The Philippine Educational System
Inspired by the Correspondents “Anong Klase Ito”
I don’t know how many of you guys have seen that episode; it really brought tears to my eyes, seeing how my country’s youth is plunging into the netherworld when it comes to education. In this world of mobiles, laptops, internet the digital age as you want to call it, we have a very big backlog in our educational system that makes me shiver down my spines.
I have a major trust in public school in the Philippines for I was a product of one, but to my disgust and disbelief, I am now so afraid and guilty of why I enrolled my children into such institutions. Don’t crucify me, the main reason why I enrolled them there is for them to be able to mingle with people or kids in all walks of life, I wanted them to open their eyes at a very young age to what is the reality of life like how my eyes were opened before, but now, I really am very afraid to the consequences that my decision would affect my kids in the future.
Let me recollect my elementary days in 3 public schools, Grade1 I was in Julian Felipe in Cavite City, 2nd grade my Mom transferred me to St Joseph College a private school, after that she transferred me again to Ladislao Diwa Elementary School from the 3rd grade until the fifth and I spent my 6th grade in Bagbag Elementary School wherein I enrolled my daughter and twins. To sum it up, I had a pretty nice experience in these public schools although I can never erase in my memory how I was always left out without books because the books where given to my really needy classmates, uh huh, there’s one more thing worth mentioning here, there’s this thing after every major typhoon in our country wherein they give small amount of provisions for all of those that were hit, I think I waited patiently in queue for two occasions and when I finally get to the desk, the teachers always tells me that I am not qualified to receive it cause it is only for the needy, I absolutely understand now what they mean but hell yeah it was a big blow to a little kid in those days hee hee hee.
OK, enough about me, can we dissect what is really happening in this issue, first of all, in studying this matter, I don’t think that pointing fingers to those sectors that we might find at fault would help, what we can do is to formulate a plan so that we can strengthen the weak link in this chain. Let’s start with the government, what do you think should they do? I mean they have all this plan to modernize our educational system and I applaud them for that, but they don’t have the money to get the ball rolling, so that’s a major pitfall, hell yeah if we are stupid. Why don’t we use those fork barrel funds, pardon me if my spelling is wrong, of the congressmen and senators even for just a year to push the educational modernization plan? Taking away this fork barrel from them and utilizing it for something useful is the greatest thing that this government can do, it’s not we are taking away money from the senate and congress; they still have their salaries for Pete’s sake. After that what will be our next move? We must support out teachers, they are the backbone of the educational system, if we have weak teachers what the hell would we expect of our students? It would be like the blind leading the blind. Another major aspect that comes to my mind is the language medium that our schools are using. There has been an ongoing and never ending debate about what is the appropriate one to use. English or Filipino? What would your stance be? I would not dare answer that question without clearing out a thing or two. I mean those nationalist who says that we must use our native tongue because it is our birthright has major points in my heart but and I mean BUT can you consider yourself a nationalist who is fighting for your heritage and country if you see that your people is suffering from your false ideologies? Ok talk in Tagalog, have you seen what our high school students are capable of? Did you ever conduct a serious study about how bad we are in using the language of the world? We can learn Tagalog in our daily living, that is why it is called our native tongue and we should respect it and take it as our first language but not and certainly never to compromise our ability to speak English. Just consider how much money we are wasting in taking up those IELTS, TSE or TOEFL test.
So basically what I am trying to convey here is that free education is not enough to keep our people out of poverty, “QUALITY EDUCATION” is what we truly need and until this issue is addressed appropriately, Juan Dela Cruz will always remain uneducated.
Wake up Filipino People, we don’t need big institutions to help, if you can do something, why not try to teach those kids around your neighbourhood even for an hour each day, it will really strengthen the youth up and hopefully bolster our educational level up a notch.
I don’t know how many of you guys have seen that episode; it really brought tears to my eyes, seeing how my country’s youth is plunging into the netherworld when it comes to education. In this world of mobiles, laptops, internet the digital age as you want to call it, we have a very big backlog in our educational system that makes me shiver down my spines.
I have a major trust in public school in the Philippines for I was a product of one, but to my disgust and disbelief, I am now so afraid and guilty of why I enrolled my children into such institutions. Don’t crucify me, the main reason why I enrolled them there is for them to be able to mingle with people or kids in all walks of life, I wanted them to open their eyes at a very young age to what is the reality of life like how my eyes were opened before, but now, I really am very afraid to the consequences that my decision would affect my kids in the future.
Let me recollect my elementary days in 3 public schools, Grade1 I was in Julian Felipe in Cavite City, 2nd grade my Mom transferred me to St Joseph College a private school, after that she transferred me again to Ladislao Diwa Elementary School from the 3rd grade until the fifth and I spent my 6th grade in Bagbag Elementary School wherein I enrolled my daughter and twins. To sum it up, I had a pretty nice experience in these public schools although I can never erase in my memory how I was always left out without books because the books where given to my really needy classmates, uh huh, there’s one more thing worth mentioning here, there’s this thing after every major typhoon in our country wherein they give small amount of provisions for all of those that were hit, I think I waited patiently in queue for two occasions and when I finally get to the desk, the teachers always tells me that I am not qualified to receive it cause it is only for the needy, I absolutely understand now what they mean but hell yeah it was a big blow to a little kid in those days hee hee hee.
OK, enough about me, can we dissect what is really happening in this issue, first of all, in studying this matter, I don’t think that pointing fingers to those sectors that we might find at fault would help, what we can do is to formulate a plan so that we can strengthen the weak link in this chain. Let’s start with the government, what do you think should they do? I mean they have all this plan to modernize our educational system and I applaud them for that, but they don’t have the money to get the ball rolling, so that’s a major pitfall, hell yeah if we are stupid. Why don’t we use those fork barrel funds, pardon me if my spelling is wrong, of the congressmen and senators even for just a year to push the educational modernization plan? Taking away this fork barrel from them and utilizing it for something useful is the greatest thing that this government can do, it’s not we are taking away money from the senate and congress; they still have their salaries for Pete’s sake. After that what will be our next move? We must support out teachers, they are the backbone of the educational system, if we have weak teachers what the hell would we expect of our students? It would be like the blind leading the blind. Another major aspect that comes to my mind is the language medium that our schools are using. There has been an ongoing and never ending debate about what is the appropriate one to use. English or Filipino? What would your stance be? I would not dare answer that question without clearing out a thing or two. I mean those nationalist who says that we must use our native tongue because it is our birthright has major points in my heart but and I mean BUT can you consider yourself a nationalist who is fighting for your heritage and country if you see that your people is suffering from your false ideologies? Ok talk in Tagalog, have you seen what our high school students are capable of? Did you ever conduct a serious study about how bad we are in using the language of the world? We can learn Tagalog in our daily living, that is why it is called our native tongue and we should respect it and take it as our first language but not and certainly never to compromise our ability to speak English. Just consider how much money we are wasting in taking up those IELTS, TSE or TOEFL test.
So basically what I am trying to convey here is that free education is not enough to keep our people out of poverty, “QUALITY EDUCATION” is what we truly need and until this issue is addressed appropriately, Juan Dela Cruz will always remain uneducated.
Wake up Filipino People, we don’t need big institutions to help, if you can do something, why not try to teach those kids around your neighbourhood even for an hour each day, it will really strengthen the youth up and hopefully bolster our educational level up a notch.
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