EDITORIAL - A mismatch

According to a Rappler report, as many as 62% of teachers are teaching subjects that they didn’t major in in college.

The same report quotes Second Congressional Commission on Education Executive Director Karol Yee as saying that their findings were based on the Department of Education’s data sample of 700,000 teachers in the public school system.

“Based on the profile of our high school teachers, 62% are handling subjects they did not major in in college. So our question was really about to prepare them for PISA test that is focused on science. But the data shows that about half of our science teachers, in fact, did not major in science in college,” Yee said.

This early we cannot tell if this teacher/subject mismatch ties in directly with how our students are having difficulty when it comes to reading, mathematics, science, and basic problem solving. But then again it really might.

While most teachers can be considered generalists, there are subjects that require specialized teaching. So it might actually be that somebody somewhere isn’t teaching a subject the way it should be.

It should also be considered that, like students, teachers have their own strengths and weaknesses. Imagine someone who is really good at math but poor in English made to teach English instead, or the reverse of that situation.

Of course, a teacher’s personal bias might also set in. Like students, teachers also have their favorite subjects and hated ones. Some educators may consider some subjects as less important or more important than others. And that attitude might reflect in how they teach a subject that they didn’t major in in the first place, or a subject that they don’t care about but were assigned to teach just because no one else is available to do so.

This teacher/subject mismatch must be addressed immediately. Anything and everything must be done to arrest this slide in our students’ abilities in even the most basic of skills.