By IBARRA C. MATEO and YVONNE T. CHUA
IN next year’s elections, voters should put in office an “education president” who will make quality education the national priority and the key strategy in reducing poverty.
The call was made Monday by representatives from a broad spectrum of society, including academe, business and civil society, at a forum on “Education Nation,” a multisectoral initiative to draw up an education agenda that they hope the next president would adopt.
Although they have yet to finalize the agenda they will unveil to the public in November, when the candidates file their certificates of candidacy, education reform advocates behind Education Nation urged the lengthening of the basic education cycle, which is from elementary to high school, to 12 years from the current 10 to boost the employability of graduates.
They also favor mother tongue instruction in the early years, citing local and global research that shows young children learning better when taught in their dialect.
Armin Luistro, president of the De La Salle Philippines, lamented that Philippine education remains in a state of “chronic illness” despite massive education reforms undertaken since the 1920s.
He said access to education is still a serious problem, pointing to a 2008 Asian Development Bank report that identified the Philippines as among the countries that have even “regressed” in achieving universal primary education because of its dismal net enrolment and completion rates.
The Philippines is only ahead of Cambodia and Laos in terms of Grade 1 pupils completing the last grade of elementary schooling, the ADB report showed.
Quoting from studies done by education experts, Luistro said the highly centralized, hierarchical structure of the Department of Education, as well as the “projectized” mindset and “culture of obeisance” permeating the public education sector, has resulted in reforms failing to take root in the sector.
But he said attempts to reform the educational system have failed also because “the educational bureaucracy has been infused by too much politics, processes that affect anything from teacher recruitment to the appointment of school and other officials to the allocation of additional resources.”
Former Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz, who is now executive vice president of the think tank National Institute for Policy Studies, suggested that the performance of the basic education sector, consisting of the elementary and high school levels, be gauged chiefly using Education for All indicators: net enrolment or the participation rate, completion rate, achievement and gender parity or the number of boys versus girls in school.
Luz, who is designing a “report card” for Philippine education, said the net enrolment rate in elementary and high school has slid from 92.07 percent in 1995 to 84.85 percent in 2009 and the dropout rate remains high.
While the entry age to Grade 1 is six, Luz said: “It appears that parents are delaying putting children into school. More children (are) entering Grade 1 at aged seven or eight years.”
The trend is worrisome because, Luz said, overaged children are more likely to drop out.
The former DepEd undersecretary stressed the importance of keeping children in school till Grade 4 to improve their chances of completing elementary and high school.
Attention should also be given to male students, who record a higher dropout rate than girls, he said. Only 70.9 percent of boys who enter Grade 1 complete Grade 6 compared to 80.1 percent of girls.
Luz also said education reforms should focus not only on inputs such as classrooms but also on outcomes such as student achievement.
Ramon del Rosario Jr., chairman of the Philippine Business for Education, told reporters after the forum that the education agenda should focus on fundamental issues such as the implementation of a 12-year basic education that enables students to comprehend fully and think critically.
“Twelve years of basic education is a key ingredient of good education. We’re cramming 12 years of basic education into 10 years,” he said.
The Philippines is the only country with a 10-year basic education.
Describing the quality of the country’s college graduates, Vincent Fabella, president of the Jose Rizal University, said only six out of 100 applicants in call center companies get hired and only 30 to 40 out of every 100 land jobs related to back office procedures that do not require oral communication skills.
Butch Hernandez, executive director of the Foundation for Worldwide People Power, said parents who object to the added burden and cost of 12 years of basic education “must consider the cost of an unemployable graduate.”
Former Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus said the current basic education curriculum does not provide a strong foundation in subjects such as math and science, especially biology and chemistry. “With proper explanation, the population will see the need for the extra years in basic education,” said De Jesus, who is now president of the University of the Cordilleras.
Luz said that investment in Philippine education remains low, with the government allocating only P7,000 or $150 per child each year compared to $890 in Thailand and $1,500 in Malaysia.
Data show that the Philippine educational expense, which stood at 2.3 percent of the Gross National Product in 2006, continues to be lower than those of other neighboring states, with the exception of Cambodia.
Vivien Talisayon, dean of the University of the Philippines College of Education, noted that the continuing lack of resources for education ironically corresponds to a steady increase of student population.
Given the limited resources set aside for education, Del Rosario said Education Nation hopes “to help plug the leaks, minimize the waste and stop the corruption in the public school system.”
In a statement, proponents of Education Nation pledged to work for a Philippines which is “an education nation where every Filipino demands quality education for all, where a system of education ensures our country’s global competitiveness, and where every election makes education a priority agenda.”
“Education is the most powerful means out of poverty, ignorance, exclusion and war,” the statement said.