EDITORIAL - Children teaching children

At the Gumapak Elementary School, children are being taught by their peers. This speaks well of the capabilities of “teachers” Nicole Ashley Basco, all of 9 years old, and Jean Karen Bayaborda, 8, both now in fourth grade. But it also highlights the acute shortage of teachers in the country’s public schools.

The government has always had problems finding teachers for schools in conflict areas particularly in Mindanao, where bandits and Islamic separatists often target schools for raids. Gumapak Elementary is in the town of Tuy in Batangas, a province with no serious peace and order problem. But the school is located at the foot of a mountain and is accessible only by narrow dirt roads that become impassable during heavy rains. Many of the students in the school are unfamiliar with the usual landmarks of Philippine progress: an SM shopping mall or Jollibee.

And so Gumapak has more than its usual share of difficulties in getting enough teachers for its elementary school. Last March one of the school’s teachers was injured in a motorcycle accident. With another teacher needing to handle classes from Grades One to Four, the school supervisor was forced to seek help from its top-performing third graders, Basco and Bayaborda.

It may not be the last time that they will be tapped to help. While teaching may be a good experience for the two students, it could also interfere in their own education, and there is no substitute for the knowledge imparted to youngsters by an adult teacher.

How to recruit enough of those teachers has long been a problem in the public education system. Education has lost its allure as a career for those who want a decent return on their investments in tuition, time and effort in obtaining a college degree. Those who become educators are dismayed by the disparity in pay for teachers in the private and public sectors, ranging from 40 percent at entry level to more than 70 percent at supervisory levels.

The government must not only make public education an attractive career; it must also raise the quality of training of those who still want to join the teaching profession. While the help of student-teachers is appreciated, proper education must be provided by qualified professionals.