Students go back to school amid education worries

MANILA (AP) - Facing a shortage of classrooms and teachers, about 20 million Filipino students headed back to school Monday after a summer break, as police beefed up security to prevent kidnappings of children.

The quality of the Philippine education system has been deteriorating for years, as the population booms and money is scarce. Some classes are held in dilapidated buildings with leaking roofs.

Sixty percent of students will complete public elementary school, 40 percent will get through high school, and only 20 percent will enter college, according to the Department of Education.

A recent national career assessment examination concluded that more than half of high-school students were unfit for further education. And the World Bank cited a 2003 study of trends in mathematics and science that ranked the Philippines in the lowest 10 percent of countries in both subjects.

"The situation remains dismal," former Education Secretary Florencio Abad told The Philippine Daily Inquirer, citing problems of access, high dropout rates and low reading proficiency.

The government has set aside funds for new school buildings, education vouchers to subsidize the cost of tuition, teacher training and textbooks. Still, Education Department figures show a shortage of about 16,500 teachers and 6,500 classrooms this school year.

At the Rizal High School in Pasig city, a Manila suburb, as many as 60 students were crammed into one room, above the government's goal of 45 pupils per classroom.

"Our target is to lessen the number of students per classroom so they'll learn more. But we can't help it. There were simply too many students who enrolled," said principal Josephine Cruz.

Education Secretary Jesli Lapus said the government has started a program to equip 30,000 schools with cable TV sets beaming educational programs.

Meanwhile, about 1,000 police officers were looking after schoolchildren in Manila to prevent kidnappings and other crimes, police said.

Manila Police district chief Senior Superintendent Danilo Abarzosa said additional officers were deployed to Chinese Filipino schools in the capital's Chinatown district. Ransom kidnappings frequently target wealthy Chinese Filipinos.

Abarzosa said undercover agents were patrolling schools and commuter buses.