Pangan: Our declining quality of education



JUST as we thought our revised Basic Education Curriculum has improved our international standards, we were shocked to learn of our dismal showing in the student assessment.

It was reported that among 79 countries, the Filipino learners ranked lowest in reading comprehension and second lowest in Mathematics and Science, this according to the Program for International Student Assessment (Pisa). Anyare?

Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Hyacinth Tagupa even highlighted our declining results in the National Achievement Tests in several years in 2018. The national mean percentage score among Grade 6 pupils was only 37.44, the lowest in NAT history, 70.80 score in 2015, 42.03 in 2016 and 39.95 in 2017. Even Grade 10 pupils suffered miserable scores. Why the poor showing then? Can we put the blame on unfocused teaching or lack of materials and visual aids or just plain laziness among teachers?

The problem is deep-rooted, caused by many factors including socio-economic and the perennial problem of class sizes and student-to-teacher ratios. How can these problems be resolved? Remember, the Department of Education gets the biggest allocation from our national budget. And yet, the very dismal showing of our graded pupils?

There is an urgent need to overhaul our education system starting with the training of our teachers and instructors.

Tagupa mentioned how our teachers are overworked and underpaid, especially those “who serve low-income communities and ‘last mile schools’”.

This is where government action is most needed and welcome, including our Congress which should pass immediate legislations to aid our teachers.

We need to focus our attention and massive resources toward the improvement to a higher degree of our education system to be at least at par with our Asean neighbors. We can excel, if given the proper incentives and stimuli as proven by our previous excellent showing in the 30th SEA games!

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The HOA board of directors (BOD) and officers led by this writer as president of Fiesta Communities Tabun Mabalacat City Homeowners Association Inc., met with the representative of Village Water System Supply which supplies the water needs of residents/homeowners of Fiesta Communities.

Speaking of HOA, it held its 2019 Annual General Assembly on December 14, 2019, 4:00 p.m. at the Bayanihan function hall. Several homeowners came and participated in the meeting and in the raffle of prizes.

BOD Rod Monis sounded the call for nominees for BODs in the special elections to be held in January 2020 to fill up vacancies of officer positions which holders by the way are contemplating on resigning. Reportedly, this mass resignation will dissolve the association, hence, the special elections.

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