The admission by President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and Vice-President and concurrent Secretary of Education Inday `educational system is a failure should be a wake-up call to the entire government bureaucracy, more particularly the Executive Department and the two houses of Congress. With them lies the urgent application of radical surgery needed to resuscitate the comatose state of our system of education.
Decades of neglect and abject disinterest from those who wield the power and the duty of governance are responsible for its intolerable, offensive and tragic moribund state.
The results are appalling. Millions of Filipino children/youths, whom Jose Rizal had bestowed the appellation “Hope of the Fatherland“, have become products of inadequate learning methods. Millions more have not reached college, and an equal number have not seen the inside of a classroom. There is a dearth of school buildings in populated areas, while there is none in far-flung places. Those existing ones are either immediately needing major or minor repairs. Others are condemned for demolition.
The inventory in the Department of Education shocking reveals that a whooping 89,252 school buildings require major repairs! Competing in the repairing zone is a startling 100,072 school buildings in need of minor repairs. To top it all, 21,727 school structures are set for condemnation! These school buildings placed the school children’s safety in constant peril! We should immediately discontinue the use of these dangerous edifices if they are still being utilized by our school youths.
Apart from the so incredibly many decrepit school buildings, the chairs inside the classrooms are either needing replacement or repairs. So are the toilets, apart from being dirty the faucets and toilet bowls are not working.
It does not help that in times of natural calamities, fires, and floods, these school buildings are used as evacuation centers. This use by the displaced and temporary occupants adds to the ruin of these educational structures.
There must be a massive infrastructure in the education sector. We must undertake these engineering activities to increase a thousand fold the modern structures that will adequately house our school children and provide them with an inspiring environment for intellectual growth.
Public school teachers, most probably the most abused professional group in our society, suffer a lot as they shoulder the brunt of a failed educational system. They receive low salaries and they even spend their own money to purchase some school necessities. During the election period, they are required to render service for such dismal allowances. There are no integrated government programs to enhance their teaching skills and improve their method of teaching. Their salaries must doubly increase like the military and the police. They should receive more benefits, added allowances, incentives, and scholarships for further studies.
Five to six decades ago, the quality of public school teachers was at its highest level. The succeeding generation of public school teachers, even private ones, sad to say, is wanting excellence. According to a scientific study and based on the poor academic proficiency of the graduates, many of those who finished teaching courses have much to be desired in imparting their acquired knowledge to their students. Both the Department of Education and the Commission on Higher Education must join hands in seriously looking at this deteriorated quality of education of those who will be teaching primary and secondary courses, and initiate an overhaul change in this area.
There must be a law that should mandate the free education of all Filipinos, from nursery, prep, and secondary to college. Those who can afford private education can always waive this right to free education.
The government must give priority to education and implement constitutional directives. A highly educated population is the foundation of the country’s economic growth, development, and prosperity.
If we want to have educated, competent, honest, selfless public officials, elected or appointed, we must have an educated electorate. We cannot forever allow buffoons, scoundrels, incompetent, vested interest individuals, demagogues, and the corrupt to wield political power. That has been the curse of this nation. It has placed our country almost at the bottom in this part of the world, in the economy, in development and prosperity.
This is the challenge that the present administration and the succeeding ones must rise to.