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Friday, July 07, 2006
Roperos: Teachers’ lament
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
The state of education in our country is not what it really should be. It is far from the level of quality our teachers expect and hope to achieve from their performance in the public primary and secondary schools. This is more so in the countryside.
A few days ago, there was this story in this daily about the “alarming” state of learning of our youth who are about to enter high school or college. The story told of the results of a study undertaken by the National Statistical Coordination Board that showed that Filipino students utterly lack the basic mastery of key subjects.
Hardly any sixth graders or fourth year students “achieved the 75 percent ‘mastery’ benchmark for mathematics, science, Filipino, and English languages, and social studies,” though they were a little better than 2003-04.
The report said that despite the efforts of the education department to improve the quality of education in our country, the 2004-05 school year “revealed that the quality of basic education in the country remains poor.”
In fact, according to the report, Filipino 4th graders ranked third from last in both math and science among 25 countries surveyed, while high school students ranked 41st in math and 42nd in science among the 45 countries tested. Such a result is blatantly shameful, to say the least.
The reason for this, I would like to believe, is revealed from the dialogue I overheard among teachers riding in a V-hire bus to the city from my hometown town a week ago. Ironically, I was born of parents who lived and died as public school teachers, and I understood deeply their feelings about the state of education in our schools.
Their first lament is the lack of classrooms in their schools, to the extent that one section has to accommodate 80 pupils. When I was grade school more than six decades ago, there were only 40 in each class, with four rows and two pupils to each desk.
Now, not only is there lack of classrooms, but there is also lack of desks. With such number of unruly young crowded in a room, how could you expect better quality of education?
Then they talked about the merit system in matching teachers with their assignments. There are teachers who should have been moved down already from their upland assignments but are not. And supervisors do not have any respect at all for their teachers, scolding them and shouting at them openly during meetings.
Based on what those teachers revealed and the state of our schools in the countryside, our republic has its priorities utterly lopsided, even cockeyed, if you may. Our national leaders are quarreling with each other over their political power and influence, giving less attention and low priority to education.
The way the teachers talked about their professional life, they would not hesitate to move to other offices if they could. Or they retire early if there is nothing anymore they can do to escape their lamentable life. For despite their love of the profession and their desire to really make a difference in the life of the kids, they are unable to do so because of circumstances beyond their control.
It is a frustrating life they live, so they said. “But you know,” said one, “what a beautiful feeling I have when at the end of the year, I see and hear the young ones who came in unable to read or write, do so with skill.”
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 7, 2006 issue)
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