Will these kids be left behind?

There was a very troubling discussion in my Viber group of economists and other policymakers last week. Someone posted PhilStar Global’s meme featuring Dr. Karol Mark Yee, EdCom 2 executive director, in a press briefing at Malacañang on how big the problem is with our uneducated youth.

Here is what Dr. Yee was quoted as saying:

“Mga batang pinapanood namin sa learning camp, hirap sila magsubtract. Grade 8 students sila. Buong buwan inaral nila addition and subtraction, and they struggled to subtract. We asked them about multiplication and I gave examples… Sabi ko 3 times 3, 0 times 0, 10 times 10. Hindi kaya. Pagpasok nila ng July 29 ang lessons nila is quadratic functions, algebra. How will you solve all of those concerns?”

The first thing that comes to mind is how did those pupils get to Grade 8 without knowing how to add, subtract and multiply? Apparently, DepEd penalizes teachers with a lot of failing students. So, teachers just promote everyone.

What do we do now? Do those kids have any hope of catching up? Most likely, they have been malnourished since conception up to five years of age. Their stunted brains may never be able to absorb knowledge like how to add, subtract and multiply.

As one academic commented: “We have to concede that one-third of our children are stunted, and that’s irreversible. Some 30 percent of the future workforce will be productivity challenged.” Should we just give up on them and train them for jobs that are not cognitively demanding?

“Part of the tough choices,” someone in our Viber group said, “is deciding between the current cohort and future (many still unborn) cohorts. Do we write off the existing cohorts and focus on training teachers and curriculum improvements for future cohorts? Or do we focus on band-aid solutions for the existing cohorts? Foundational versus band-aid. Do we have the resources to do both?”

Our 90 percent learning poverty looks like an insurmountable problem for this generation. We don’t have all the resources nor the political inclination to address, much less solve it. Perhaps if our legislators are not so greedy and decide to forgo their pork barrel loot for the next five to 10 years, we will have the financial resources to save a generation or two of Filipinos who would otherwise live the rest of their lives ignorant and poor.

As a banker in our group commented: “We have to make tough choices as a society. Are we in a deep enough crisis to make them? We have to fund education, so who gives up their part of the pie? What is the medium of instruction? What do we emphasize, STEM or civics? How do we prepare teachers to be proficient given the priorities we choose? Do we deliver via public schools, private schools, or a mix? How do we cover the nutritional deficit of students? The choices we have to make are fundamental.”

Said another: “To paraphrase Whitney Houston, since children are the future, we have to treat this educational deficit as a crisis, otherwise we are downgrading decades worth of future income for millions of our citizens…”

The learning camps being done now by DepEd are a worthy thing to do to help pupils catch up. But we may need a learning camp to teach teachers too because, obviously, the teachers are part of the problem. A former DepEd Secretary told me they have a difficult time finding teachers capable of teaching mathematics.

Maybe the best of our young people are not training to become teachers. The high failure rate in the licensing examination for teachers is proof of that. The passing rate for elementary teachers has now improved to above 40 percent from lows of below 20, 10 years ago but it’s still bad. I recall the story of a farmer who had high ambitions for his children except for the youngest daughter. Said the farmer: mahina ang kokote niyan kaya mag-maestra na lang.

It isn’t as if this is just a Third World problem. The daughter of my niece, who graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, took a gap year before going to medical school. She took that time to volunteer to teach science in an underprivileged high school in a poor part of Texas with essentially Hispanic migrants. She found the experience fulfilling. I am not sure if she worked under the Teach for America program, but we probably need something like it. Not ROTC.

We have very few who can teach math and science competently among current public school teachers. Because Singaporean teachers are known for their skill in teaching math, maybe Singapore and DepEd can organize to train our teachers on how to teach math.

“How do we fix the problem for those in K-8 who are now inadequately equipped for the later stages of secondary education? Even if there is a private sector/market-led solution, scaling it would take years, which is more time than they have.

Unfortunately, this is one area where transformative leadership and tens of billions of pesos in public spending are needed. What would be the greatest need: more teachers, teacher training, facilities, materials?” If you ask senators and congressmen, they will say pork barrel.

Or is it time to give up on those millions of kids? In traditional Filipino fashion, bahala na! Can we just write off the present generation of pupils who can’t read, write, or count? We only have so many resources. We have to make difficult choices. Kicking the can down the road and pretending the problem isn’t serious already writes off these generations of Filipinos.

We lost two years with VP Sara at DepEd. Let’s see if we can manage a whole-society approach, which is the only way to go for such a big crisis.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco.