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Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Ong: GMA's education for all policy
By Ted Aldwin Ong
Misreadings
YOUTH groups in Manila have joined together to assess the current state of the youth under the auspices of the current regime. It is fascinating that the youth sector have considered themselves getting "dumb and dumber" because of continued neglect of the national government to elevate the quality of education in the country.
I have shared their insights and analysis among youth leaders in the recent discussions on the true state of our nation in time for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address last July 24.
For many of them and for those who are aware of the issues besetting our nation, the Sona is another verbal delivery of a set of promises supposedly aimed to help eradicate poverty, promote development and build sustainable peace.
Just like the senior citizens, the Filipino youth also wonder where the promises salivated during the Sona will lead to. We have heard one "I am Sorry" yet a litany of promises and guarantees allegedly to defend and advance the genuine interest of the people, especially of the youth and students who gave power to Edsa 2. And yet, those promises, much more the pledge of assurance from Mrs. Arroyo, are still buried somewhere waiting to be fulfilled.
Five years under the disputed leadership of Mrs. Arroyo, the Filipino youth are uneducated, indebted and hungry.
Last year alone, the education sector's share in the fiscal pie went down by 27.9 percent. A large part of the education budget just went to financing personnel services while funding for books, buildings and teaching tools was a measly 4.1 percent.
This is happening because the national government only spends 2.4 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) on education while comparable countries within the Medium Human Development bracket spend an average of 4.41 percent according to the recent United Nations Human Development Report.
Government figures can speak of the miserable state of our educational system. At the present, one in 10 Filipinos never gone to school, this may look dismal, but it accounts to 6.8 million in all. Another 9.6 million are not functionally literate or one in six Filipinos.
The figures are open for scrutiny but the reality is that 4.1 million are illiterate and 11.6 million youth are out of-school. About 51 percent of Filipinos had elementary education at most, but out of 1000 Grade 1 pupils, only 688 will finish their elementary education and only seven will acquire the required competency skills.
We are among the most crowded classrooms in Asia with class size of 55 to 56 students sandwiched in a room. I don't know if this explains why only 13 out of 100 students who enter Grade 1 will ever finish college.
At the opening of the school year, there was a dispute in figures as the Department of Education faced classroom shortage While Mrs. Arroyo claims that we have enough classrooms in our public schools, the figures speaks otherwise, we lack 44,000 classrooms.
We are not only facing shortage in classrooms. Textbook shortage is pegged at 25 million and public school teacher shortage is close to 50,000. Now, who can say that the state of our education is far from depressing?
On the other hand, debt servicing has been increasing in proportion to the total annual budget. From 2002-2005, the average debt to expenditure ratio is 63.60 percent of our national budget. Concretely, during this short time, Mrs. Arroyo spent a total of P2.83 trillion just to pay onerous and unjust debts. Enough money to augment much needed social service, which could help jumpstart the depressing state of our educational system.
This is the real situation of the Filipino youth and the country's education. This is what Mrs. Arroyo is not talking about in her blissful Sonas together with the real issues that affect the lives of the poor.
"Ang utang ni Gloria na lumolobo ay lubhang nakakabobo" as the youth aptly described its state under GMA. This is a deliberate waste of the country's biggest resource -- our human resource. This snapshot on the state of our education and the youth is a glimpse of what our nation will look like in the coming years.
Comments to tao.ssi@gmail.com
(July 25, 2006 issue)
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