Cellar status
Cellar status
Updated 01:14am (Mla time) Jan 13, 2005
By Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
YOU should see the e-mail flak. Hackles are up because the latest International Mathematics and Science Tests reveal Filipino students huddled, yet again, among the tail-enders. Jammed between Morocco and Botswana, our kids limped in putting our country at No. 41 among 45 countries in Math. In Science, we trailed behind Lebanon but were ahead of Botswana at No. 42.
Asians were again topnotchers. Singaporeans led, followed by kids from Korea, Hong Kong, Taipei and Japan. Indonesia was ahead of us in slot 36.
So, when do we scramble out of this cellar? We've been stuck in this boiler room since the release in 1966 of the first TIMSS results. Then educators "were shocked because among 41 countries, the Philippines ranked second in Math and third in Science" -- but from the bottom, noted the United Nations Philippine Human Development Report.
When the second TIMSS results came out three years later, we still hadn't budged from the bodega. At 37th place, we were second to
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the last.
The decay started 65 years back, when we clipped seventh grade. Obviously, the rot can't be reversed overnight.
Our kids get 10 years of basic schooling, much of it of sub-standard quality. Other nations provide 13, sometimes 14, years. Even poorer Asean countries like Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia support 11 years.
Good schools do not come cheap. Singapore spent $1,582 per school kid when the first TIMSS were held. We allocated $138.
"So where did this 'Wow ang galing ng Pinoy' blabber come from?" e-mailed a California writer to Pepeton J'Anton's website, "Pusong Pinoy." "Let's get real because without education, we can't make headway, given international competition. Galing ng Pinoy? Can you shine shoes?"
That fuming is understandable. Schools that don't educate infuriate Filipinos abroad. On becoming a Canadian, grandmother Rosario Fuentes e-mailed how she still helps relatives study to break free from the penury she knew in Masbate. "Buhay namin ipre-prenda, sa educacion san anak ninda (We pawn our lives for schooling of our children)."
"Those statistics are about as grim as they can be," Dr. Remigio Lacsamana in Florida writes. "Our teachers in Pampanga and Tarlac public schools were well qualified, particularly in English, Mathematics and Sciences. So what went wrong?"
Teachers are one factor. It's a pity President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's agenda does not find improving education as one of the top priorities. In America, there's a constant push to upgrade educational standards. We must reverse our downward spiral. The country's future hinges on education.
Today's 600,000-plus teachers make teaching the country's largest professional occupation. Teacher training and stripping away non-teaching job require priority.
"We moved to Canada right after I finished 3rd year high, so I experienced the differences," Cesar T from Toronto writes. "In the Philippines, we memorized answers and were spoon-fed. Here, you earn the mark you get ... If students will become laborers, does it matter what mark they got? Why is the passing mark 75 percent when in reality it's only 50 percent? So whose fault was it that we did so poorly in the high school readiness test? Issue ba ito?"
Yes, it's an issue. Last May, 700,000 of 1.4 million kids who got elementary school diplomas flunked the High School Readiness Tests. In Cebu City, all 67 elementary schools failed.
"This means majority of those enrolling in first year of public high schools know only 27 percent of what they were to have learned in elementary school," the respected Council of Private Educational Associations (Copea) pointed out.
Mentors did as poorly. In a qualifying exam for school principals, "teachers made the cut-off point only after education officials lowered the passing rate of the 200-item test from 150 to 100."
Onli in da Pilipins. Other nations insist additional knowledge be gained. Here, we shove down the standards instead.
This is educational “dagdag-bawas.” Grades are padded [“dagdag”], so the ranks of flunkers are thinned out [“bawas”] by "passing." Knowledge gaps remain and the fiction of passing is kept. The result is a flunker's treadmill.
"Whom are we kidding?" the UN Human Development Report asks. "Our first two college years in the Philippines are often regarded as the equivalent of third and fourth year high schools" in other countries, says Copea. "The freshman course in most colleges comes out as a remedial course on high school English, Mathematics and Science."
A pass-at-any cost syndrome spills delusion over generations. Unable to read or communicate, half-literates sport devalued diplomas that can't get them jobs. Token gestures, like Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña's notebooks with his mug photo, subsidized by taxpayers' money, are useless.
Needed are sustained and structural educational reform from bridge programs to adequate funding. They can be postponed only at extortionate cost.
"The best in education should be for those in the worst of social conditions," Harvard's John Kenneth Galbraith writes. The alternative is "surrender to voices of ignorance and error."
Updated 01:14am (Mla time) Jan 13, 2005
By Juan Mercado
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the January 13, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
YOU should see the e-mail flak. Hackles are up because the latest International Mathematics and Science Tests reveal Filipino students huddled, yet again, among the tail-enders. Jammed between Morocco and Botswana, our kids limped in putting our country at No. 41 among 45 countries in Math. In Science, we trailed behind Lebanon but were ahead of Botswana at No. 42.
Asians were again topnotchers. Singaporeans led, followed by kids from Korea, Hong Kong, Taipei and Japan. Indonesia was ahead of us in slot 36.
So, when do we scramble out of this cellar? We've been stuck in this boiler room since the release in 1966 of the first TIMSS results. Then educators "were shocked because among 41 countries, the Philippines ranked second in Math and third in Science" -- but from the bottom, noted the United Nations Philippine Human Development Report.
When the second TIMSS results came out three years later, we still hadn't budged from the bodega. At 37th place, we were second to
Print this story
Send this story
Write the editor
View other stories
the last.
The decay started 65 years back, when we clipped seventh grade. Obviously, the rot can't be reversed overnight.
Our kids get 10 years of basic schooling, much of it of sub-standard quality. Other nations provide 13, sometimes 14, years. Even poorer Asean countries like Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia support 11 years.
Good schools do not come cheap. Singapore spent $1,582 per school kid when the first TIMSS were held. We allocated $138.
"So where did this 'Wow ang galing ng Pinoy' blabber come from?" e-mailed a California writer to Pepeton J'Anton's website, "Pusong Pinoy." "Let's get real because without education, we can't make headway, given international competition. Galing ng Pinoy? Can you shine shoes?"
That fuming is understandable. Schools that don't educate infuriate Filipinos abroad. On becoming a Canadian, grandmother Rosario Fuentes e-mailed how she still helps relatives study to break free from the penury she knew in Masbate. "Buhay namin ipre-prenda, sa educacion san anak ninda (We pawn our lives for schooling of our children)."
"Those statistics are about as grim as they can be," Dr. Remigio Lacsamana in Florida writes. "Our teachers in Pampanga and Tarlac public schools were well qualified, particularly in English, Mathematics and Sciences. So what went wrong?"
Teachers are one factor. It's a pity President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's agenda does not find improving education as one of the top priorities. In America, there's a constant push to upgrade educational standards. We must reverse our downward spiral. The country's future hinges on education.
Today's 600,000-plus teachers make teaching the country's largest professional occupation. Teacher training and stripping away non-teaching job require priority.
"We moved to Canada right after I finished 3rd year high, so I experienced the differences," Cesar T from Toronto writes. "In the Philippines, we memorized answers and were spoon-fed. Here, you earn the mark you get ... If students will become laborers, does it matter what mark they got? Why is the passing mark 75 percent when in reality it's only 50 percent? So whose fault was it that we did so poorly in the high school readiness test? Issue ba ito?"
Yes, it's an issue. Last May, 700,000 of 1.4 million kids who got elementary school diplomas flunked the High School Readiness Tests. In Cebu City, all 67 elementary schools failed.
"This means majority of those enrolling in first year of public high schools know only 27 percent of what they were to have learned in elementary school," the respected Council of Private Educational Associations (Copea) pointed out.
Mentors did as poorly. In a qualifying exam for school principals, "teachers made the cut-off point only after education officials lowered the passing rate of the 200-item test from 150 to 100."
Onli in da Pilipins. Other nations insist additional knowledge be gained. Here, we shove down the standards instead.
This is educational “dagdag-bawas.” Grades are padded [“dagdag”], so the ranks of flunkers are thinned out [“bawas”] by "passing." Knowledge gaps remain and the fiction of passing is kept. The result is a flunker's treadmill.
"Whom are we kidding?" the UN Human Development Report asks. "Our first two college years in the Philippines are often regarded as the equivalent of third and fourth year high schools" in other countries, says Copea. "The freshman course in most colleges comes out as a remedial course on high school English, Mathematics and Science."
A pass-at-any cost syndrome spills delusion over generations. Unable to read or communicate, half-literates sport devalued diplomas that can't get them jobs. Token gestures, like Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña's notebooks with his mug photo, subsidized by taxpayers' money, are useless.
Needed are sustained and structural educational reform from bridge programs to adequate funding. They can be postponed only at extortionate cost.
"The best in education should be for those in the worst of social conditions," Harvard's John Kenneth Galbraith writes. The alternative is "surrender to voices of ignorance and error."
posted by Dante at 1:14 AM
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