More woes for education

The Department of Education is said to be considering a three-day school week in some schools in Metro Manila. The plan, to be implemented this school year if warranted, seeks to address the problem of overcrowding in face of an expected rise in enrollment.

If I may suggest a solution, I propose the sending of schoolchildren who can no longer be accommodated in existing classrooms in Metro Manila to the far-flung provinces and out-of-the-way islands where there are classrooms that do not even have students.

Or, if this cannot be done, considering the logistics required to transfer all these children, not to mention the impact this will have on their families, I suggest the dismantling of these empty classrooms in the provinces and islands and reconstructing them in Metro Manila.

You think I'm crazy? Better think again. I'm just taking off where no less than the education secretary himself, the Honorable Brother Armin Luistro, left off. In a television interview several months ago, Luistro claimed, without batting an eyelash, that there are many classrooms in the provinces that do not have students.

Luistro's claim was his way of denying that the Philippines faces a lack of classrooms. According to the education secretary, there may be a shortage of classrooms in Metro Manila but that, overall, there is no real shortage because, well, there are even classrooms in the provinces with no students in them.

This, of course, is the logic of a man who refuses to accept criticism. Once Luistro makes up his mind, all contrary opinions become irrelevant. He does not accept the possibility that others can be right and that he can be wrong.

Take the case of the K to 12 program that he rammed down the throats of all Filipinos. K to 12 adds two years to the basic education curriculum. Why does he want it? Because almost everybody is doing it. It does not bother him one bit that the Philippines is not prepared in many ways to embrace two more years of education.

Luistro loves to rattle off the names of countries that have 12 years of basic education but conveniently omits the names of others against which the Philippines is so many times better even if it only has a 10-year basic education curriculum.

As I have written here so many times before, it is not how many years you add to basic education but the preparation you have to embrace the added years. More importantly, it is not the number of years but the quality of education that goes into those years.

To me, I would rather have 10 years of real quality education taught by highly-qualified teachers to an ideal number of students in a classroom conducive to learning, aided by high quality error-free teaching aids and materials.

To me, even if we add 10 years to basic education to make it 20, it will still not mean anything if our teachers are poorly-skilled, poorly-paid and overworked, forced to teach a circus of 70 children in a room or under a tree, sharing error-filled books five kids to one.

To me, adding two more years to basic education stretches the limits of practicality in a nation where, according to statistics from Luistro's own education department, only about four out of every 10 children who enroll in Grade One will get to finish High School.

In the Philippines, there is a chasm of a difference in the standards between private and public schools. Yet Luistro's pet project K to 12 is applied to both without distinction. One can only imagine the great disparity this may have on those who get to finish the entire course.

Again, I have nothing against two more years of basic education. As much education as anyone can get is always good. Besides, the K to 12 program is admittedly well-rounded and is thus good preparation. But the timing of its implementation is simply not right.

To make a good idea work, the right circumstances must be in place. Unfortunately, the right circumstances are not only not in place, they are actually missing in many areas. The classroom situation is just one example of a circumstance that can bring K to 12 down like a house of cards.

In the Yolanda-hit areas, for instance, schools are still unrepaired where they can still be repaired, and unconstructed where they have completely vanished. There, schooling is uncertain, much less K to 12. Yet K to 12 plods on unrestrained. And now Metro Manila may have only three days of school a week. K to 12 anyone?