EDITORIAL - A sad sign of the times

The good news was that from 2022 to 2025, a total of 11,351 students qualified for enrollment at the Philippine Science High School (PSHS) system.

But the bad news was that only about half of these qualifiers --5,544 students-- could secure enrollment in the PSHS system because of limited slots.

“Gaining admission into PSHS is competitive, with limited slots for a sizable pool of applicants… (This) leaves other qualified applicants with no opportunity to enter the PSHS,” Philstar.com quotes a report by the Second Congressional Commission on Education as saying.

On one hand we can see this as an example of survival of the fittest. Only the best should be able to secure a slot in such a prestigious system after all.

But on the other hand we can see this as it plainly is; more and more students applying for a limited number in one school. Half of those who were turned away didn’t deserve to be turned away; there was just not enough slots for everyone.

And this is more evidence that our student population is getting bigger and bigger and may soon become too big for our educational system to handle.

The population of the Philippines in 2024 was estimated to be at 118.2 million. This is up from 117.3 million in 2023, 115.6 million in 2022, 113.9 million in 2021, and 112.2 million in 2020. Notice a trend there?

Currently, we are the world’s 14th most populous nation, and if current trends hold, the World Health Organization predicts we will hit 134 million by 2050.

Well, yes, it can be argued that this lack of slots may be just happening with the PSHS system, but we can also see that our student population isn’t going down anytime soon, and every school year opening is plagued by a lack of many things from classrooms to teachers to even entire schools.

It’s not just a matter of schools. We can see this in how our transportation system has become inadequate for our population. How our roads can no longer cope with the number of cars. How people now have to look abroad for jobs. How our urban centers are overflowing with people with nowhere to live.

The signs that we need to manage population growth are everywhere.=