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Friday, June 10, 2005
Lee: Duh?
By Kelvin King Lee
Babble On
"...education is the silver bullet that will kill the country's many problems. The problems of corruption, ignorance, apathy and naivete. The problems of lack of technology, opportunity and development."
THE new school year starts this week and this is on my mind. My future nightmare scenario: I try to have a lively conversation with my future son. We try to talk about politics and history and all he says in reply, with a blank look on his face is: "Duh?"
With Philippine education the way it is now, this is a very likely scenario. It may no longer be a matter of IF this will happen but WHEN.
We hear of the same problems every year in education. The public school system lacks funds. A chronic shortage of textbooks. And what textbooks there are available are usually lousy and error-ridden. Lack of classrooms and school supplies and worst of all, a lack of qualified teachers.
Yet, legally, it wasn't supposed to end up this way. Our public school system was supposed to become one of the best in the world. No less than our Constitution, the fundamental law of the land which governs our country, had provided for this.
The 1986 Constitutional Commission, the group that framed our Constitution, was aware of the deteriorating quality of education in our schools. Father Joaquin Bernas, a member of the Commission, said that: "I think it is generally accepted that education, especially in the elementary level, has deteriorated so much." The other members agreed with him.
As a result, the framers of the Constitution created Article 14, which is the Constitutional provision on Education and other related matters. Some of the basic features of that Article, as summarized by another framer of the Constitution, Professor Jose N. Nolledo, are the following:
1. All citizens have the right to quality education and the State has the duty to make such quality education available to all.
2. The State shall give education the highest budgetary priority.
3. The State shall enhance the right of teachers to professional advancement. Filipino is recognized as the national language.
The thinking of the Commission, according to Professor Hector De Leon, was that:
Education is a condition precedent for the progress of a nation and the benchmark of the quality of its people. It is more than coincidence that the most educated people are also the most prosperous. Without exception, all the industrialized countries in the world have very high standards of education. A society cannot rise above the level of its educational system and the intellectual caliber of its citizens.
Sadly, even with laws and Constitutional mandates in place, education in our country is still wanting. No person in his right mind would send his child to a public school if he could help it. The preference of every parent in the Philippines is to send their kids to private schools such as the Ateneo.
The laws are good. The intention of the framers of the Constitution are good. The work of the Department of Education is good. The reality however, is different. You cannot deny that public school education in the country leaves much to be desired. In other words, it sucks. Period.
More emphasis needs to be placed on education. The laws are in place. Only government policy needs to support it now. Though President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is busy with jueteng and taxes and destabilization plots, it is submitted that she makes education the highest priority. It is already required by the Constitution that education should receive the highest budget priority. It is time that it receives the highest policy priority as well. And I mean the highest. Not as an addendum or an extra. It should be at the very top of government priorities.
Because education is the silver bullet that will kill the country's many problems. The problems of corruption, ignorance, apathy and naiveté. The problems of lack of technology, opportunity and development. Only then can our country rise to its rightful place and fulfill the potential that is there. Only then can the Philippines become the great nation that it is supposed to be.
And this needs to be done now. Today. This very minute. If changes aren't made, then we may have a whole generation of public school students who will lose the potential within them. We will have a whole generation of students going around with blank looks on their faces and saying: "Duh?"
I don't want this to happen to my future children. And neither should you.
Email me at babbleon@atenista.net
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (June 10, 2005 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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