By Jan-Argy Y. Tolentino
To say that the modern public puts a premium on education is to state the truly obvious. It seems hard to imagine a world with high levels of ignorance and illiteracy.
Especially with the advent of the “Information Age,” one’s education determines the options that one has in life. A good life and a successful career are usually linked to the quality and level of one’s education; mavericks like Bill Gates and the Tai Pans – who never finished or took up a college education – of Southeast Asia are usually exceptions rather than the rule when it comes to accomplishment. So for most people, even a high school diploma is usually the key to a better future.
Discussing the price of educating a country’s public inevitably leads to the age-old debate on whether education is a right or a privilege. Most modern societies adhere to the principle of education as a right, and thus the proliferation of public schools. Indeed, in the world’s foremost democracy the grand majority of its young are reared in public schools. This creates a link between the quality of education for the masses and public expenditure, best exemplified in public outcry over decreases in the education budget. It would seem, to most people, that the efficacy of a country’s education program lives and dies by the amount of money allocated by the government to it.
In assessing the education situation of the Republic of the Philippines, its Department of Education (DepEd) noted that, despite wide and strong public support for education as well as constant prioritizing in the national budget, the sector still faces significant problems, foremost of which are the low cohort survival rate and the lack of facilities and “equipment” – e.g. textbooks – for those in primary and secondary education. One possible cause for the largely dismal state of Philippine education, according to DepEd’s own estimate, points to political support that is “focused more on capturing allocated resources, less on using resources for instructional effort, even less on attaining desired learning outcomes”.
Even former Liberal Party President and DepEd Secretary Butch Abad admitted in an interview, quite frankly, that the education sector was “in crisis”. Only 6 out of every 1,000 Grade Six elementary graduate students are prepared to enter high school. Only 2 out of every 100 Fourth Year high school students are fit to enter college. Only 19 out of every 100 public school teachers have confidence and competence to teach English. The Philippines is No. 41 in Science and No. 42 in Mathematics among 45 countries.
Private initiative in supporting education has usually met with skepticism if not outright hostility. Recognizing that the Philippines’ premier state university, the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, was seeing a deterioration in the quality both of the caliber of its education and its facilities, endeavored to seek private support to augment the “meager” budget allocation it receives from the government. This was to be done through using idle land in the expansive campus for commercial purposes. Such a move was met with much opposition, mostly from militant students based in the university. Instead, they have asked for an increase in the budget for education, echoing the general perception that the infusion of more public funds into the sector will solve its problems like some magic bullet.
Abad during his time as DepEd secretary, initiated several reform measures that veered away from further burdening the national budget. One of the best examples involved the construction of classrooms; in the Philippines, some classes are held in makeshift locations such as the school gym or garage, or even under a mango tree. Having a limited budget for the construction of new facilities, Abad instead turned to the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce (FFCCC) to build the classrooms. FFCCC-built classrooms cost P 150,000 less than the normal (graft-ridden) cost of P 400,000. He also adopted the voucher system, where certain students are sent to private schools, decreasing further the backlog for classrooms and other equipment.
“We can work with what we have,” Abad said, adding that one simply needed to think outside of the box in order to address the lack of funding for the sector. This is, of course, contrary to the belief that solving the education “crisis” could be done simply by infusing more money into the system.
One area of Reform that I am proposing is that government must learn to let “market” forces in the education sector regulate itself rather than to call for increased allocations to education from an overburdened budget, or for greater regulation of the sector even to its private learning institutions. The private schools have seen the adverse effects of abnormally high tuition fees, as more and more students flee towards the public schools following a sharp spike in fees. Even given the realities of the situation, the private schools will most definitely react to this response of the “market” by improving their facilities, ensuring the quality of their curriculum and/or lowering their fees. One of the more distinguished-yet-expensive schools of the Philippines, the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University, has decided on a compromise in a (relatively) low increase in its tuition while increasing the number of students it accepts for the incoming batch of freshmen. Other schools implement increases in tuition only for the incoming freshmen, while upper years keep their old rates or see much lower increases. For State Colleges and Universities, I am proposing that they be given full fiscal autonomy instead of outrightly privatizing them. Only by giving them the power to look for their own resources and utilize their assets will they become independent and creative in managing their respective institutions.
It is true that, in a world facing the impact of increasing access to knowledge and information, education will play a key role in the viability of whole nations as much as they dictate the choices available to the individual citizens of these nations. Pouring in more money to old systems and habits will only waste the already-scarce resources of the State to a move that does not and cannot guarantee substantial positive results. It is only by going beyond the preconceived notions that higher capital infusion equals higher quality of education – thinking out of the box, as Sec. Abad said – will we be truly be able to address the issues confronting the education sector today.
Second area of reform must be in the education curriculum which also needs a thorough review of its efficacy. Which subjects remain effective and able to be of use and of relevance to the studentry? Is the way of instruction for the basic knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic effective in keeping the population effectively literate? There will be no use in infusing the system with fresh capital while the system itself is ineffective in delivering its mandate. Curriculum creation and revision processes must include other stakeholders like the students, alumni and the parents. Students must be able to choose subject that is of their interest and will help them develop the career they want to take.
Lastly, 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. Students, Teachers, School Administrators, Parents and other stakeholders like the Business sector must be made aware that they have it in them to bring about positive change in the sector. We could very well devise a system on the mechanics of stakeholders involvement in pursuing reforms. Complacency and lack of imagination among these groups has allowed the system to perpetuate in its inability to educate. If we all – even those in public schools – demand results at least to the level of their money’s worth, then school administrators and the government will be forced to act as they are the key constituency of this sector. Those in private schools can make use of the business aspect of such institutions to demand their “rights” as “consumers” of the “product” being offered. For those in public schools, just because it is relatively free education doesn’t mean demands cannot be made; it is, after all, a question of whether your hard-earned taxes are working for you.
These are the Price we have to pay for Education.
