Guro

Last night, I saw an episode of The Big Picture with Ricky Carandang on ANC and the topic was “The Problem of Education”, with panelists from the private sector as well as the Department of Education. The talk was very informative making me crave for more – cannot wait for the UP Centennial Lecture on the State of the Nation’s Education.

Some of the points raised are as follows:

1. 10-year basic education vs 12-years
2. student drop-outs
3. lack of schools

 I did not finish the show since I was too tired but somehow I got the gist of their discussion. However, I think the national government should do something about this and the private sector must also do its share.

Personally, whilst all three points mentioned above are indeed problems, the most pressing problem that I see is the competency of the teachers. Even if the private sector pours money to erect schools all over the archipelago and even if the DepEd requires 12-years of basic education, the mediocre quality of the teachers will still produce subpar students — with inadequate skills to be globally competitive.

The most pressing need right now, I think, revolves around the teacher. Teachers should have a continuing education program, similar to CME credits for medical doctors. This will ensure that teachers are always improving.

Teachers should be given higher salary to prevent the best from leaving the schools for more attractive salaries overseas. Just open the major dailies and you’d see recruitment agencies looking for teachers for the US and UK.

Once we have schools producing exemplary students, the investment in infrastructure will be easily justified. More teachers will stay, more teachers will need classrooms, more students will remain in school (because they are motivated by the properly skilled and equally motivated teachers).

Only then should we even consider increasing the number of years for basic education. As it is, graduates of the 10-year basic education program can still compete globally provided that they are given the opportunity to compete in the first place. The fact that the quality of education is rapidly deteriorating is what prevents them from being globally competitive and the sole factor here is the quality of the teachers!

The national government prefers setting up classrooms rather than improving teacher education and teacher salaries. No matter how many classrooms are constructed, the best teachers will leave due to meager salaries and mediocre ones will remain (since they themselves cannot compete globally). What will happen to students taught by mediocre teachers? They end up mediocre or worse!

The DepEd should better prioritize. Sometimes they prefer investing in something that people can see — school buildings — rather than something that has longer term impact. With the current DepEd management, I am confident that something will definitely happen in this space.

What do you think?