Getting real in education
The not-so-surprising news this week was the country’s dismal performance in the area of reading comprehension in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018. The results of the PISA 2018 were released last December 3 by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental economic organization based in Paris.
PISA measures the ability of 15-year-old students to use their reading, mathematics, and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges. According to the OECD, PISA provides “the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student learning outcomes to date.”
Among the 79 participating countries and economies assessed under PISA, the Philippines ranked lowest (79th) in reading comprehension and second lowest in mathematics. I say this is not surprising for me because I’ve had the opportunity to be in touch with public school educators who lament the current state and policies of our educational system. That current state stems from a window-dressing approach by our policy makers – striving to look good rather than to genuinely do well and be actually good.
There is a story related to me by a friend who is a public school teacher. Several years ago, she found herself in hot water after she was accused of “tampering” the report card of one of her students. That student, she said, was already in the fourth (or fifth grade) in elementary school but still couldn’t basically read.
Instead of flunking the student each grading period and simply laying the blame on his previous teachers who allowed him to advance to the next grade even if he could not read straight, the teacher took pity on the pupil and arranged some remedial measures. She sent the child with some reading assignments to do at home and asked the child’s parents to help him with those.
Everything seemed well, until the last grading period and when the final oral examination was made. The child, given a new material to read, stalled and could not read aloud straight a single sentence. It turned out that the parents of the child simply coached him to memorize the assigned reading materials just so it would appear to his teacher that he could read straight during the previous three grading periods.
The teacher was left with no choice but to flunk the student at the end of the school year by adjusting his scores to reflect his real status. And so it happened that the teacher was flogged by what she felt an entire community for “punishing” a child by changing his scores in the previous three grading periods.
A diploma or certificate implies a devotion of one’s time, effort and resources to learn and get an education in order to build a better life for one’s self and the community. We celebrate each donning of the cap and gown, each giving of the diploma and professional license. But what if we will soon find out that the education that such important piece of document represents could not stand the test of reality and the competition?
The PISA results are exactly what we need to burst our bubble, to wake us up from the seduction of the false disciples of governance that align themselves with keeping appearances, rather than having any relevant substance in the education we give to our youth.
I’m not pointing my fingers at any particular institution or agency because we are all into this. If we read the PISA report closely, it actually gives us insights on how we can improve our rankings in the future.
For one, the “no child left behind” policy should not be interpreted as taking pity on a child and his station in life by allowing him to advance to the next grade even if he has failed to learn even the basic knowledge and skills required at the next level. Let’s stop giving our children hollow diplomas and certificates, otherwise they will be crushed by reality in the future.
The PISA 2018 Insights and Interpretation report is 64 pages long, but here’s one entry that we can start with in reforming our educational system: “When students struggle and teachers respond by lowering standards, teachers may imply that low achievement is the consequence of an inherent lack of ability.” This should not be the case because lowering standards instill in the minds of our youth that they are incapable of harder work that will lead to the results they want to achieve.
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