Problems the next president has to solve

Tomorrow (April 30), I will give a talk at UCLA on “Educating Filipinos: Problems Facing the Next Philippine President.”

In that talk (a version of which I already gave at Montclair State University last Saturday), I focus on some problems that need to be faced by the next President and his DepEd Secretary. Not all of these problems can be solved within a six-year term, but a couple of them can be.

First, the length of our basic education cycle. We have the shortest education cycle in the world. The next President must ignore the expected protests from parents and must add two years to basic education.

Second, the Philippines has already been warned by the United Nations that we are about to renege on our commitment to have “education for all” citizens by 2015. Right now, only about 85 percent of all Filipinos who could go to Grade 1 actually go to school. The next President must get the out-of-school 15 percent to enter the formal education system. That is the easy part; the hard, perhaps impossible part is keeping everyone in school, so that we will not have any out-of-school youth (“education for all,” not “Grade 1 education for all”).

Third, because the population is growing at a ridiculously high rate, it is impossible to build enough schoolrooms to catch up with the number of students entering Prep or Grade 1, particularly if all school-age children actually go to school. The next President must think outside the box and find a way to educate kids without building new classrooms. (A DepEd Secretary that cannot think outside the box should not be DepEd Secretary.)

Fourth, the drop-out rate of schoolchildren is also ridiculously high. Right now, only about 45 out of every 100 Filipinos have finished high school. (These official figures are suspiciously inflated, to make the government look less inept.) The next President must find a way to keep more students in school, without adding more classrooms or hiring more teachers. Again, this demands lateral, inspired thinking.

Fifth, the money we spend on education is much too little. It is not only our Constitution that says that we should spend more on educating children than paying external debts, but also international authorities on education. The next President must find a way to increase the education budget. This demands not just lateral thinking, but political will, not to mention excellent negotiation skills with our creditors.

Sixth, a huge number of our public schools (accurate figures are understandably difficult to come by) have no electricity, no running water, no toilets, no ceilings, no tables, no chairs, no textbooks, no library books, no laboratories, no computers, and/or no internet connection. The next President must raise the money to remedy the lack of at least these basic necessities.

Seventh, right now, too many government agencies are in charge of public schools. We have DepEd, CHED, TESDA, DSWD, DOST, CCP, UP, and various state universities and colleges. One result, for instance, is that the new DepEd curriculum duplicates the existing CHED General Education Curriculum, but no one knows who should remove the duplication. The next President must put everything under one roof or even one person; perhaps we can have an Education Czar, with line authority over everyone involved in public and private education.

Eighth, we have been rated a failure in every international way of assessing the quality of educational systems, such as TIMSS, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, Thomson Reuters ISI, or Scopus. The next President must raise the quality of our educational system. To say that all we need to do is retrain our teachers is to display ignorance about the complexity of the problem and about recent educational theories.

Ninth, we have to align our educational standards to those demanded by international accords, such as Washington, Bologna, Sydney, and APEC, as well as UNESCO-recognized accreditation agencies. The next President must be able to enlist the full support of the private education sector, which is primarily responsible for quality assurance and accreditation.

Tenth, our curriculum on all levels is still mostly test-driven, too specialized, or content-dominant. We need to teach the youth not skills nor knowledge (for these change so rapidly), but ideas and ethics. On the other hand, we should remember what Charlie Brown said so eloquently, “How can we lose so many ballgames if we are so sincere?” The next President must balance global competencies (since so many Filipinos now work overseas) with needed local literacies.

Eleventh, cultural literacy and scientific literacy are sorely lacking not just within the educational system but in the country at large. The next President must implement the recommendations made by the Philippine Cultural Education Program of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, as well as those by the Congressional Commission on Science, Technology, and Engineering.

Twelfth, the notorious mismatch between the educational system and the requirements of both local and international business has to be addressed, and soon. The next President must get both educators and businesspersons to give and take. That requires tremendous personal charisma and vast experience in both education and business.

These are just some of the challenges in the field of education facing the next Philippine President.