Noynoy on education

The third item in Noynoy’s 10-point program for educational reform concerns Muslim children. Says Noynoy, “I want a full basic education for ALL Muslim Filipino children anywhere in the country.”

There are huge differences in philosophy and objectives, as well as in teaching methods, between the Muslim educational system (madaris) and that of DepEd, despite DepEd Order 51, s. 2004. The problem of integrating one into the other, however, cannot be solved only by the two Education Secretaries (DepEd and ARMM). The bigger problem of the religious, cultural, and political conflict between Christians and Muslims not just in Mindanao but all over the country (including Metro Manila, which now has unacknowledged ghettos) has to be solved first.

There is, moreover, another problem with integration. The integration should not be only one way. Just as it is important for Muslim children to know our Christian heroes (Rizal, etc.), it is important for Christian children to know our Muslim heroes (Sultan Kudarat, etc.). Many Muslim children have read the Christian Bible, but how many Christian children have read the Qur’an? If Noynoy is serious about educating all Muslim children, he must study the teaching strategies of our ancestors. According to the first Christians to reach our shores in the 16th century, we already knew then how to read and write Arabic.

Noynoy’s fourth item in his educational agenda involves tech-voc. He says, “I will re-introduce technical-vocational education in our public high schools to better link schooling to local industry needs and employment.”

About time! In many advanced countries, a high school diploma is enough for someone to find a job. There is no reason for an ordinary office worker to have a college degree. Many of our call centers, in fact, now accept non-college graduates. Our problem today, however, is that public high schools have no time to prepare students for the workplace. Once the two missing years are added to basic education, however, there will be time for the system to give students the skills to find jobs or become entrepreneurs.

Noynoy continues with his fifth point: “By the end of the next administration, every child must be a reader by Grade 1.”

Since his plan is to institute universal pre-school, this point is no longer necessary to make. A good pre-school education will make a child a reader at the beginning (not at the end) of Grade 1.

With his sixth point, Noynoy turns his attention to tertiary education. He says, “I will rebuild the science and math infrastructure in schools so that we can produce more scientists, engineers, technicians, technologists and teachers in our universities so that this country can be more globally competitive in industry and manufacturing.”

The Congressional Commission on Science, Technology, and Engineering (COMSTE), in which I sit as part of the Technical Advisory Council, repeatedly makes the same point. We need to increase the pool of college students taking up science and engineering courses. One way to do this is to excite our high school students by teaching them such subjects as Industrial Chemistry, Digital Design, Molecular Biology, and Number Theory. These subjects are now taught, by the way, in our science high schools (as they are in the regular high schools of many advanced countries); the materials are ready and can easily be used in all our public schools.

While the problems of the public schools are humongous, private schools have their share of problems, too, primarily financial. Noynoy addresses these financial problems with his seventh point. He says, “I will expand the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education Program (GASTPE) to a target of 1 million private HS students every year through education service contracting (ESC) while doing away with the wasteful education voucher system (EVS) of this administration.”

This is such a minor matter that I wonder why Noynoy even bothered to bring it up. Perhaps he just wanted to take a swing at the Arroyo government. It will take a mere DepEd Order to make this come true. If Secretary Mona Valisno is wise, she will issue such an order effective this June and steal the thunder from Noynoy.

The eighth point has to do with the thorny issue of the medium of instruction. My stand has always been clear: students should be taught in the language that they use, not in a language that they are still learning. International educational research has established a long time ago that teaching a language in the same language does not work. Local education research has shown in experiment after experiment that Filipino children learn math and science faster and better when they are not taught in English.

Therefore, I agree in general with Noynoy’s stand on the medium of instruction. He says, as his eighth point, “My view on the medium of instruction is larger than just the classroom. We should become tri-lingual as a country: Learn English well and connect to the world. Learn Filipino well and connect to our country. Retain your dialect and connect to your heritage.”

I say “in general” because Noynoy makes a common mistake. He reveals his ignorance when he uses the word “dialect.” Bicolano, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilocano, and Tagalog are not dialects. They are languages. (To be continued)