TWO lawmakers expressed dismay over the perennial problems in the public education system which, they said, were aggravated by the “ill-planned and haphazardly” implemented “K to 12” program.
They blamed these for what they said was the alarming increase in the number of school dropouts.
Citing the 2016 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey, the Philippine Statistics Authority’s latest, Rep. Antonio Tinio of ACT Teachers said 3.8 million or one in 10 young citizens are not in school.
“Most of them, or almost 3.3 million are aged 16 to 24 years old who are supposed to be in senior high school or college level already. More than half or about 53 percen of them belong to the poorest families,” Tinio said.
He said the government “brags” the increase in the net enrollment in elementary and high schools but there are still millions “deprived of their right to education.”
Tinio said the number of children accommodated in the public school system become smaller as one goes from kindergarten to 12th grade.
He said nearly eight percent of 6th graders do not graduate and reach 7th graders while 18 percent of junior high school students do not reach senior high school.
Tinio said this is corroborated by the data from the Human Development Report 2015 that show that the mean years of schooling in 2014 was only 8.9.
Rep. France Castro of the same party-list group, meanwhile, pointed out that the data show that the average Filipino youth does not even graduate from junior high school.
“With this alarming statistics and the perennial problems of shortages of teachers and classrooms, it is appalling that the government is so keen on adding two more years to basic education, without careful planning and preparation of the curricula, learning materials and personnel. More importantly, it neglects to provide sufficient funding to schools, putting the burden on teachers, parents and students,” said Castro.
The two officials authored House Resolution 1887 to conduct an inquiry in aid of legislation on the status of the implementation of the K to 12 program.
For one, Castro wants to look into whether or not education department has a monitoring system to track Grade 12 graduates, noting if they were immediately employed, if they pursued college education or otherwise.
“The trend of underfunding of our public schools is clear. Maintenance and operating expenses of schools remain insufficient,” she added. “The shortage of classrooms and schools, especially high schools, forces children coming out of four to five elementary schools to be crammed into a single high school. This means classrooms bursting to capacity, deteriorating learning and teaching conditions, eventually, dropping out of the student.” (pr)
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