Aliviado: A broad educational problem

HERE we are again comparing our present lives to those of our neighboring countries. Just take a look at the gadgets around used by top executives today and you will know that they are keeping up with the times. Even now, almost every high school and elementary students have a cellular phone unit and regardless of what the brand may be, they were just unheard of twenty years ago.

Then hilarious language evolutions like the jejemon and pekemon (if I heard it correctly) cropped out from the adventurous and creative minds of the youth today.

Updates on President Benigno Aquino III's presidency

What is bothering me though is that the plan to extend the scholastic years of every Filipino student has been revived, one year in the elementary and another year in the secondary level. The contention is that, other progressive countries have already done so and that is why their citizens have high degree of competence. Not a problem for them actually because their government allocated a huge amount of time, money and effort to enlighten the minds of their next generation. And I am not even talking just about yet on some corrupt bureaucrats who purposely withheld the salaries of public school teachers in their private bank accounts waiting for the interest to incur and then possibly in connivance with loan sharks waiting at their doors ready to pounce on the helpless teachers.

Two years of scholastic extension is not appropriate at this time. What the present administration should do, as what the previous ones have not done so, is to weed out first the corrupt in the DepEd bureaus and that appropriate justice be served unto them. The salaries of the public school teachers should be raised and given at the designated time, as they also have families to feed, to clothe, to shelter and to provide basic education. I hope somebody can tell me if the planned regionalization of wage distribution has been realized.

Then there is the problem on classroom shortages and it all boils down to the budget constraint of the DepEd again. How many public schools today are having classes in three shifts? That kind of setup alone compromises the quality of education that the student gets, for the allotted minutes per subject will be greatly shortened. And they say that the level of intellectual efficiency of the students of how the principals manage their schools, so the former would have recurring headaches trying to come up with the most viable solutions to both the shortage of classrooms and time management per subject matter. I believe that the classroom problem alone should be left to the national government to take care of so that the principals could concentrate on the educational management of the students in their respective schools.

Error-prone textbooks contribute also to the worsening quality of education today, and we may only have ourselves to blame if we didn’t scrutinize well the contents of the textbooks.

In fact, most students would opt to turn to the internet for their reports because the contents are updated. But in doing so, their allowances would be stretched thin as most of them don’t have personal computers at home, so they would rent in the internet cafes. And you can guess how many of these students would really just go there for research and those who end up opening their Facebook and Twitter accounts, or worse, playing online games.

The problem of the educational system is indeed serious but manageable if only the present government would start at the bottom of the situation. The proposed additional years of education only burdens more the parents of the students who would have to toil more for the allowances and miscellaneous expenses that the school requires. These problems were not so much existent before as we were the best in education in the South East Asian region. P-Noy should be reminded that his slogan, “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahihirap” also extends to the realm of education. Local incompetent and corrupt politicians would want to continue the present downslide of the quality of education today so that the youth would still be hook in their noses by their useless bidings. Besides, their names and pictures may perhaps not be posted in the tarpaulins and advertisements when it comes to education. (Comments? Send at jaliviado2001@yahoo.com)