbooks, technological incompetence and the like – one which could never give an enabling foundation for equal opportunities in the future.
National Anti-Poverty Commission, “Responding to Basic Needs of the Poor,” I Situationer: Philippine poverty is basically rural poverty since almost three out of four (or 73%) of the total number of poor in the country, are residing in rural areas. The poverty level in rural areas is much higher at 48.8% against 18.6% in urban areas: this means almost 5 out of 10 rural residents are poor compared with almost 2 out of 10 urban residents.
Poverty incidence worsened to 34% in 2000 from 33% in 1997. This resulted in an increase in the number of poor individuals by 2.59 million from 23.95 million in 1997 to 25.54 million in 2000.
Operating on a very limited budget and with a very high investment demand on social services, the Philippine government had to thinly spread its resources. But the government is not investing enough on public education to provide a meaningful impact on the educational system, in particular, and the lives of the citizenry, in general.
It is for this reason that non-government organizations and other stakeholders have to take on the gargantuan task of bringing quality education directly to the poorest areas and the poorest people in the country and share this responsibility with the government.
Every child has an inherent right to quality education. To deny a child equal access to quality education is to deny his/her future.
Education, being the most powerful instrument in poverty alleviation and economic advancement, needs to be accessible to every child.
The limitations of government, wealth and borders must not hinder the task of providing quality education to an incoming generation.
The concerned people in the government, private sector and civil society who have the capacity to help and to contribute in bringing quality education have a responsibility to shoulder this task.
Social mobilization must be done if we still hope to see some genuine upgrading in the academic performance of the Filipino students. It is as imperative that community’s resource holders whether individual or private businesses realize that education is too complex an issue to be left to the government alone.
Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan
Citizens’ Development Initiatives, Inc.
(KAAKBAY CDI)
Alain Del B. Pascua
Executive Director
0918-6042654, adbp@kaakbay.org
No comments:
Post a Comment