THE WORD WAR between Vice President and Secretary of Education Sara Duterte and the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) is unseemly and should be avoided in the future.
In the recent imbroglio, I am inclined to side with Secretary of Education Duterte. After all, 31 million voters expressed confidence in Duterte. On the other hand, the ACT is a pressure group with limited, though articulate, supporters.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to disagree with Duterte when she says that ACT’s suggestion of hiring 30,000 teachers is impossible.
ACT seems to have done the calculation that if we want to reduce the class size to 35 students by 2028, we need to recruit 30,000 teachers annually.
Duterte accuses ACT of trying to undermine the Marcos administration’s solution to education problems. We are, however, concerned that Duterte has not been articulate in expressing what are these vaunted solutions.
What to do?
Countries that have carried out surveys in education attainment seem to be in agreement that COVID has resulted in a seriously deleterious effect on education achievement. Anecdotal evidence confirms that we in the Philippines have also suffered from this problem.
Failure to learn in the first four years in school (K-3) must surely result in slow progress later on.
I agree with those who believe that we should focus on improving teacher quality. Implementation, is however, a problem. In-service teacher training is necessary. Can this be achieved?
We have the sad situation where students attend classes but are clearly not making the progress that makes it possible to successfully keep up with the curriculum.
Identifying the problem can be clarified by having regular examinations. Without exams, many students will not be making the necessary progress.
Tertiary education is important also. Some students, not especially successful in High School, can make good progress later on.
As grandparents, we are pleased to see successful completion of family members at tertiary level. In Bacolod City, we are aware that many Riverside College students seem to do well.
It is never too late to become scholars!/PN
