E-JOKE-cation

Two years more of basic education? Are you kidding me? Hell no. God is good for sparing me from that because no matter how you try to convince yourself that today’s kids really need those extra two years, it’s as clear as crystal that they don’t. But let’s not jump the gun. The Department of Education has its reasons for going with what the Administration wants.

 First, they say that there’s a need for us to level up (it’s about time we actually tried to) when it comes to education. After all, we are the only country identified by UNESCO to have a 10-year basic education cycle unlike our other global neighbors gunning it at 12. Second, because we have a 10-year basic education cycle, it’s said that we Pinoys have to learn 20% more, cram 20% more of vital lessons into our heads while our counterparts in other countries have the leisure of maxing out those lessons in the span of a totally exaggerated 12 years. 

 We need more time to learn and to master skills (like what, knitting, cross stitch, and making book ends?). We need more time so that our National Achievement Test scores will be a tad bit more decent. A national daily reported in its October 5, 2010 issue that the average National Achievement Test scores of elementary students are slipping at 64%. Come high school, it’s only at 46%. In the 2003 Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS), we fell at rock bottom, in the same pit as a host of other African countries and just a little over Botswana and Ghana. Sophomore high school students were made to take this test.

 That’s why, they say, we need two more years. Seven hundred thirty more days, or roughly 17, 520 more hours to become globally competitive.

 Well, I hate to break it to our Department of Education but granted that the curriculum may seem crammed, it’s quite obvious that the root of our general underachievement in school is not because we have to learn 20% more than other student around the world at a shorter period of time. And this problem certainly cannot be addressed by adding two more years of basic education. That’s just nonsense.

 If you really want to know why many of our students are performing as excellently as we want them to the same way a negligible percentage of outliers and student achievers are in school (in public schools in particular), it’s because we lack not just good, but great and inspiring teachers—the kind of teachers who just don’t make us answer flash cards or who make us take copious notes but the kind of teachers who make us sincerely believe we are capable of winning a Nobel or Pulitzer Prize someday.

 In many public and even in some private schools, students have to endure listening to teachers who are ill-equipped for the responsibility they have at hand. Although there are excellent teachers around, and I have had my share of them, the number of bad eggs outnumbers the good ones. There are many teachers who clearly lack the creativity and the passion to draw out the best in their students—to think that this is the core of what education is and should be about. There are English teachers in rural areas who cannot even utter a grammatically correct sentence or pronounce or enunciate simple words correctly (it’s triangle—not traiangehl!)—and to think that it is in these rural areas where the best teachers are needed the most.

 Not much is also being invested into improving the quality of our public schools to enhance the learning environment and to consistently update books and technology essential for learning. How can we be globally competitive when three to five students have to share one bulky computer unit with obsolete software? How can students learn in classrooms that lack maintenance? There is no way we can make our students want to learn if we give them obsolete learning materials and a classroom that’s on the verge of crumbling.

 It’s about time we reexamine what should really be done to improve the quality of students that we are producing—especially in public schools. Kudos to those who have placed this in their priority list. For great graduates to become the rule rather than the exception, all we need are class A teachers and an equally impressive learning environment. 

If some people have the gall to spend a fortune just to eat good food or drink expensive wine for a night at swanky restos at the countrymen’s expense, they should have the conscience to eat fish and use the rest to train great teachers and to buy updated references for the kids in school.