Surest way to produce a basket-case nation

I can understand the consternation of fellow columnist Eladio Dioko. Why indeed would Senators Franklin Drilon and Juan Flavier think it extremely important to propose changing the school opening when there are far greater issues affecting the educational system.

Drilon and Flavier have resurrected the idea of moving the school opening from June to September and have armed themselves with all sorts of fine-sounding reasons to ham up the idea, winning like-minded supporters as they go along.

But they also spawned a lot of oppositors, kicking up a heated debate that only makes the hot summer worse. And yet, for what substantial gain are we debating about? June, September, May, October, February -- when to open classes does not really mean a fart to anyone these days.

Senators are supposed to have deeply penetrating minds that can dissect real concerns with probity. Yet, of all the pressing problems bugging the educational system, all Drilon and Flavier can see is when to open classes.

For God's sake, no wonder this country is going to the dogs. If two senators of the republic cannot see real problems already staring at them in the face, how can we expect them to solve those that require a little more diligence and effort to uncover?

In this country, for instance, there is an utter lack of teachers. And we are not only talking of a lack in really qualified ones. Out of the picture have gone even those we call plain buck teachers, those who went or got into teaching out of simple expedience.

The lack is caused by at least two factors, the absence of real and meaningful incentives to make teaching a worthwhile career, and the lure of better-paying jobs abroad, never mind if it means giving up teaching in favor of doing housework as a domestic helper.

For whatever reason that they got into teaching, those who remain are necessarily burdened physically, emotionally and financially. They are overworked, underpaid, and cannot understand what happened on the way down the stage during high school graduation.

But there they are, the frontliners in every country's effort at nation-building, passing on their misery to the hope of the fatherland. Yet all that Drilon and Flavier could see is the alleged merit of moving the school opening from June to September.

It would have been easy to entice more and better teachers, and lure back those who have gone or intend to go abroad. Just make teaching worth the while of teachers. But no, senators, when they are not mulling about school calendars, are planning the next big investigation.

Yet for all the belly-aching that signals the next investigation, senators have never seen fit to truly investigate the anomalies that attend schoolbook production, anomalies that lead to error-filled, low-quality books that are changed every year to keep the orders coming.

To have unqualified teachers use error-filled books that are not enough for a class being held under a mango tree is the surest recipe for producing a basket-case nation less than two decades hence. And we have been doing that for decades already.

Still, here we are, deep into these decades of torment, and all Drilon and Flavier can think of is move the school opening from June to September. So, okay, we move the school opening in accordance with their wishes. Then what?

There will still be unqualified teachers starting the schoolyear in September, not June, still using error-filled books that are not enough for a class being held under a mango tree in the middle of the rainy season, not at the beginning of it.