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[av_heading heading=’EDITORIAL | New school year, same old woes’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
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Tuesday, June 6, 2017
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PUBLIC schools resumed classes yesterday. Teachers and students again face the same problems.
There are still no sufficient teachers, classrooms, facilities and equipment and other instructional and teaching materials. Several schools have double, even triple shifts!
While Department of Education secretary Leonor Briones is bragging that the education budget for 2017-2018 is already 17 percent of the national budget and 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product, it is still far from the international standards (20 percent of the national budget and six percent of the GDP).
The increase in the education budget is not even enough to address the basic shortages of the schools. This is primarily due to the increased needs brought about by the implementation of the senior high school program that added two years in the country’s 10-year basic education program.
Public school congestion remains a problem, too. This can only be addressed by creating more schools, constructing more classrooms, hiring more teachers and employees, and provision of enough schools’ facilities and equipment.
Based on the report of Secretary Briones in November 2016, the Department of Education is still working to meet the following needs: 113,995 classrooms, 88,267 teachers, 235.4 million instructional and other learning materials, 2.2 million school seats for 2016, and 66,492 sets composed of 45 seats and one teacher’s desk, and 44,538 computer packages. Due to the backlog in the delivery of learning materials, teachers are given only a certain number of materials each regardless of the number of their students.
With these backlogs, teachers’ overworked and underpaid status will worsen. Teachers are always pushed to the wall to look for ways just to make teaching possible despite these dire conditions. In most cases, teachers are shelling out cash from their own pockets to provide for the basic needs of students.
As long as we continue to suffer from these problems, quality education for all will remain to be a dream.
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