DepEd's K to 12 Misses the Real Difference: Teachers' Salaries
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Do we still need to wonder what these students see first in school? Unfortunately, President Aquino and DepEd see the curriculum first. And even with that, they cannot even see things right. Photo downloaded from http://joshweinstein.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/the-problem-of-education-in-the-philippines/ |
Soliven writes in a recent column, "Only 3 years left to reach UN Millennium Development Goal 2015":
...Last year 2011, Dr. Ethel Agnes Valenzuela, the senior specialist and current Research Director of SEAMEO-INNOTECH was commissioned by DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro to do a comparative study of the K to 12 Education in Southeast Asia. She studied the structure, content, organization and adequacy of Basic Education in Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and Singapore as benchmarks against the Philippines. All benchmarked countries have long-term educational development plans geared towards achieving 21st century competence, while the end-goal of Philippine education is to achieve functional literacy for all...The study looked at the number of years. It even caught details of the curriculum. Unfortunately, the most important difference was missed:
...Given the findings, Dr. Valenzuela suggests some strategies for policymakers to improve Philippine Basic Education. The first task would be to anchor the Philippine educational goals on the development of 21st century competencies. This involves streamlining the content of compulsory subjects, which are overcrowded and too technical in content to provide for more mastery of key skills, knowledge and content. A “spiral” progressive curriculum (one that integrates content across different subjects) should be promoted in the elementary and secondary levels thereby strengthening the link between the two.
The cycle of secondary education should also be extended to enhance the student’s abilities and competencies. Then an end-of-cycle NAT assessment may also be devised to assess the academic qualifications of the fourth year high school students to determine pathways for employment or higher studies. Finally, the upper secondary or Year 11 and 12 should not follow a one-size-fits-all program. The last two years of K to 12 should lead to one of three tracks. Track one leads to taking career-oriented elective subjects (bookkeeping, travel, animation, etc.), track two leads to specialized career-oriented technical or vocational certification, and track three leads to the integration of the general education subjects in college or a pre-baccalaureate course or program for higher education....
TEACHERS' SALARIES
(PER MONTH in PESOS not adjusted to purchasing power)
Brunei : 100000
Singapore: 150000
Malaysia: 40000
Philippines: 18000
The number above for the Philippines does not consider the pay given to kindergarten teachers (3000 pesos for teaching one kindergarten class, 6000 for teaching two). One could only imagine what would happen if the free labor movement within ASEAN in 2015 included teachers.
One can look at a larger list. The figures below are starting annual salaries of teachers in equivalent US dollars (purchasing power parity (PPP) is taken into account). In this scale, a good estimate for Philippine teachers is about 12,000 US dollars PPP per year (Please do not multiply this by 40, PPP already takes into account the purchasing power in the country).
Education at a Glance 2009: OECD Indicators - OECD © 2009 - ISBN 9789264024755 |
Australia | 32 259 | |
Austria | 28 172 | |
Belgium (Fl.) | 29 680 | |
Belgium (Fr.) | 28 369 | |
Czech Republic | 21 481 | |
Denmark | 35 691 | |
England | 30 172 | |
Finland | 28 201 | |
France | 23 640 | |
Germany | 43 387 | |
Greece | 26 326 | |
Hungary | 11 216 | |
Iceland | 22 443 | |
Ireland | 31 977 | |
Italy | 24 945 | |
Japan | 27 284 | |
Korea | 31 717 | |
Luxembourg | 49 902 | |
Mexico | 14 006 | |
Netherlands | 34 272 | |
New Zealand | 19 236 | |
Norway | 32 148 | |
Portugal | 21 304 | |
Scotland | 30 366 | |
Spain | 34 250 | |
Sweden | 27 498 | |
Switzerland | 41 998 | |
Turkey | 14 063 | |
United States | 35 907 | |
OECD average | 28 687 | |
EU 19 average | 29 518 |
How could a research specialist miss the glaring item that sets Philippine basic education apart from those of other countries? If there are differences in the curriculum, 10 years versus twelve, the differences here are quite small compared to what the figures above show. A 20% difference in years is highlighted but the obvious 200-300 % difference in teachers' salaries is missed. How could we miss this when PISA results show this in one of its figures:
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http://www.oecd.org/document/35/0,3746,en_32252351_46584327_46609827_1_1_1_1,00.html#tables_figures_dbase |
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Whatever we do will not matter as long as we continue to neglect our teachers. Such is the simple math of basic education. |
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