Philippine Basic Education

For the past six years, the budget for building classrooms in the Philippines has been rising every year. Yet, classroom shortages still exist. The image of about sixty second grade students cramped inside a former toilet as they listen to their teacher Leonora Jusay remains, even with billions of pesos assigned to alleviate the overcrowding of schools in the country. Above copied from Public Radio International The amount of money supposedly assigned to building classrooms has continued to rise for the past six years: From 2011 to this year, more than 300 billion pesos have been allocated for building classrooms. At a cost of 2 million pesos per classroom, this amounts to 150000 classrooms. With 40 students per classroom, this number of classrooms then translates to 6 million pupils. There were about half a million classrooms in the country in 2015 . With the seemingly endless budget allocation for classrooms, why do classroom shortages persist? This was the same question ...

The Senior High School (SHS) years of DepEd's K to 12 are in some ways similar to a buffet. There are four different tracks to choose from: Academic, Technical-Vocational-Livelihood, Sports, and Arts and Design. In addition, there are four different strands under the Academic track: Accountancy, Business and Management (ABM); General Academic; Humanities and Social Science (HUMSS); and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). These tracks obviously make the SHS years much more than just decongesting the former ten-year basic education curriculum. The Technical-Vocational-Livelihood track appears to be a substitute for old fashioned vocational schools while the Academic track seems to provide students a taste of higher education. Since SHS is part of compulsory basic education, it does appear that students would now be able to receive such training at much lower costs. One hopes that the similarities between SHS and buffet stop at choices and lower prices, and not c...

Education International , a voice of teachers across the globe, is currently conducting an online survey to assess teaching and learning conditions worldwide: Online survey It is odd that a survey like this one seems necessary just to get the right information from the ground. The survey consists of several questions. Here are some of the questions in this survey that are very much relevant to finding the actual teaching and learning conditions inside schools. Answers to questions such as the ones shown above are crucial to fully grasp what conditions pupils and teachers have to deal with inside their classrooms. In the Philippines, accurate answers to these questions seem quite difficult to obtain. The president continues to insist that there are no shortages but news articles as well as images from the ground are telling a different story. The classroom below for example is not one where the teacher has decided not to use desks. There are simply no desks in this particular...

Who can trust politicians? I guess the proper question is "should we?". Politicians make promises during campaigns. Some fulfill while some break. What allows people to gauge a politician's performance is the record. Unfortunately, data provided to the public can be deceiving. In the United States, there is PolitiFact , a Pulitzer Prize winner for national reporting. It started first as a fact-checking report for the presidential campaign in 2007. Now, it reviews statements made in public by candidates, elected officials, political parties, interest groups, pundits, talk show hosts. Here are some of the latest from PolitiFact : Philippine basic education would benefit greatly if a similar effort is made by the media to help inform the public. Instead, what Filipinos receive are headlines like the one shown below from The Philippine Star : With multiple shifts still present in a lot of schools, with schools destroyed in the Eastern Visayas region, the misinformat...

Like arithmetic, reading is essential for learning. Dr. Shannon Riley-Ayers, a literary expert at the National Institute for Early Education Research in New Jersey, emphasizes the importance of reading to young children especially during this coming  holiday season. In a recent blog article on PreSchool Matters , Riley-Ayers talks about picture books. Picture books should be part of everyone's childhood. These books essentially make the connection between written words and images. As a child, and even as an adult, I do enjoy reading books with lots of illustrations. Even with research articles in scientific journals, a good research report is one that presents figures that capture the story line of the study. It is unfortunate that elementary schools in the Philippines are still waiting to receive textbooks. Joy Rizal, who has been following the situation in public schools in Bukidnon, has posted the following update: In the last week of November and The Philippine Depart...

Last month, this blog featured an article by Joy Rizal lamenting the fact that even after four months into the school year, pupils in the Malaybalay school district still have not received learning materials. The following is a letter written by Joy Rizal to Socorro A. Pilor, Executive Director of Instructional Materials Council Secretariat, DepEd Philippines. It is in response to the explanations provided by the executive director with regard to students in Malaybalay not having any of the learning materials. Apparently, when DepEd issues a press release that says, "As of last school year, the book-student ratio is 1:1 in both public elementary and secondary schools,” it means something else. Here is the letter:

This post provides an overview of several articles in this blog that relate Diane Ravitch's Reign of Error  to problems and solutions in Philippine basic education. Reign of Error  specifically refers to the US educational system, but there should be no doubt that there is likewise a reign of error over Philippine basic education. It is true that there are differences. Ravitch, for example, emphasizes that there have been significant progress in US basic education. Public schools in the states have indeed gone a long way and there are indeed programs that work. In the Philippines, there are isolated bright spots but the overall picture is dramatically bleaker. The United States is likewise so much richer in resources while the Philippines does not really have that much. The Philippines can not afford to waste both time and resources. It is therefore more important that the vision and reform to solve problems in basic education are both grounded on solid evidence. Ravitch's cal...

I once taught a class that had 240 students. That class, of course, was still smaller than the freshman chemistry classes I had seen in state schools like University of Illinois. Still, I thought 240 was already frustrating. I did not even try to associate the face of each student to their name. That was mission impossible. Introductory classes like General Chemistry are usually large in universities. These classes, however, are divided into sections (20 students or less) which meet regularly every week as small discussion groups, each one under the supervision or guidance of a teaching assistant. Obviously, students in higher education are very different from elementary school children. There is some degree of independence assumed from college students. There is no doubt that individual attention is necessary especially in kindergarten and during the early elementary years. One can also argue that even high school students as well as college students can benefit from individual atte...

With visible resentment towards pork barrel, there is a proposal in the Philippine Congress to realign the 2014 Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to the Department of Education (DepEd). Rappler  reports that DepEd is apparently not as eager as the legislators making the proposal. DepEd secretary Armin Luistro is quoted in the report saying: "While it's great to say thank you and accept that offer, I also would want to make sure that this is done in a way whereby we can assure ourselves [and Congress] that our absorbing capacity will allow us to spend the budget that they will add." Philippines' DepEd Secretary Brother Armin A. Luístro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Luistro Luistro also made the comment (Translated into English by Rappler): " When you were speaking a while ago I was thinking: If I'm dreaming right now, I hope I don't wake up anymore. "

by Joy Rizal As I reported before we have had a lot of issues regarding the DepEd Malabalay City school district of Bukidnon, not delivering any of the promised second grade material for our children to use in their classes.

Since the United States Congress could not decide how to combine spending cuts, tax increases, and program reforms, automatic spending cuts in particular categories of federal outlays called sequestration are now in place. Sequestration is supposed to be a blunt instrument, being applied across the board. Public schools receive some funding from the national government. Taken as an aggregate, contributions from the Federal government amount to about ten percent of the operating expenses of public K-12 schools: Total U.S. Expenditures for Elementary and Secondary Education Sources:  NCES, "Common Core of Data," surveys and unpublished data.  Above figure copied from US Department of Education website The aggregate, however, does not tell the full story since the dependence of a public school on federal funds is not uniform across schools. Public schools in poor communities rely more (as much as 50-70 percent) on the national government while schools in wealthy ...

http://www.cp-union.com/article/2013/08/13/fund-more-books-hire-more-teachers-first PRESS RELEASE COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS' UNION August 13, 2013 "Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara should just add his pork to the DepEd budget so that the agency can continue supporting the GILAS Internet Project," said Mr. Rick Bahague, National Coordinator of the Computer Professionals' Union (CPU), as a reaction to Senator Angara's Bill to "provide every public elementary and high school throughout the country with a computer laboratory equipped with at least 10 computers." In 2012, DepED allocated P1.8 billion to the GILAS Internet Project. The GILAS project is a private-sector led Internet literacy program which was turned over to DepEd on November 21, 2012. At that time, DepEd reported that 97% of all public high schools have computers while 68% have internet access with help from the GILAS project. "There is no need to pass a new law just to put computers in cla...

"Let us move on to education. Our goal is to raise the quality of learning that our children undertake, so that once they finish their schooling, they can seize the opportunities now opening up in society: accomplished. We have finally erased the backlog we inherited in books and chairs, and if Secretary Armin Luistro continues to demonstrate true grit, even the backlog we inherited in classrooms will also be erased this year. And there is even more good news: Now, we also have the ability to prepare for the additional needs that the implementation of the K to 12 program will require." -President Aquino, SONA 2013, English translation, http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/focus/07/22/13/english-version-president-aquinos-sona-2013-full-text On Classrooms: Photo downloaded from Anakbayan Philippines Facebook Page Wala na daw classroom shortage sabi ni Noynoy Aquino sa kanyang SONA. Ganito ba ang ginawa nila para masabi yun? Nilagyan ng mga divider ang basketball court at tina...

by Joy Rizal I recently learned of some disturbing issues regarding this school year’s (2013-2014) text books / learning packages which the schools are suppose to be using. (The Learning Packages, which are essentially low budget workbooks, are to be used until next year or perhaps the following school year when standard textbooks should be available.) According to a recent news article in several national publications senior DepEd officials have stated several times that throughout the nation there should be no shortage or a very small shortage of text books /learning packages available for students this school year. Here is one example: DepEd: No more shortage of classrooms, teachers By Helen Flores   (The Philippine Star)  |  Updated May 31, 2013 - 12:00am   MANILA, Philippines - There will be no more shortage of classrooms, teachers and textbooks in public schools this coming school year, the Department of Education (DepEd) said yesterday....

The schools of the Mangyans have to deal with shortages, water being cut off during heavy rains, and harassments from the military. But they persist and are even planning to expand. Read also:   All the Mangyans want is for their children to learn By MARYA SALAMAT Bulatlat.com 7 June 2013 MANILA – Edgar Banaw, 25, a Hanunuo-Mangyan, has been teaching at the literacy school of their community in Sitio Gaang, village of Panatayan, Mansalay, Mindoro. He is called a “para-teacher,” as he is not a licensed teacher under the Professional Regulatory Commission. But for five years now, he has been teaching Mangyan children in their sitio or sub-village the “nine basic lines, the Filipino alphabet, numeracy and literacy.” Banaw was encouraged to teach by fellow Hanunuo and pioneer lit-num teacher in Mansalay, Ernie Uybad. Two years older than Banaw, Uybad first taught Mangyan children and even elders to read and write in 2007. Uybad first taught in another sitio after talk...

“Twenty six years after our Constitution mandated free high school education, the government has not been able to make high school accessible to a substantial number of Filipino children.” – ACT Teachers’ Party Rep. Antonio Tinio By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL  Bulatlat.com 7 June 2013 MANILA – Lack of books, chairs, water and toilet facilities once again greeted public school students of school year 2013-2014. While the Department of Education said that the shortages are being addressed for this year, recent reports however belied this. DepEd Assistant Secretary for Planning Jesus Mateo said shortages in textbooks and classroom seats have been addressed since last year with an expected 1:1 student-textbook and student-seat ratio this year. But several reports showed schools where classrooms are jam-packed with students; some schools have make-shift classrooms and a class without chairs where students sat on the floor. ACT Teachers’ Party Rep. Antonio Tinio visited school...