The concept of hope for the current situation of Philippine education had kept bothering my mental faculties by the time I got a copy of an article headed with, ‘Is there a glimmer of hope for Philippine education?’ Online dictionary defines glimmer as a gleam of light, one that shines faintly. Thus, in that perspective, Philippine education simply flickers. Nevertheless, people (including myself) can no longer wait for the time when Philippine education reaches its ideal luminosity.
Educational indicators have to be carefully analyzed to at least have a view of the trend education in the Philippines has been taking. Based on the research conducted by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies regarding the basic education in the Philippines, the 2nd goal of the Millennium Development Goals is to achieve a universal primary education. And three indicators to monitor this are youth literacy rate, proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach grade 5, and net enrolment ratio. Due to a slight decline of 3% (from 97%-94%) as applied to the said indicators, there is great danger that Philippines do not reach the MDG2.
Indeed, youth literacy rate is not low, but it has no specification whether which levels of literacy is covered. True too, a great number of pupils reach grade 5, or even graduate, and the number of pupils enrolling elevates as well, but I cannot help myself from wondering what really the acquisition is. Is it mere knowledge, or is it incorporated with values, which is wisdom?
The declining trend of basic education in the Philippines paved the way to dig deeper into its roots. The National Committee on Education for All released a report which asserted that there are two main indicators to scrutinize: quantity of education (outputs) and quality of education (inputs). The quantity comprises cohort survival rate, drop-out rate and net enrolment ratio while the quality consists of teacher-pupil or student ratio, number of teachers, number...