Teacher Education in the Philippines

There are more than 2,000 higher education institutions that offer teacher education in the Philippines. Statistics from the Commission on Higher Education shows that in a span of eight years (2001-2008), about 3 million have enrolled in these programs. Of the 3 million, only half a million (about 17%) completed a degree. The Philippines requires aspiring teachers to pass an examination. This year, 2014, the passing rates for the licensure exam are 29% (only 11,120 passed out of 38,377 takers) in elementary and 28% (only 12,033 passed out of 42,358 takers). 29 percent of 17 percent is about 5. This means that only 5 out of 100 students enrolled in a teacher education program in the Philippines becomes qualified to teach. Did you know that you are ten times more likely to draw a single pair in a poker game?

It is no wonder then that a group of education reform advocates in the Philippines is urging the government to close down non-performing education schools. The Philippine Business for Education has compiled data on education schools to expose which schools are not performing well. A complete list can be downloaded from this site. The overall picture is not pretty. More than half of the schools are failing. The figure below (which is a bit rosier since it only includes data from years during which the passing rates were more than 50%) shows how many of these schools are not serving their students:

Above figure copied from PBEd LET Schools Performance Briefer

The public should not wait for the government. The above information is available. Read it. It is not worth enrolling in the schools from which more than eighty percent of the students fail the licensure examination. It is simply a waste of money, time and effort.





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