Tuesday, April 03, 2007 Editorial: The best solution
MUCH has been said and written about the poor English that has become so prevalent among our public school teachers and students. Hence it is interesting what a couple of education professionals have to say about the subject.
According to Dr. Edna Jalotjot, director of the Teacher Training Institute of Southeastern Philippines (USeP) here, only about 30 percent of high school teachers have the competence to teach good English to their students.
This observation, curiously enough, was met with dismay by none other than the head of the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) 11, Reynaldo Peña.
In last Friday's Kapihan sa PIA press forum at the Philippine Information Agency 11 office, Peña said the commission has enough safeguards to ensure the quality of teachers in tertiary education because only teachers who have earned Master of Arts degrees in their specializations are allowed to teach in college.
He pointed to the fact that graduates of the education course manage to pass the licensure exams for teachers even if they are not good in English.
That may be so. But how many of their co-examinees failed to pass the licensure exams because they are also not good in English? A considerable number, no doubt, if we go by past performances.
If, as Dr. Jalotjot says, only 30 percent of high school teachers have the competence to teach good English, that leaves 70 percent who are incompetent along that line. Ergo, 70 percent of our high school students end up being incompetent in English. Need we look elsewhere for the real reason behind the poor quality of English being taught in our high schools? Or, for that matter, in the lower grades?
Our education officials better get cracking and improve the quality of English being taught in schools by hiring only teachers who have the competence to teach the language. Otherwise, we will lose our earlier advantage over our Asian neighbors who, realizing that English has become a universal language, have stepped up its teaching in their schools.
