Everyone is entitled to have an adequate education. It is our basic tool to survive in our society. We receive education from our parents first at home, from our teachers in school, from our elders with their experiences and from life with its mysteries and adventures.
Education is a factor in defining a person. We Filipinos truly value education that even the poorest family in the country strives just to send their children to school. Being able to be given proper education is a dream. When one is aptly educated, for sure, he or she can lead a good life where he or she serves the country and his or her family well. Education is the answer to one’s dream life. But then we see no improvement (maybe a little if there is) in our educational system.
Although the Philippines has two systems of education – public and private, there are poor supply of school materials such as books, lack of classrooms in different schools, improper location of schools, and violent teachers. How can there be proper education if these are problems are arising?
If education is the hope of the country, then why not improve every aspect of the Philippine education first? I say improve not add. The government must identify the factors involved in shaping the kind of educational system we have – I mean the details such as classrooms, school materials, school fees, etc. Adding years to the education system we have at hand will change everything. The government will add two more years to develop a system parallel to that of the RECENT ISSUES
We all know that achieving basic primary education remains one of the greatest challenges in the Philippines
According to http://expo.edu.ph/education/issue.htm, there is a need to look closely and resolve the following important issues:
1) Quality of education
There was a decline in the quality of the Philippine education, especially at the elementary and secondary levels. As shown at the results of standard tests conducted among elementary and high school students, as well as in the National College of Entrance Examination for college students, scores were way below the target mean score.
There is also a big difference in educational achievements across social groups. For example, the socioeconomically disadvantaged students have higher dropout rates, especially in the elementary level. And most of the freshmen students at the tertiary level come from relatively well-off families.
The Philippine Constitution has mandated the government to allocate the highest proportion of its budget to education. However, the Philippines
4) Education mismatch
There is a large proportion of "mismatch" between training and actual jobs. This is the major problem at the tertiary level and it is also the cause of the existence of a large group of educated unemployed or underemployed.
As stated at http://www.unicef.org/philippines/8900.html, in the past decade, significant developments have been made to expand access to preschool and primary education. The necessary laws for the promotion and protection of education are also in place. These include: the Barangay (Village) Day Care Center Law, which calls for the establishment of educational and day care centers in every village; the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) Act, which mandates all villages to have day care centres and early learning institutions for children; and, the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001, which promotes school-based management and de-concentration of authority and decision making from the national and regional levels of the education bureaucracy to the division and school levels.
Despite this, access of 3- to 5-year-old children to ECCD remains low at 34 per cent. For every ten 5-year-old children, only six have access to preschool education. Access has been notably lower among younger children (3-4), especially boys and among rural children. This trend is alarming considering that lack of early education and psychosocial stimulation has been linked to poor school readiness and high likelihood of repetition and dropout in early grades. Many parents and communities have to be convinced of the importance of early childhood education. Many believe that 3-year-old children are too young to attend preschool.
The country fairs well in maintaining gender equality in access in primary education. Boys and girls have almost equal opportunities to attend primary schools. However, boys lag behind the girls in terms of staying in school and level of achievement. A higher percentage of boys than girls drop out of school. The latest Philippine Human Development Report reveals that 53.5 per cent of females are high school graduates compared to 50.6 per cent of boys. Some provinces and areas lag behind others. For instance, Sulu Province Mindanao has the smallest percentage of children enrolled in public primary schools at just 62 per cent compared to the national average of 81.7 per cent. Consequently, in the same province only 37 per cent of students enrolled in grade 1 public schools are able to reach grade 6. The national average is 63.6 percent. Sulu is one of the most conflict-affected areas in the country, where basic services are limited.
Public secondary schools are unable to accommodate the large number of elementary graduates. For every 40 village primary schools, there are only eight municipal secondary schools. And the population is projected to increase from 81.6 million in 2004 to 96.8 million in 2015. Approximately 1 million new children join the education system each year.
These issues are further worsened by the occurrence of disasters which damage teaching materials, school supplies and school buildings. Unaffected classrooms are used as evacuation centres. As a result, children—both displaced and non-displaced—are deprived of the proper tools and environment for learning. Conditions in host schools distract students from their lessons. Displaced students that were not accommodated in the host schools stop schooling. Those in conflict-affected regions of Mindanao continually live in fear and insecurity which detract them from pursuing continuous education.
WORLD
It is a fact that at present, education has been a global issue.
I read an article about education being a global issue at http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20101008114408484 in line with the global financial crisis we are experiencing which says:
The global financial crisis means that higher education institutions "need to work smarter", said OECD Director for Education Barbara Ischinger, kicking off the three-day Institutional Management in Higher Education conference on 13 September. "We need to ensure institutions play to their strengths."
Higher Education in a World Changed Utterly: Doing more with less was the theme of the meeting, with the recession affecting public investment in universities while demand for higher education has never been higher. How to ensure quality and at the same time contribute to research and the community was a major theme.
However, with the international university rankings season coinciding with the conference, league tables were criticized for distorting university priorities and the Chancellor of California State University, Charles Reed, caused a stir at a plenary session when he described global rankings as "a disease".
Universities have tried to raise revenue, often by attracting overseas students who pay high fees. But it is hard to rely on consistent income when it is so difficult to predict where overseas students will come from as markets mature and die and new ones grow.
In his paper 'Emerging Countries for Student Recruitment in Tertiary Education', Angel Calderon of RMIT in Australia
He suggested the sun was setting on international students from some East Asian countries, it continues to shine on India and China, while sunrise countries such as Chile and the Czech Republic may not yet be visible on the horizon but will be a source of international students in future.
Here are statistics from UNESCO's 2009 Education for All Global Monitoring Report:
- · In sub-Saharan
- · In
- · In
- · In the Arab states, there were 5.7 million children out of school; 3.5 million were girls.
- · In
We can all help – may we be still a student, on our teens, employees, elders, etc. There are a lot that we can do, most of them might be small but together, we can achieve a big dream.
First things first, we must keep learning. Give your best in attending school, read books, and talk to different kinds of people. The learning you can acquire here will provide you a better life. Also, the knowledge you have gained can be your tool in making someone’s life better too. With your, our knowledge, we can give inspiration to other people especially those who are unfortunate.
We can start now. Here are some ways we can participate in to improve the education we have in the country and in the world.
1. Tutor children at remote places or if it is too far, we can start with the street children.
2. Donate school materials. As you were informed of, public schools just share the limited supply they have from books to tables.
3. Donate money for the improvement of schools and building of additional classrooms.
4. Participate actively with the activities of DepEd.
5. Voice out the problem to the government so that they will be involved in issues regarding the education system we have in the country and how it can affect the Philippines
CONCLUSION
Education is a serious matter not only in the country, but globally as well. If it continues to worsen, then there will less and less hope to grow responsible leaders in the future. There must be an importance given to this matter because we are able to produce intelligent workers, efficient employees, and disciplined officials thanks to education. Children have the right to be educated properly not only at home but in school where there are a lot of subjects to be familiar with to survive the real world and emerge from a big population.
We may not notice it, but this problem is actually caused by our own attitude. They are the selfish ones. But we have the courage to fight and stand for our rights although we can never be successful if we do it individually, we are always stronger. united. And so the solution this problem must also start from us.
