By HERBERT VEGO
AS I was writing this yesterday, Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Armin Luistro was expected at the Nueva Valencia High School in Nueva Valencia, Guimaras to spearhead the “Brigada Eskuela” there – meaning clean-up of school classrooms in preparing for the opening of classes. Ang sipag…
I heard a radio commentator joking that “Sec chose Guimaras because it had not been badly hit by typhoon Yolanda.”
In other words, had he chosen to go to Estancia, Iloilo instead, he would have been embarrassed with nothing to clean there anymore because entire classrooms had already been ‘cleaned’ away by the typhoon.
Would he rather not see them?
Reconstruction of wrecked schools is just one of the many problems besetting DepEd. Compounding that problem are the lack of classrooms and lack of teachers.
If I may say my two cents’ worth, the PNoy government should scrap Luistro’s K-12 program before it’s too late.
The clarion call of the moment is to rebuild the wrecked public and private schools. Billions of pesos would have to be defrayed to do so. Adding more classrooms for additional classes would entail added burden to the already suffering taxpayers.
On the other hand, the parents have become poorer. Even on the assumption that they have the option of enrolling their kids in free public schools, many will still be unable to shoulder the cost of their fare and allowance. Hence, extending basic elementary/high school education from 10 to 12 years on the pretext that “we have been left behind” is no longer tenable.
It’s really not too late to scrap K-12 because this year is only the 3rd year of its implementation; the third-year high school students this year would be glad to hit 4th year and finish high school next school year.
Who cares what President Noynoy Aquino and Education Secretary Armin Luistro say? Most Filipinos do not believe in prolonged basic education; it would only result in more drop-outs.
There has been no evidence to show that Filipinos who spend only 10 years in basic education do not succeed. On the contrary, each of us personally knows those who can’t stay that long in school due to financial limitations.
The super typhoon has aggravated an already existing problem.
While it is true that the biggest share of the annual budget always goes to the Department of Education, it hardly catches up with the ever-increasing number of students, teachers and classrooms to spend for.
Ask the parents. In its first two years of implementation, the government has not proven itself overcoming such old problems as inadequate supply of free textbooks for public-school students; and parents of poor children can’t afford to buy them, too.
There was no K-12 in bygone years. In those years, each student in each subject got a book, to be returned at the end of the school year for lending to the next batch of the next year. It would be more logical for government to resume this book-lending program than to defray much more money for additional curricula.
There was a time, according to our grandpas and grandmas, when outstanding elementary-school graduates were allowed to teach primary pupils.
In a pre-Yolanda editorial, this corner sounded off the statistics that DepEd is aware of: Out of every 100 students who enroll in elementary school, only 58 make it to high school. Of these 58, only 33 enroll in college but only 14 finally graduate. Those who drop out do so due to the incapacity of their parents to spend for their tertiary education.
The really “mango,” on the other hand, indeed spend 12 years and even more before finishing high school. Would that make them better prepared for college?
The job market does not look for graduates who have spent more years in high school but for those who have earned skills in college. Filipino seamen, for instance, are in demand abroad because they work better than other nationals.
If our teachers go to Hong Kong to “demote” themselves as domestic helpers, it’s not because they ran short of two years in high-school. It’s because they could earn more as such in HK than as teachers here./PN
