Singapore did it. Thailand did it. And so did Vietnam. Countries that picked up the pieces of their underdevelopment over the last 30 years focused fiercely on education, and toiled by their bootstraps until collective growth became real.
The Philippines had the chance in the early 1950s to make something of itself, and blew it.
This failure was cemented by martial law, shamelessly implemented by the Marcoses and their henchmen, and exacerbated by succeeding administrations whose corruption exceeded even their own Asean counterparts.
What hope does the country have against this backdrop of failed opportunities? Liberal Party standard bearer Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III articulates his party’s insights into the perennial dilemmas of education, and offers plausible alternatives for the future:
“The Philippines has the shortest education cycle preparatory to university. Ours is 10 years; the rest of the world is 12. In short, we have a curriculum that, on paper, covers the same subject matter as the rest of the world but which we cram into 10, instead of 12, years. This means that our teachers take all kinds of short cuts to try to cover the material or just simply do not attempt to cover the entire syllabus in a given year for lack of material time. This shortchanges our children’s education.
“Our collective position is to add two more years to basic education to bridge this glaring gap. The manner by which we will add the two years is to do so incrementally and to have the entire cycle in place by the end of the next Administration.
“Starting Year 1 of the new Administration, we intend to start building up towards a universal pre-school in every public elementary school (to be called kindergarten). This will target all 6 year olds who are not enrolled in Grade 1 (about 60+% to date).
“If DepEd were even moderately successful in terms of reducing dropouts at every grade level such that the per year/grade size (e.g. enrolment) were increased even by 10%, this would add about one million more students in the entire system as a function of retention in school.”
Aquino’s rivals would do well to do their homework—as he apparently has—and get down to the brass tacks of nation-building. Doing so earns more points from a public grown cynical from promises made in the glow of publicity. |
