Education in the Philippines

What’s happening with the education system in our country is that, we are still striving to send EVERYONE to school (and what I mean by school is an educational institution). We highly value Education in our country, and we would like to think that the government’s efforts to provide education for everyone are already manifesting and taking place. There are even private sectors developing programs for the youth like “library-on-the-go” or that container van roving school that goes around impoverished areas to teach children regularly. There are countless of these programs, and it is commendable.

Perhaps the next step that our country should focus on is to improve that quality of education. Who says it hasn’t started yet? The DepEd has already begun implementing its K-12 program, and though many say our country is not yet ready for such elaborate and complex system, it was a good first step. The government should also look into the welfare of teachers; their training and further education, perhaps also increasing incentives and compensation. The government could also look into improving educational facilities, provide more instructional innovations, asking the schools to keep up with the times, and provide the technology needed for instruction, such as projectors, computers, internet connection, etc.

What is most important in taking this big step is to look at what our children are learning in school. A question was posed in our class discussion a few weeks ago; “Is there any difference with the curriculum before and the curriculum now?” Perhaps there are many we could say, such as subjects using technology, history with more current information, etc etc. But some of my classmates did point out something when they said that there is not much difference between what our grandparents learned in school, and what we teach our children now. We still do teach math, science, language, reading—perhaps in different teaching strategies and approaches, and these are but superficial changes from then and now.Our education system for the longest time has been very realist; very content-centered, more weight on the textbook definition of concepts rather than the actual understanding of the students, mastery of the skill more than the students' ability to apply the skills to practical use. We learn how to balance chemical equations, but did we ever actually use them in our daily lives? We spend months studying math proofing, but I cannot remember if I ever encountered it again. Our students have become somewhat like robots who study what they're told to study, and learn what they're suppose to learn according to a curriculum set by the "experts" in school. On the end of the students, in a realist's point of view, it's rather degrading and neglecting on their part; neglecting their abilities for higher order thinking skills, for critical thinking, for reflection and discernment on the reality that they are swimming in. On the part of the educators, idealism is more evident. The educators implement this curriculum of what is supposedly the "truth" or the "knowledge" that these children should learn. If this is how our education system is being run, then why don't we just assign babies the moment they are born, into specific life paths; this baby should grow up to be an engineer, so everything he should study must lead to that career, etc etc, regardless of the times, of current issues, of the individual capacity and talents of the student.

Perhaps, there will never be a perfect equation to solve problems relating to education, but we should never stop trying. Aside from the basic concepts taught in school (ex. math, science, langauage, geography), we should also be able to bring to class relevance; our curriculum could maybe cover environment, technology (not just its uses and functions, but issues such as proper use, new innovations, etc), current events --- in other words, more subjects that would entail our students to use higher order thinking skills rather than mere memorization of facts, to think critically about its reality, and to be able to reflect on how to react to it. I guess this is what it means to be philosophical about our education. To criticize our reality as perceived by our senses, to reflect and discern on the present situation and what needs to be done as a reaction or response to it. And we should aim for our children, and our educators as well, to think philosophically about their education as well.