Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume 2, Number 20 June 23 - 29, 2002 Quezon City, Philippines |
Philippine Education’s Millennium Woes Shortage in Books, Teachers, Rooms Greet Opening of Classes Shortage of classrooms, desks and armchairs during school openings is an old story that is passed from one generation to another. Yet this tale remains one of the top stories not only during school openings but throughout the whole year round too. By
GERRY ALBERT-CORPUZ The site of students all packed inside small classrooms as well as shortages in teachers and textbooks during school day openings are not strange to Bayan Muna party list representative Liza Maza, being the secretary general of women's group Gabriela and staunch defender of youth and students rights and welfare. But
what greeted her last Monday, June 17, the opening day of the classes, managed
to elicit an intensity 7-like jolt from Bayan Muna's fighting solon in the House
of Representatives. Representative
Maza found that around 68 students are packed in small classrooms for 12 hours.
She said students only have a 30-minute lunch break and two 15-minute recess
breaks adding that students are subjected to conditions worse than that of the
average exploited worker in the factories. "It
is likewise inhumanly possible for teachers to teach effectively for 12 hours a
day for six days,” Maza said. “It is not surprising that the quality of our
education drops every year." The
activist solon joined members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) in
monitoring the situation of public schools in Quezon City in the opening day of
classes. After visiting Lagro High School, she took notice of the conditions as
she stressed the need for a bigger budget allocation for education. Maza
told Bulatlat.com that while conditions at the Lagro High School are bad, the
situation is worse in elementary and high schools in the provinces, especially
in remote barangays. The education department should have resolved this cycle of
classrooms, teachers and textbooks shortages years ago, she said. Same
old story Shortage
of classrooms, desks and armchairs during school openings is an old story to
tell that is passed from one generation to another. Yet this tale remains one of
the top stories told not only during school openings but throughout the whole
year round too. The
staff of Bayan Muna representative Maza said nationwide the country is short of
18,624 classrooms and 2,318,943 desks and armchairs. The government's
abandonment and commercialization of education can be further glimpsed by facts
and figures depicting the sorry state of the country's educational system. According
to ACT, the average student-ratio is one teacher per 50 to 60 students in public
elementary and high schools. The militant teachers' group said there are about
443,658 public school teachers in both public and elementary while a 18.6
million students were enrolled in both public and private schools across the
country last year. Last
year, textbook requirements for 18 million students for grade school and high
school students reached 21.5 million. ACT
deputy secretary general Raymund Villanueva lamented that while the Macapagal-Arroyo
administration failed to address gross shortages in teachers, books, desks,
classrooms and other education materials, the regime has increased its national
spending for military, police and intelligence services. "She
said her government's priority is education,” Villanueva said. “That's
baloney! She's indeed a quintessential liar and a top-notch songbird for
capitalist school owners in the country." Villanueva
said aside from educational deficiencies on classrooms and textbooks, teachers
are also complaining of very low salaries. Teachers' monthly gross pay is pegged
at P10,000 while the average monthly net salary is only around P6,000, way below
the poverty threshhold of P15,230 set by the National Economic and Development
Authority (NEDA). "They
work triple time, but what they get from the national government are low
compensations and scores of insults," he added. Millennium
curriculum for modern day slavery Maza,
meanwhile, asserted that the Millenium Curriculum will exacerbate the yearly
drought in classrooms, textbooks and teachers. ACT’s Villanueva echoed Bayan
Muna's representative view on the controversial basic revised curriculum. He
said the millennium curriculum will result in longer teaching hours for teachers
who are already overworked, burdened with classes that have as many as 80
students per classroom. "The
new curriculum will perpetuate poverty and economic underdevelopment because it
remains geared toward producing cheap laborers for multinationals as well as for
export of contract workers," he said. For
his part, Carl Anthony Ala, secretary-general of National Network of Agrarian
Reform Advocates-Youth Sector (or Nnara-Youth) said the millennium curriculum is
designed to mold students like people of less substance, less critical and
practically working robots for transnational groups and imperialist interests. Under
the revised curriculum, subjects like History, Music or Cultural Arts and Social
Studies will be treated as elective courses. Treating these subjects as elective
courses, Ala said, will transform students and teachers like a current
homogenous group of future unthinking slaves for multinational and transnational
groups. "No
patriotism, no historical sense just plain actors programmed for modern-day
slavery, that's what Macapagal-Arroyo and DepEd Secretary Raul Roco want to
accomplish under the millennium curriculum," the militant youth leader
added. Corporate
assets, not patriots "President
Macapagal-Arroyo and Secretary Roco have masteral degrees in their respective
fields but they are not homegrown patriots,” Ala also said. “They are crazy
political hackers and have offended our people's sense and passion for history
and patriotism in defense of super profits." The
militant youth leader said Macapagal-Arroyo and her education secretary are not
patriots but career-oriented politicians whose obsolete views on education have
plagued the educational system in its current moribund state. With the
widespread poverty and landlessness in the countryside coupled with the rising
cost of education in the country, peasant parents will not be able to send their
children to school, he said. The
group said state policies like millennium curriculum and all-out liberalization
in agriculture will jeopardize the chances of 30 million kids in rural areas to
go to school this year. For instance, in Mindoro Oriental province, for every
100 peasant children, 50 will finish Grade Six, while only 20 can proceed to
high school. "This
is not propaganda, this is for real,” he said. “We hope the likes of
Macapagal-Arroyo and former Senator Roco would stop creating a national illusion
from an equally bankrupt program like the millennium curriculum." Roco
downplayed the protests staged by ACT and other militant groups during the
opening day of classes in Metro Manila against the millennium curriculum, the
tuition hikes and other education issues. The education secretary’s own
assessment said 90 percent of public school teachers were happy in adopting the
revised system. "Let him savor the taste of his own lies, but we will not allow Gloria and Secretary Roco to take a walk in the park and escape from this super crime of the millennium," Nnara-Youth said. Bulatlat.com
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