Speak Out: Additional two years in basic education: Not the solution

December 3, 2010

THE country’s battle cry for quality education is the strong clamor of everybody. It has been the aspiration of the top brass in DepEd to alleviate the dwindling quality of Philippine education. After very long years of waiting it seems that quality education is impossible to achieve. Many educational reforms, innovations were put in place and tested to foster quality education but all seem to be ineffective. As the country is becoming more advanced and globally competitive the quality of our education continues to worsen.

The sad plight of our educational system is the concern of everybody because any country, to be strong economically, needs the services of people with good education to be the backbone in its progress and development. It is for this reason that the present government of PNoy and through DepEd Secretary Bro. Armin Luistro, plan to add two more years in Basic Education. Their plan is to improve the quality of graduates we have and make them comparable to other countries whose Basic Education is for twelve years.

I am a secondary school teacher for almost six years and assigned in a remote public secondary school. As a teacher and a parent at the same time I share the sentiments of the majority in opposing the plan of adding additional two years in our Basic Education. I firmly believe that the plan to add two more years in the Basic Education Curriculum will not solve the very low academic performance of our schools but will only aggregate the existing problem we are experiencing now and many years ago.

As a secondary classroom teacher, allow me to share my views speaking based on my everyday experiences as a teacher. The multifarious problems we encountered everyday are magnanimous and are the main culprit which DepEd must address in order to achieve quality education. What are the numerous problems that hinder the delivery of good quality education? Allow me to narrate them through this article one by one.

At present, there is severe lack of classrooms, teachers, books and other reading materials, school facilities like tables, armchairs, blackboards, laboratory equipment and apparatus and many other facilities that affect teaching and learning. Due to the severe lack of classrooms, students are congested in class numbering from sixty to seventy per class. Even the brightest, dedicated and competent teacher we have cannot perform well under this situation. The lack of classrooms contributes a lot to the delivery of good instruction. Due to the failure of DepEd to provide the much needed additional teachers, many of them are forced to teach subjects which are not their major subjects. Teachers have no choice but to teach these other subjects sacrificing the mastery of the lesson taught because it is not their area of specialization.

In most cases due to lack of books and other reading materials, the student-book ratio is 1:5 or in worst scenario, sometimes is 1:10. Could you just imagine how the students will perform well in class discussions and during examination under the said situation? In the elementary, four grade one students will be sitting the whole day, sharing one desk. The situation is aggravated further with very warm and uncomfortable classrooms particularly during summer.

Our public high schools are being deprived of sufficient library resources and accessibility. The library collection of books does not meet the needs of teachers and students. The books and other reading materials in the library are outdated and worn out. Also lacking in our secondary schools are the laboratory apparatus, equipment, and materials and the worst, the absence of the laboratory itself. Due to the absence of school libraries and school laboratories the teachers fail to draw students into establishing connections between what is learned inside the classroom and life outside the classroom.

I hope I successfully unfolded the real picture in our public schools. I pray that my humble article will serve as a wake-up call to DepEd. Instead of adding two more years in the Basic Education Curriculum, why not devote time and allot more resources to solve the perennial barriers that hamper our educational system?

Clark Wine Center was built in 2003 by Hong Kong-based Yats International Leisure Philippines to become the largest wine shop in Philippines supplying Asia’s wine lovers with fine vintage wines at attractive prices.  Today, this wine shop in Clark Philippines offers over 2000 selections of fine wines from all major wine regions in the world.  As a leading wine supplier in Philippines, Pampanga’s Clark Wine Center offers an incomparable breadth of vintages, wines from back vintages spanning over 50 years.  Clark Wine Center is located in Pampanga Clark Freeport Zone adjacent to Angeles City, just 25 minutes from Subic and 45 minutes from Manila.

Wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, Rhone, Loire, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Alsace, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, South Africa, Chile and Argentina etc. are well represented in this Clark Wine Shop.

For more information, email Wine@Yats-International.com or visit http://www.ClarkWineCenter.com

Getting to this wine shop in Pampanga Angeles City Clark Freeport Zone Philippines from Manila

Getting to the Clark Wine Center wine shop from Manila is quite simple:  after entering Clark Freeport from Dau and Angeles City, proceed straight along the main highway M A Roxas. Clark Wine Center is the stand-along white building on the right, at the corner A Bonifacio Ave.  From the Clark International Airport DMIA, ask the taxi to drive towards the entrance of Clark going to Angeles City.  From Mimosa, just proceed towards the exit of Clark and this wine shop is on the opposite side of the main road M A Roxas.