“The Department of Education is now apparently investigating a report that teachers are promoting students en masse including the undeserving so they can earn points to qualify for some kind of incentives or bonuses”
Last week, we learned that four of our institutions of higher learning were listed in the first 1,000 Universities in Asia with Ateneo de Manila being the highest at number 84.
The other three are the University of the Philippines, La Salle and Mapua Institute of Technology.
UP which has been our top university for a long time has been sliding in the ranking for the last three consecutive years and is now somewhere between 500 and 600.
The University of Santo Tomas, the oldest university in Asia, is nowhere in the list.
I do not know what to make of this report whether to be proud or feel embarrassed that only four of our so many universities can manage to get into the first 1,000. One thing is for sure, it is not something that we can crow or boast about.
If at all, it shows how far the quality of our educational system has gone down.
It does beg the question whether this is the best thing that we Filipinos can do and why we have sunk so low considering how much we value education.
Our attempts in recent years to improve elementary, high school and college education never succeeded, resulting in the continued deterioration of our quality of education on all levels.
To add to the problem, the Department of Education is now apparently investigating a report that teachers are promoting students en masse including the undeserving so they can earn points to qualify for some kind of incentives or bonuses.
This of course, does not fully explain why Filipino students participating in international tests are almost always ending up second to the last or dead last in reading, math and science but it does provide a glimpse about the state of affairs in our public school system.
Why it became like this and when the deterioration started should be looked into by our own and outside experts so that a solution can be implemented in order that further deterioration of standards is stopped.
If we have to pick a time when all these started, it was when the DepEd came up with the bright idea of tinkering with a system that was already working well. Maybe those bright people in the DepEd have not heard of the saying that “one does not fix something that isn’t broke.”
Instead of keeping English as the medium of instruction, there was a shift to multilingual teaching by using Pilipino as the medium of instructions in our schools.
This was in the late 1980s when there was a new wave of nationalism engulfing the nation.
The intention was good but the long term effect to the quality of our education was not.
More so when the DepEd went a step further and introduced a series of orders culminating in the program called Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education. For instance, those in the Ilocos Region will use Ilocano in their first few years of education because of the belief by the advocates of this program that students learn better with their mother tongue.
But every time our students participate in international tests and studies, they are always ending up at the bottom.
So, there must be something terribly wrong with this program that needs immediate changing.
After all, the fruit of the pudding should be in the test results.
Yet, our so-called education experts continue to insist on the multilingual approach.
So, what should be done and whose decision should be followed?
Some of our Senators like Pia Cayetano have recommended studying English, Mandarin and Spanish with preference of English for obvious reasons so that we Filipinos will have a leg up.
Senator Gatchalian, on the other hand, wants the suspension or revision of the MTBME for being ineffective.
If it is a question of what language to use as a medium of instruction at all levels, we should just revert to the old practice of using English the moment a child gets to school instead of waiting a few years before using English.
This is what some countries in the region are doing as well as many of our private schools.
Not using English as the medium of instruction as soon as children get to school is not of course the only reason why the quality of our education has deteriorated dismally.
It has also something to do with the education budget, quality of classrooms as well as our teachers.
We have to accept the quality of our teachers has been deteriorating over the years because lack of teacher enhancement training programs.
For example, the Teachers Camp in Baguio where teachers use to go up every summer to train to improve their skills has been converted into a bed and breakfast facility.
Why the DepEd decided to try its hand in the tourism business, I do not know but the closing of Teachers Camp was a great loss to many teachers in terms of an affordable training facility.
We are also losing many of our good teachers who are being pirated by other countries because of low salaries.
It could also be because our DepEd cannot seem to hit it right when it comes to the right solutions.
This is maybe because it is trying too hard to self-diagnose itself instead of hiring outside education specialists to do the study and make realistic and implementable recommendations.
The solution to the problem might be pretty simple and straightforward and does not require complicated solutions.
The trick is to be able to get the solution right and have the political will to implement it.