Something is woefully amiss with the basic education Filipino children are getting. No, I am not talking about their substandard performance in international comprehension tests. That too, but I am more alarmed at the cringe-worthy preponderance of corrupt government officials, all of whom are products of our basic education system. Their later higher education in prestigious institutions of learning seems unable to compensate for a sore lack of early school grounding in such values as integrity and social responsibility.
Unless this is turned around, the mass-poverty-producing mixture of corruption (by those on top) and their oppression (of small folks below) will continue to be the bane of Philippine society. Unless, as early as their basic education, children are liberated from the old colonial values of wealth, power and privilege, the cycle of poverty will simply grind on. This is because, as the great Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, so aptly said, “When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.”
Our basic education system clearly needs a thorough overhaul. Yet, all attention remains focused on improving skills for landing a suitable job. Nothing seems to be done about steeping our children in such human values as integrity and social responsibility in any occupation they find themselves engaged. We need a summit with psychologists, parents and teachers brainstorming on, first, what ails our basic education and, second, what can be done to cure it of its ills.
Why basic education? Because we know nature endows us with our personality the moment we are born. But we are also malleable at an early age so that the first six years, according to most psychologists, are determinants of a child’s personality. It is, therefore, critical that our basic elementary education not only reinforces the human values taught by ethical and socially responsible parents and neighbors but also supplies what irresponsible parents fail to teach.
We need Filipino children to develop at an early age self-respect and integrity in their dealings with the earth and all its creatures, especially fellow humans. Integrity and self-respect are equally as important as, if not more than, the skills needed to land a high-salaried job. For our nation to progress, basic education must be liberating, as opposed to submissive and accepting, of negative social realities. It must put children on the road to critical, creative and innovative thinking even as they start learning the 3R’s.
But these are only my ideas. We need to put our heads together to overhaul our basic education system. Our schools cannot continue producing graduates with the skills to land a high-paying job or to rule over us, but with neither self-respect and integrity nor concern for what happens to the bigger community. We need a summit to get to the bottom of our problems with basic education. It’s too critical for the nation’s commonweal to miss doing.