Wednesday, September 10, 2008 Editorials: Crucial education issue
THAT many overseas Filipinos who are professionals are being discriminated against abroad and are not able to land jobs that their training calls for is something that needs immediate attention from our educational system planners or administrators.
The unfortunate “treatment” stems from the fact that certain aspects of our school system are not recognized globally.
This is particularly so with the 10-year basic education program under which most of our professionals have graduated in.
Their competitors from other nations go through a 12-year basic education program.
Thus, only professionals who finished from Filipino schools such as the Asian Institute of Management, Ateneo de Manila, La Salle and UP are recognized.
Curriculum
According to a presidential education adviser, “despite the good credentials of Filipino professionals, they are still being discriminated against when they vie for jobs with their counterparts from other nations” because the Philippines is the only country in the world still implementing a 10-year basic education curriculum.
How this came about should hang heavy on our politicians’ soul.
But there was a time when our educational system implemented a seven-year elementary school curriculum.
But during the late ‘40s, a cost-saving educational system was initiated, and Grade 7 was dropped.
And it was just as well to our education planners because the war years had caused a tremendous increase in intermediate school pupils.
When the poor quality of our primary level education graduates was noted during the martial law period, there was a strong lobby to restore Grade 7, as well as the two-year Associate in Arts course or AA.
But the projected budgetary requirements to support the twin proposals were believed quite heavy a burden to saddle the national budgets in those years.
Political will
Since then, up to the present, this education issue remained a constant wish of some of our concerned educators.
And still, economic constraints have become a drag to the serious efforts to improve the quality of our education.
But the reported discrimination of overseas Filipinos has brought forward once more this education issue.
And like before, it can be resolved only with the political will of our leaders.
