Belief in zombies arising from COVID vaccination. Inability to separate fake news from the genuine article, or to spot disinformation and lies.
These two problems alone are inflicting considerable damage on national life. And both are manifestations of an even more serious problem: the crisis in Philippine education.
Education officials themselves have acknowledged that the COVID pandemic has worsened the crisis. In the first year of the pandemic, around two million children did not enroll – some because their parents feared infection of the kids, but most because their families couldn’t meet the requirements of blended learning.
The number of those left behind dropped to over a million for the current school year, but that’s still a lot of children whose formal education has been interrupted.
Even among those who haven’t been left behind, there have been numerous reports of students struggling with blended learning. I personally know a grade school student who used to excel in class, but whose grades have fallen this school year because of the challenges posed by distance learning. This is despite the fact that he has all the gadget requirements and a private room where he can attend class without distractions.
Social media has aggravated the education crisis and the spread of disinformation. Those short bursts of messages and video retard the development of critical thinking and communication skills that are based on language proficiency. People who grow up relying mainly on emojis and phone stickers to express themselves can suffer arrested development.
As for fake news, unlike in mainstream media, there are no information filters on social media; it’s fertile ground for the proliferation of malevolent trolls, historical revisionists, con artists and the lunatic fringe.
The problems we now confront, both in terms of pandemic response and the political situation, should bring home the urgency of decisive action in dealing with the crisis in education.
* * *
Our Constitution mandates that the largest chunk of the annual national budget should go to education. For many years, however, the lion’s share actually went to debt servicing. This is certain to continue as we repay the trillions in debt that we have incurred to finance the pandemic response.
After debt payments, the allocation for education is still below the percentage share of GDP allotted by many other countries for the sector.
Public elementary education has been free of tuition since the creation of the republic. This was expanded to high school in 1998, and then to mandatory kindergarten and the additional two years of secondary school under K-12 during the presidency of Noynoy Aquino. President Duterte expanded free education to the tertiary level.
Even if tuition and regular miscellaneous fees are free, however, sending a child to school entails many other expenses that millions of parents in this country cannot afford. Many families also want their children to help in their livelihood activities such as farming or street vending as soon as the kids are able, and formal education gets in the way.
Then there are the teenage girls who drop out when they get pregnant, and never return to school because of the demands of motherhood.
Development and research organizations have reported that the dropout rate in the country remains high starting in grade school, and even higher in secondary school. I have known too many people from rural areas who dropped out as early as third or fourth grade so they could help their families earn a living.
At that stage, the dropouts have developed basic literacy, but they still lack the skills needed to enjoy reading in whatever language or in their mother tongue. Extensive reading is needed to develop critical thinking and creative thought. Reading comprehension is needed to understand concepts in mathematics and science.
And critical thinking is needed to spot fake news, disinformation, and what the Catholic bishops have decried as the “pandemic of lies” that has plagued this election season.
* * *
Obviously, this education crisis isn’t going to be eased before election day, or even within the next six years, especially if the country is led to perdition by the next president.
Education advocates have lamented that all the presidential aspirants have not expounded enough on their plans to improve education, even if this is one of the sectors that has suffered the worst impact from the COVID pandemic.
In October last year, business leaders gathered with education experts and development advocates to relaunch “Education Nation,” during which they drew up a 10-point agenda for sustained reforms that they want an “education president” to pursue.
Some of the points are now being implemented, such as the gradual resumption of in-person classes.
The other points include allocating more resources to education – at least four percent of GDP from the 3.2 percent in 2019 – and pursuing zero tolerance for corruption and political influence in education policies. The four percent is below the 4.9 percent of GDP average expenditure of the 38 most developed economies, but the Philippines is a middle-income state so four percent is good enough.
Also on the agenda: communities and local government units must be capacitated and made more accountable for student learning (especially now with greater internal revenue allotments for LGUs). Hunger and malnutrition among children must be eradicated.
All students must be given internet-enabled learning devices and their own textbooks. Teachers must have all the materials they need for their work, and opportunities for professional development.
Parents must also be capacitated to participate in their children’s education. The Alternative Learning System must be enhanced, and lifelong learning promoted with accessible skills development programs.
Also included in the 10-point agenda is more investment in research and development and other measures to achieve academic excellence in higher education.
The gathering, under the Philippine Business for Education, also wants support for the complementarity of private and public education.
Reforms in education can seem as boring as a long night of doing homework. Unless we invest enough in quality education for all, however, national development will keep running into roadblocks created by people who believe in zombies.