LAST Wednesday’s PN contained an interesting piece about the visit of Australian Embassy’s Deputy Head of Mission, Richard Sisson.
It is good when Embassy officials travel to places in West Visayas. Sometimes, I believe that foreign diplomats spend far too much time in Manila. They attend congenial Embassy parties but do not explore Visayan and Mindanaoan regions. This is regrettable since much can be learned from what goes on in the provinces.
So Mr. Sisson’s visit here is of significant value to both the Philippines and Australia.
It was reported that, particularly in Iloilo and Guimaras, the Australian government has programs in education and agriculture.
We especially welcome the program in education. Australia has its own K-12 system which, nevertheless, operates very differently from our K-12 policy.
A key difference is what happens when students complete Grade 10, pejoratively called ‘junior’ high school here.
K-12 in the Philippines operates very inflexibly. Students and their parents do not have discretion as to what they can do in order to maximize the benefits that may be obtained from our education system.
We hope that Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio, who has received instructions from President BBM to “review” K-12 will address the unfortunate “mandatory” nature of this flawed system.
One important difference is that on completion of Grade 10, Australian students have choices which are not enjoyed by their Filipino counterparts.
Many Australian students leave school on completion of Grade 10. Some immediately enter the workforce. Since they have a solid academic background, there are many career opportunities open to them. Other students attend excellent technical colleges.
A few, academically-oriented students, stay on at school and complete Grades 11 and 12. These two years are totally different from the schooling taken by their Philippine counterparts. The academic standard is extremely high – much higher than that experienced here.
On completion of Grade 12, Australian students have the opportunity to apply for admission to Australian Universities. I should mention that there are five Australian universities ranked in the top 50 in the world.
The situation here is not good. The highest ranked Philippine university, UP, is assessed to be 412th in the international league table. This is regrettable since UP, for many years, was positioned in the top 300.
Clearly, we are not globally competitive.
We hope the situation can be remedied, perhaps as a result of our education management engaging in a fruitful dialogue with their Australian counterparts./PN
