Undereducated, miseducated - SKETCHES by Ana Marie Pamintuan

You’ll see the picture today: children in neat rows doing their schoolwork while seated on the floor of an elementary school. That’s not in Lamitan, Basilan, where school opening had to be postponed yesterday because the school building was swarming with soldiers on alert for more attacks by the Abu Sayyaf.

The children without chairs are students of the Fairview Elementary School in Quezon City. There were about 80 of them, two classes with no walls separating them, holding classes yesterday in the school’s small grandstand for lack of classrooms. The early birds apparently were the ones who got the few chairs available. I’m guessing that this will be the setup until a miracle happens and they get enough chairs. Maybe it will discourage the children from observing Filipino time. Grade One, Lesson 1: The early bird catches the chair.

Those children could still count themselves lucky. Not just because their schools opened as scheduled, unlike in strife-torn Basilan, but also because they at least had a roof over their heads. In some areas, classes had to be held in the shade of trees.

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Meanwhile, in schools where many children grew up speaking only English, classes were held in air-conditioned classrooms. In some of these schools, there could be as few as 15 children to a class, which naturally allows the teacher to give each child more attention. Because the teacher is well paid in such schools, he or she is often much more qualified than public school teachers, who often have to stage rallies so their salaries can be a few pesos higher than the daily minimum wage.

Children in exclusive schools already start off with a big edge over poor students. Parents who can afford to pay five figures for their child’s tuition for one semester alone can also give the child a computer, PlayStation, Game Boy, even a cell phone. The home will surely have a TV set with DVD and VCD.

Access to all these sources of information and entertainment will be evident on the child at an early age. How can children who can get an education only if it’s free ever compete? Only if some of the stuff lacking at home can be found in public schools.

Fortunately, computers are finally starting to be used in some public schools. Before students can use the computer, however, they’ll need a working grasp of English. And that can be tough when a student does not speak English at home.

When I was a grade schooler I knew students who memorized entire chapters in English textbooks that were assigned for home reading, then recited the passages verbatim in class. Students presumed in those days that textbooks were grammatically and factually correct and thought they couldn’t go wrong if they just answered teachers’ questions with passages lifted verbatim from the textbooks.

I don’t remember any teacher discouraging that practice, or asking if the students understood what they were reciting. Maybe the teachers thought the students were preparing to become lawyers.

Those students spoke Taglish at home. What about those who first encounter English only in Grade One? How can a child learn scientific and mathematical concepts in a foreign language?

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These days students in some exclusive schools have lessons in geometry, botany, biology and agriculture in grade school – subjects that in the past were taught only in high school. And the children actually understand the lessons.

Meanwhile, in public elementary schools, students use textbooks with horrible grammar and numerous factual errors. (I’ve seen some of the textbooks and I can attest that they are atrocious.) Their teachers, some of whom are wondering when they’ll get their working papers for a menial but higher paying job in Hong Kong, probably nearly flunked high school geometry and algebra.

What can students learn in such schools? This problem won’t be too worrisome if such schools were the exception rather than the rule, but we all know that’s not the case.

There is a widening divide in our country between the well-educated and the undereducated or miseducated. We have a growing army of people who never got past functional literacy. That should worry anyone who cares about the future of this country.

The events in recent months should have jolted the nation about the consequences of having a poorly educated citizenry. But no one seems to have any bold ideas about overhauling the education system. Can Raul Roco make a difference in the education department?

Too bad politics has consumed the nation since the start of the year, and now we’ve got the Abu Sayyaf crisis. Otherwise the government might have focused more on the crisis gripping the state of Philippine education.

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BUZZ: Were certain politicians involved in the Dos Palmas kidnapping in Palawan? Authorities are looking into this. We might hear something about it when the offensive against the Abu Sayyaf is over.