True Agenda: On Philippine Educational System

    Last night I watched the premiere telecast of The Philippine Agenda of GMA 7. The program is related to the election coming May 2007. It talks about the present situation of the Philippines, the problems, and the reality bits of every Filipino family life… Their endeavors and struggles for survival in their daily living… Their overly fixated thirst for just supremacy in the land. And their undying hunger for good government policies and strategies.Last night they tackled about the current situation of the Philippine Educational System. Jessica Soho (the host) presented the situation of the public schools in the Greater Manila Area and also in other provinces…

   Some of the schools featured have a lot of problems… Take for example in the provinces like in Masbate (Masbate is known for their rich minerals and lush beaches, but still remains to be one of the poorest province in the land). In Masbate the problem is the lack of teachers, books, and other materials necessary for teaching like blackboards and chalks.  They only have one book for the whole class… (sighs). And it is a must for one student to copy everything in the book to the blackboard so that they can study what was written in the book (They could have had just photocopied the whole book for each student but another problem is, they don't have Photocopy Machines available and the students don't have money for the said expense…). They do have blackboards but a part (maybe 1/8th) of the blackboard they have is teared. And also they lack teachers which makes it hard for the students to cope in their studies… The problems in Greater Manila Area is slightly different from the provinces. One main problem is the number of students enrolled per class. The ratio per class in the Philippine setting should be 1 teacher per 30 students, but the ratio per classroom in Greater Manila is 1 teacher per 120 students! (shocking). One factor with regards to the increase number of students is of course the lack of teachers and government support which is also the same as in the province, and above all are the trasnferees from private institutions because of yearly increase of tuition fees… And since the ratio per class is too many, hence there will also be problems like lack of tables and chairs for most of the students, and low comprehension skills for the students especially the ones sitting at the back for they can no longer hear the voice of their teacher talking in front of them(not unless they have microphones or megaphones available per classroom…). Another problem is the lack of books per student, and some or maybe a lot of students enrolled in public schools nowadays are malnourished… When a student is malnourished, he lacks vitamins and minerals that can greatly affect his level of attentiveness, and comprehensive skills…

    A child with no classroom writes               Usual public classroom visuality

              down the lessons.

   It is just so devastating to know the current Educational System situation of the country. The literacy rate of the Philippines now maybe too low (the last time I checked, it was 97%)… Out of 45 countries(Pandemically speaking), the Philippines ranks number 41st in Mathematics and number 42nd in Science (I hope it's not true…). And the last time I heard, we are the third country with the most number of people that can understand and can speak english. Although it is a fact (and I am proud of it), we cannot help but worry about the current situation that can greatly lessen the number of people who speaks and understands english in the future.

    Let this be a lesson for everybody to vote wisely this coming election… I hope and believe that we can have a good government leaders in the future. Leaders that will help us surpass problems of reality…  Leaders that have dignity and patriotism for their land. Leaders that have dreams and aspirations for the land and for the Filipino people…

BE VIGILANT AND VOTE WISELY THIS COMING ELECTION!!!