Monday’s opening of public schools nationwide is a calendar story. Like clockwork, there will be the usual accounts of inadequate school facilities to serve the needs of millions of basic education students.
According to the Department of Education, more than 46,000 public schools will welcome students to another school year next week notwithstanding the lack of facilities in more than 600 of them.
The agency uses a checklist to determine the status of schools —whether they are ready, nearly ready or needing support.
These variables are classrooms, teachers, toilets, chairs, power and water. The department has sent standards for an ideal teacher-to-pupil ratio—1:25 for kindergarten and 1:40 for Grades 1 to 12. Each student shall have a seat, and there must be a toilet for every 50 students.
The sorry state of basic education is nothing new. It has hounded the country for decades, despite considerable progress in the past few years. Local government leaders’ eagerness to be seen as pro-education has also helped ensure improvements, never mind these politicians’ penchant for attaching their name to projects despite the fact that these were funded by government money.
The first batch of students under the K to 12 program have also graduated in the school year just ended, and this year will show us whether they perform well either in higher education or in the jobs they choose to take fresh from high school.
The increase in teachers’ salaries is also expected to attract more professionals to devote their careers to the education of the youth.
If anything, the yearly school opening reminds us of Filipinos’ capacity to make do with what is available, even when that is nowhere near enough.
Education is a year-long, constant concern. It does not have the same attention-grabbing impact of the more sensational political stories we see in the news. It does not smack of malice, or intrigue, or colorful language. Its concerns are familiar and even worn out, and it is easy to grow tired of them.
But the improvement of basic education has perhaps the greatest long-term consequence to our country. For this reason alone, conversations about school facilities and other measures of progress should remain in the national discourse, all year long.
