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Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Oledan: Loops
By Radzini Oledan
Slice Of Life
IN THE first day of the opening of regular classes, thousands of young children and youth troop to schools eager to learn and again, hoping as they had done before that there would be enough textbooks for each of them to use, comfortable classroom space that will allow them to at least move once in a while, adequate number of qualified and efficient teachers who can help develop and nurture their potentials, and at least have the necessary facilities like chairs and tables, including a comfort room where they can relieve themselves.
They do not expect good libraries where they can use updated books or even news magazines, which can be their reference material for learning. They also do not wish for nurses or doctors to look into their health.
They just want the most basic of the basics. These children and youth have come to expect the worst of everything.
Nothing can be expected of an institution, which pays lip service to education or whose concept of Child Friendly School System (CFSS) is limited to painting the roof and gates with terms such as quality education or Child Friendly School.
Nothing could fall short with the public's expectation of the perennial shortage of classrooms, teachers and textbooks, among others that continue to confront hundreds of public schools all over the country.
The one classroom per 60 students ratio before was considered detrimental to the effectiveness of teachers and in the absorptive capacity of students. One could not imagine the immense ability of national officials to package the failure in providing quality education by lowering the desired 1:45 pupil-classroom ratio into a redefined calculation of 100 students per classroom. (It is argued that it is 100 students because two classes or sessions can actual be done in one room.)
Imagine students cramped in their classrooms, unable to move much less participate in their classroom activities. Also, imagine a teacher handling 70-80 students in the morning and the same number of pupils in the afternoon and you would understand that it is not far-off that another case of a students being made to eat sharpened materials may happen again.
Only a logical mind could understand the plight of hundreds and thousands of students and their teachers who have no choice but confront the situation head-on in the next months.
The shock over these shortages would die down in the next months. In the end, it would be the students who would bear the brunt of a situation that does not places the child at the center of priority.
Administrators and national officials could define and redefine their parameters of effectivity and efficiency. A single statement from Malacañang is all it takes for the whole nation to clam up and believe that indeed, it is possible for students to learn in a cramped and hot classroom setting.
In some localities, the single act of students to get out of their classes and spend their time somewhere else could result to their being tagged as truants and of being accosted by authorities.
These are just few of the insanities. But then again, everything is a lip service.
Just look at the painted signs posted in public schools and take a glance inside the classrooms of our children and youth.
Feel the difference. Better yet, feel the shame of being unable to genuinely prepare children the best possible start in life.
Or you may choose to paint your own reality and pass it off as truth.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (June 7, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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