PHILIPPINE presidential debates have started; and the second one has been done on Sunday. The challenge to choose the best leader for this country is like swimming in the middle of an abyss.
From every debate, we look forward to skills that all public officials should definitely have. We wanted to measure their ability to speak well with sense and answer confidently the questions thrown to them.
But in all of these debates, we get even more confused.
In this second debate though, education is the central theme of the discourse. Are we this confident that all our questions have been answered? Are the expectations met?
As an academician there are so many questions that I would like to be answered. This country is known to be adopting the American standard of educational system. However, what we see in the implementation in our country is far from what is expected of us.
Nonetheless, this curriculum change is said to be promising for all learners in the country. The challenge is whether this will be continued by the new leader or not. If the K to 12 curricula can be the key toward improving the academic quality of our learning environment, then this has to be pursued. However, if this will just delay or destroy the momentum of every learner then, this has to be reconsidered.
I cannot wait for the time that our educational system is one of the real major priorities of our country. It is always considered as “the priority” but it isn’t felt at all. We still see schools that do not have chairs for all their learners.
Until today, they share books and supplies. Classrooms are dilapidated. No enough facilities and so on.
Sad but true. This is a reality in Mindanao. It might also be a reality in some parts of the country outside Mindanao. In fact, reports and statistics say that among the most forgotten facility in a school is a proper comfort room.
If what I’ve mentioned in the previous article about CRs were true, then we are reflecting the stinky realities of our educational system.
If the standard of quality education is mirrored by these comfort rooms in our schools, then we have to check our definition of what is ‘quality’. We may be missing the simplest manifestation of what is real and important to all of us.
You may consider my words to be too confrontational but it is what I really feel. I cannot wait for the day that our leaders will start observing the simple yet important aspects of our educational system.
We have to revisit the need for proper knowledge transmission.
Teachers have to be equipped with proper trainings and instructional materials. The training must start from the bottom. Teachers in the field must see for themselves the best strategy to teach a subject. They must be given proper materials to use.
Last week, through our initiatives for a mobile library in the rural areas, I had the chance to bring with me language experts from the Mindanao State University who had shared their new teaching strategies
for learning English. There we saw the teachers who are hungry of new initiatives in teaching. Some were very excited of the reading materials we shared.
This is not surprising. There are schools where children get rare chances to read a few full-colored books with illustrations. Learners of today are more multimodal and have multiple intelligences.
Hence, for a country that dreams to be a better one, we have to face these challenges with sincerity. Our choice for the future leader will definitely count.