Philippine Education System [Archive] - Page 7

Ady001

June 17th, 2010, 04:02 AM

Corruption in DepEd is a major challenge for Aquino
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/193413/corruption-in-deped-is-a-major-challenge-for-aquino

When the agency that has the main responsibility for educating the youth is notorious for setting a bad example, what’s an incoming president to do?

President-elect Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III has promised to end the systemic corruption that has corroded many Philippine institutions, one of them the Department of Education (DepEd). For some quarters, improving the state of the basic education system would be a good start.

"The problem with the Arroyo administration is that it is rooted in perceptions of corruption and bad governance. Even the programs that are meant to help the poor were in fact utilized in the context of patronage," says former Education Secretary Butch Abad.

There was the so-called noodle scam involving a contract awarded by DepEd in 2007 to a supplier that sold noodles at a staggering P18 per pack when the market price was only P4.50.

Before that, there was the textbook scam, with whistleblower Antonio Go alleging that the numerous errors in textbooks used in public schools resulted from an allegedly “secretive" evaluation process that “breeds graft and corruption."

E-Net Philippines, a consortium of education advocates, had also opposed Arroyo projects like the Food-for-School program which “has become a strategy for patronage" as local government units, along with the DepEd, are the ones who select beneficiaries.

Abad, who served as the Liberal Party campaign manager in the May 10 elections, says Mrs. Arroyo was "driven by the fight for political survival" so she pandered to the corruption of some politicians instead of ensuring that they implement education programs honestly.

But Abad believes that once Noynoy—who had a clean slate in his nine years as congressman and three as senator—takes over, Filipinos can expect him to ensure that the education department will not be a breeding ground for corruption.

"In the case of Noynoy Aquino, it would be in the context of good governance and empowerment. I think that's a dramatic departure from the Arroyo administration's framework," he says.

Abad was one of the Cabinet secretaries who resigned from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s government in 2005 at the height of the Hello Garci scandal that put in doubt the legitimacy of her victory in the 2004 elections.

The legacy of his iconic parents, the martyred Benigno Aquino Jr. and former president Corazon Aquino, and a vigorous anti-corruption platform swept Noynoy to victory in the May 10 polls. Now that he's president-elect, many are expecting Aquino to fulfill his campaign promises and ensure that none of the corruption scandals during the Arroyo administration will happen during his term.

12-year basic education

Noynoy and his education reform team won’t have it easy. Data from DepEd show that out of 100 children who enter Grade 1, only 43 finish high school, only 23 pursue college or vocational courses, and only 14 are able to finish tertiary education.

With nearly half of high school graduates choosing to work rather than pursue higher education, Aquino is looking at re-introducing technical-vocational education in public high schools "to better link schooling to local industry needs and employment."

But his foremost plan for basic education is ambitious: to expand the duration of formal schooling from the current 10 years (six for elementary and four for high school) to the global standard of 12 years starting school year 2011-2012.

"We need to add two years to our basic education cycle to catch up with the rest of the world," Aquino says.

The plan is still "subject to fine-tuning," says former Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz, who currently sits as the vice president for policy and research of the Liberal Party think-tank National Institute for Policy Studies.

A possible division is Grades 1 to 7 for elementary, Grades 8 to 10 for high school, and Grades 11 to 12 for senior high school in preparation for college.

"What's most important is that Grade 1-12 be seamless and that the curriculum have no gaps between the elementary school and high school levels," Luz tells GMANews.TV in an email. "The rest of the world has added more years of formal basic education and this has helped them build stronger economies."

The proposal to add more years to education is nothing new, says Raymond Palatino, the representative of youth party-list Kabataan in Congress.

Former president Joseph Estrada had the pre-baccalaureate program, which proposed an additional year for high school, while President Arroyo introduced the optional one-year Bridge program for incoming high school students who scored low in the High School Readiness Test (HSRT) for English, Math, and Science.

In 2005, the DepEd conceptualized the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA) in response to the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary schooling by 2015. The BESRA also proposes two additional years to basic education.

Additional school years, however, were never made mandatory due to opposition from some groups and budgetary constraints.

Palatino says, "All presidents, at the beginning of their terms, want to add one or two years in elementary or high school. The problem: funds. Lack of funds. Where will the new president source the funds?"

ACT Teachers party-list president Antonio Tinio, who taught the P.I. 100 (Rizal's life and works) course at the University of the Philippines for 18 years before he resigned last semester to prepare for his work as incoming congressman representing his group, says Aquino should prioritize lifting the quality of education over quantity.

"Yung kasalukuyang sampung taon nga natin ng basic education hindi nai-deliver nang maayos ng gobyerno," laments Tinio in a phone interview. “Sa ganyang kalagayan pano naman natin pag-uusapan pa yung pagdagdag ng dalawa pang taon?"

A mother of five, 33-year-old Ritchie Escubido, says she can barely make ends meet as she is sending four of her kids—aged 13, 11, 8 and 5—to school even though she’s jobless and her husband works as a finishing carpenter on an irregular basis.

"Mahirap," she says. "Kung dadagdagan pa, lalo pang mahirap."

Big Spender

Expanding the basic education system to 12 years will definitely cost a lot. Aquino's education team admits that an investment of close to P100 billion, or P20 billion a year from 2011 to 2017, will be needed to build additional schools and classrooms, hire more teachers, buy more textbooks and equipment, and pay for operating expenses.

These figures do not even include the necessary funding for the additional one year of universal pre-schooling that Aquino also wants to implement during his term. According to his team's own estimate, this could cost P9.6 to P11.1 billion a year.

"Families will have to bear additional costs whether in public or private schools. The real argument though should be that the additional two years of basic education/schooling should translate into better chances at a good university education or work," says Luz.

Aquino has more proposals to improve education: strengthening the science and math curricula, expanding assistance to private schools, and building more schools in coordination with LGUs.

But Palatino points out that Aquino’s basic education agenda somewhat “mirrors" the education program of the Arroyo administration.

"Under an Aquino presidency, expect no fundamental change in the education programs of the country," says the young lawmaker.

Palatino, however, concedes that Aquino's education agenda has "specific proposals on the amount needed to revive Philippine education."

Luz, who once served as DepEd undersecretary for finance and administration, says Aquino will work on allocating six percent of GDP to education, as recommended by the UNESCO: 4.5 percent for the DepEd, and 1.5 percent for tertiary education and private elementary and high schools.

Aquino will also work on making the budget allocation for education closer to 18 percent of the total national budget, Luz says. He added that under the Arroyo administration, only around 2.4 percent of the GDP or 11 to 12 percent of the total national budget was spent for education.

Where will they get the funds? Aquino has promised throughout the campaign to increase the government's budget by plugging loopholes in tax collection and getting rid of corruption. Because of Aquino’s clean record and strong anti-corruption stance, investors are also expected to gain confidence in the Philippines and boost economic growth.

President Arroyo's erstwhile economic adviser, Albay Gov. Joey Salceda who defected to the LP in the middle of the election period, estimates that P642 billion in investments would likely enter the Philippines in the first 18 months alone of the Aquino presidency.

Problem areas

To start over, Aquino plans to get rid of Arroyo programs such as the education voucher system, which gives financial assistance to qualified beneficiaries but is largely seen as a vehicle for political patronage.

He also promises tougher screening for textbooks to ensure that sub-standard and erroneous books would not make its way into schools, and into the minds of the youth.

Madaris education with Arabic Language and Islamic Values Education as additional subjects will also be offered in public schools for Muslim Filipinos.

Some of the things Aquino intends to do for the rest of the country, such as his goal to end the conflict in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, will also ultimately benefit school children, says Abad.

"In those areas, to be able to go to school without interruption, you also have to make sure that the peace process is pursued and that development is introduced. Instead of going to war, you introduce livelihood," Abad says.

Aquino's dedication to the peace process was obvious early on: even before his proclamation as president, Aquino had already instructed former presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Deles (later announced to be his own peace adviser) to get a briefing from Malacañang on the status of the peace negotiations.

Aquino has yet to name his education secretary, although rumors are rife that Abad might make a comeback or De La Salle University president Bro. Armin Luistro might take the reins of the DepEd starting June 30.

Whoever he appoints will have to bear a heavy load, as the UN’s goal of primary schooling for all by 2015 falls under Aquino’s watch. – YA, GMANews.TV

Ady001

June 17th, 2010, 04:05 AM

DepEd urged to implement measure to limit weight of school bags
By Ding Cervantes (The Philippine Star) Updated June 16, 2010 12:00 AM
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=584814&publicationSubCategoryId=63

ANGELES CITY, Philippines – Reelected Angeles City Rep. Carmelo Lazatin has expressed concern over the health of school children, especially those enrolled in private schools, amid reports that scores of them went back to classes last week, burdened with school bags weighing about half as much as they do.

Lazatin introduced in the 14th Congress House Bill 6644, An Act Limiting the Amount of Bags Carried by Children in School and Implementing Measures to Protect School Children’s Health from the Adverse Effects of Heavy School Bags.

The bill was not passed but he appealed to school authorities nationwide to consider implementing it anyway.

Lazatin cited reports of recent random weighing showing that pupils bring school bags that weigh as much as 50 percent or even more of their body weight.

The bags are filled with textbooks, workbooks and notebooks. This is not to include the jug of water and lunch box, he noted.

“I think this aberration has been going on nationwide for years now, as indicated by the expensive and huge school bags being sold at supermarkets and department stores. Most of them are fitted with wheels, but to be sure, the kids have to lift these bags at one time or another on their way to and from their classes every day,” he said.

Lazatin cited medical experts who have recommended that schools should limit the weight of bags to less than 15 percent of the students body weight.

A 1988 study conducted by the Hong Kong Society for Child Health and Development showed that 4.54 percent of Grade 3 to Grade 6 students have back problems ranging from mild to serious spinal deformities due to the heavy bags they carry to school daily, he said.

He also cited a 1994 Scandinavian study showing a high probability for spinal problems in children who carry backpacks.

The study found that 53.7 percent of children who carried their packs on one shoulder complained of back pain. Forty-five percent of two shoulder pack wearers complained of back pain. Interestingly, the highest level of back pain, 68.6 percent, carried the bag in one hand.

The study also concluded that females were more likely to experience backpack-related pains than boys, he said, quoting the study.

“Pupils are supposed to listen to their teachers in school, and read their textbooks at home. In the end, having pupils carry heavy load to school will be counterproductive, with many of them physically deformed as adults. Heavy load in school could be one reason why so many now suffer from spinal injuries, including slipped discs,” he said.

He also urged schools to consider investing in lockers where pupils could keep their textbooks and other school needs, instead of bringing them to and from school daily.

Lazatin lamented that most pupils who are required to bring heavy bags to school are those from private Catholic schools.

He cited the case of the Mary Help of Christians school in Mabalacat, Pampanga where the weight of bags carried by its grade schoolers is about 40 percent of the children’s body weight.

Lazatin vowed to re-introduce his bill against heavy school bags in the coming 15th Congress so that Congress would have enough time to consider it.

Ady001

June 17th, 2010, 04:08 AM

Aquino urged to rethink 12-year education cycle
By Caroline J. Howard, ANC
Posted at 06/16/2010 12:45 PM | Updated as of 06/16/2010 12:45 PM
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/06/16/10/aquino-urged-rethink-12-year-education-cycle

To help reverse the decline in the quality of Philippine education, the incoming Aquino administration is mulling adding two more years to the country's basic education cycle--an additional year in elementary and another year in high school.

But, speaking on ANC's "The Rundown" on Tuesday night, an education expert says this may not be a realistic solution.

"Why are we trying to complicate the problem? Prolonging the cycle may not really address the issue. The crisis is, children are not learning, and children are dropping out. So, I think we should focus all our resources on enabling all the children to complete grade 6, math and reading and be good citizens," says Milwida Guevarra, president and CEO of Synergeia Foundation.

Synergeia Foundation is an organization that aims to transform basic education in collaboration with local governments, parents and the private sectors.

Guevarra adds, all that's needed is a do-able solution, which includes empowering the parents and local governments to share part of the engagement of children in schools.

Guevarra says the incoming administration should instead make efficient use of government resources, focus on training teachers, and make education a shared responsibility.

Aquino's campaign manager Florencio "Butch" Abad, who is rumored to be the education secretary of the Aquino government, earlier said that Aquino proposed a 12-year education cycle as part of his 10-point agenda. The plan supposedly includes 7 years of primary and 5 years of secondary education.

Address corruption

Guevarra also stresses the need to address bad governance, corruption and poor management of resources in the education sector.

"The studies document corruption eats up 50% of the budget of DepEd [Department of Education] because of under-the-table transactions and commissions," says Guevarra.

"Our resources are very limited, and they should be focused on keeping the young children in schools," Guevarra says.

She notes that 20% of children drop out as early as grade 2, while the education system loses as much as 70% of grade 6 students in very depressed areas.

Passing mark

Guevarra gives the Arroyo administration just a passing mark for education.

"I would give her the same grade as average performance of children below 75%," Guevarra says.

"She's accountable for that except that the central government is too remote. And that's why we're saying, even the barangay officials, it should be their responsibility to look out for children who are dropping out and call the attention of the parents. Why are you letting this child work at home? Why aren't you sending him to school? I'm sorry, it happened during President [Cory] Aquino's time that the drop-out rate has risen and the performance level has become so low," she says.

'Smooth opening' of classes

Meanwhile, the Department of Education (DepEd) says the smooth outcome of the opening of classes on Monday was very encouraging.

"The opening of classes was smooth and orderly. We're happy to note the eagerness of our students," Education Secretary Mona Valisno said on ANC's Rundown on Tuesday.

But, she admits, some schools did not have enough chairs. Valisno admits the growing student population remains a tough challenge, amid persistent problems with overcrowded classrooms.

Valisno says 95 out of 6,600 high schools, mostly in Metro Manila, have three shifts a day, and this will have to be met by building more classrooms.

Zero drop-out rate

Valisno says the Arroyo administration has also doubled the budget for education, from P100 billion in 2001 to P235 billion today, in hopes of making education available to all.

The DepEd boasts of having an unprecedented zero drop-out rate from first year to fourth year high school in at least four provinces: Zamboanga Sibugay, Cotabato, Southern Leyte, and Romblon, a feat achieved through effective intervention programs via the DepEd's Drop Out Reduction Program (DORP).

"We would like to encourage everyone to go to school, all the dropouts the past years. We want education for all, including those without credentials. We will do assessment to find out which grade level they belong. And for those who can't stay in the education stream, like the main education highway, we provide alternative learning system, accreditation program, home study program so they can proceed and study," she says.

(Pa-post ko lang isang point ng nag-komento tungkol dito)

2 Yr Basic Educ MUST Push Through
by op88 on Thu, 06/17/2010 - 09:14

I strongly agree to have the Philippine Basic Education upgraded to 12 years.

We have already been left behind by other poor countries such as Vietnam, Fiji, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, etc. with our primitive education system.

As a Fil-Canadian, I have strongly felt the discrimination and the belittlement of holding a Philippine Degree (I have a Big-3 Degree).

Sa katunayan may kaibigan akong nabigyan ng scholarship ng isang Canadian State University ngunit matapos usisain ang kanyang mga papeles at nalaman na 10 taon lang ang basic education ng Pinas, binawi po ng Canadian University ang scholarship.

Kung galing Vietnam or Indonesia wala daw problema pero kung galing Pinas di daw nila tinatanggap for entry to University dahil kulang ang basic education.

Laging pinagmamalaki ng bansa natin na tayo ang pinakabihasa sa wikang English sa Asya ngunit sa mata ng mga puti, isa na tayo sa pinakabulok na bansa sa mundo. Dapat lamang na idagdag na ang 2 taon sa basic education upang ang antas ng edukasyon ng Pinas ay maging comparable sa ibang mga bansa sa mundo.

Milwida Guevarra, I suggest that you wake up and face reality. A 10 year Philippine Education will render Filipinos trying to gain success abroad disadvantaged over their competitors. To argue otherwise is plain ignorance.

Ady001

June 17th, 2010, 04:10 AM

LGUs reminded: Education fund is for schools, not politics
By Jesus F. Llanto, abs-cbnNews.com/ Newsbreak
Posted at 06/15/2010 9:04 PM | Updated as of 06/15/2010 10:35 PM
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/06/15/10/lgus-reminded-education-fund-schools-not-politics

MANILA, Philippines--Education experts urged local officials to refrain from using their localities' special education fund (SEF) in financing projects and programs that would just promote themselves.

In a forum on local governance in Makati City on Tuesday, education experts said local officials should prioritize spending their SEF on projects that will improve the standard of education and education facilities instead of coming up with projects that are implemented to advance their political careers by increasing name recall among voters.

University of the Philippines College of Education dean Dina Ocampo-Cristobal said that it is common practice among local officials to distribute school supplies and bags bearing their names to students before the opening of the classes. In some cases, the SEF has been used to finance these projects.

"We want to shield education from politics." Cristobal told abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak on the sidelines of the presentation of the study of the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), the United Nations Children's Fund, and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) on the delivery of health, education, and other basic services at the local level.

The Local Government Code allows local government units (LGUs) to impose yearly a 1% tax on the assessed value of real property, in addition to the basic real property tax. That constitutes the SEF.

Section 235 of the Code reads: "A province or city, or a municipality within the Metropolitan Manila Area, may levy and collect an annual tax of one percent (1%) on the assessed value of real property which shall be in addition to the basic real property tax. The proceeds thereof shall exclusively accrue to the Special Education Fund (SEF)."

Favoritism

The SEF is automatically released to local school boards, which is composed of local officials and local Department of Education (DepEd) officials. It can be used in the maintenance of public schools, construction and repair of school buildings and facilities, educational research, purchase of books and periodicals, and in sports development.

"Education should be not be attributable to a person but to the state." Cristobal said. "The SEF has become a political tool."

Rosario Manasan, a senior research fellow at PIDS and an AusAID consultant, told abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak that they have gathered reports that local officials play favorites with local school boards in their areas of jurisdiction.

Some local chief executives, she added, tend to pour SEF-funded projects and programs to localities that deliver votes to them during elections instead of following the School Improvement Plan that details the problems and needs of the schools in their localities.

Manasan said that, through the years, the SEF has become a significant source of financing for basic education. SEF income, she said, grew from P8.5 billion in 2001 to P15 billion in 2008, or an average of 0.23 % of the gross domestic product from 2001 to 2008.

Unequal distribution

Manasan, however, said that there is unequal distribution of SEF among different levels of local government. "Distribution of SEF income and expenditures favors city school boards relative to provincial and municipal school boards."

SEF collected by city governments go to the city school boards alone. SEF collected by municipalities are shared by the municipalities and the provinces, however.

"Property values are higher in cities which are more urbanized," she added.

Data presented by Manasan showed that, on the average, around 60% of SEF income and expenditures are distributed to the cities, while the remaining portion is shared by the provinces and the municipalities.

The study also showed that that around 40% of the SEF of most LGUs go to maintenance and other operating expenditures (MOOE), which may include payments for salaries of teachers, utility workers, and security guards hired on a job order basis. Around 32% goes to capital outlay or investments on new equipment while 29% goes to personnel salaries.

The study also noted "large allocation" received by sports and other activities despite the passage of Republic Act 9155 or the Basic Education Act of 2001, which has a provision abolishing the Bureau of Physical Education and School Sports and transferring of personnel, programs and activities to sports competition to the Philippine Sports Commission.

Manasan said that there is distrust between local officials and Deped officials because of SEF. Both of them, she said, should provide each other of information about the total amount of SEF collected and how they are going to spend it. - abs-cbnNews.com/Newsbreak

MatudNilaBaby

June 17th, 2010, 04:35 AM

epik ll ian

June 17th, 2010, 05:59 AM

Yeah. She addresses another problem (which does need to be fixed), but that doesn't mean tossing out the K-12 education reform. Part of her solution to the problem does not parallel at all.

Retro

June 17th, 2010, 07:00 AM

'12-year education cycle to cost P100-B'
By Ira Pedrasa, abs-cbnNEWS.com
Posted at 06/17/2010 12:34 PM

MANILA, Philippines - The 12-year education cycle proposed by President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III will cost the Philippine government an additional P100 billion spread out in 5 years, Aquino's education adviser said Thursday.

In an interview with ANC’s Headstart, former Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel “Mike” Luz said the plan will not further strain the already budget-poor education system since the money will come from revenue previously lost to corruption.

“The World Bank said we’re leaking, that’s corruption, about P400 billion a year. If we tighten up on what we’re leaking, we should be able to pay for this. It’s money that is not available, it is money we’re actually wasting,” he said.

Luz, who teaches at the Asian Institute of Management, is now education adviser to Aquino.

He debunked accusations the plan is anti-poor since it will supposedly further put a strain on the pockets of Filipino families.

“If they think it’s anti-poor…I think you should go to the rest of the world and ask them: Does education hurt you? Does education help you? I think the answer is pretty clear,” he said.

"If the rest of the world, which has done much better than the Philippines, has gone to 12-years or more, I don’t understand how we can think we’re smarter," he added.

Aquino, who will sit as 15th president, has promised to add two years to the current 10-year school cycle. In fact, this is first in his ten-point agenda.

Luz said the problem with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s administration is that it focused on building classrooms, hiring teachers and procuring textbooks. “You’re throwing money into the problem,” he said.

Quality solution

He said the problem is really about the quality of the system. He said the Philippines is only one of two nations in the world to have a six-year school cycle in elementary and four in high school.

“We’re not proposing something different, we’re proposing to catch up with the rest of the world. It’s a quality thing,” he said.

By quality, Luz meant not squeezing what one student can learn in only 10 years, instead of 12. The tendency is that the system becomes a smorgasbord of “a little bit of this, a little bit of that,” he said.

What is happening in this present blueprint is that a student actually gets two years of remedial high school in college called general education, he said. “All we’re doing is fixing a problem that we’re tossing to universities to fix,” he added.

He said the issue of children dropping out in school is a completely different problem. If one looks at it however, “why pay for the [remedial classes in the first 2 years of college], when you can get it in high-school [via the 12-year cycle],” Luz stressed.

He cited for example Malaysia, which teaches the subject Calculus to students in high school because they want to prop up their science-engineering industry. In the Philippines, only students at the Philippine Science High School take up the subject, he said.

He noted even the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization admits that the Philippines can’t become an industrial nation. Only 2 of the 100 elementary students actually make it to the science industry, he said.

Slowly but surely

He said the system will not be introduced abruptly. “The 2 [additional] years will be built over a 5-year period,” he said.

The groundwork will start in 2011, he added.

The Aquino administration will also implement the required pre-school classes, which will cost the government an additional budget of P41.5 billion.

Ady001

June 17th, 2010, 07:03 AM

^^ I propose this even if it costs this high.

But of course, remember na dapat kurakot-free to.

nacnuD 2:-)

June 17th, 2010, 07:53 AM

From Legazpi City & Albay Province Thread:

;58708627']'The Albay Education Strategy' :applause:

* * *

Scholars wanted in public and private schools in Albay (http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=584439&publicationSubCategoryId=63)
By Cet Dematera (The Philippine Star) Updated June 15, 2010 12:00 AM

LEGAZPI CITY , Philippines – The provincial government of Albay has expanded its college scholarship grants this year to cover 12,000 students. Several colleges have also opened new campuses and agreed to a later opening of classes. The problem, though, is that there are not enough students to fill up the scholarship slots.

The local government of Albay has allocated P178 million for education programs under the Albay Higher Education Contribution Scheme (AHECS), which targets to produce a college graduate for every family in the province. The scholarship program, the biggest ever implemented by the provincial government, grants full scholarship for vocational and four-year degree courses.

The program is expected to increase college enrollment in the province by 40 percent. Up to now though, only around 6,000 students have availed of the scholarships.

Rosemarie Rey, president of the privately owned Southern Luzon Technological College Foundation Inc., said they opened campuses in remote towns in Albay such as Tiwi, Pioduran and Anislag after parents refused to let their children avail of the scholarship because of transportation and living costs. “Sensing their eagerness to avail of the scholarship but hindered by lack of logistics to attend classes in the town centers, we decided to instead bring our school through our satellite campuses to where our scholars reside,” Rey said.

Rey thanked town officials who assisted them in putting up the satellite campuses. She said the officials of the town of Tiwi lent a big portion of the town market to be converted into a campus. “We are really grateful that our local officials are very supportive of programs like this AHECS scholarship,” she said. But up to now, several private colleges are having difficulty filling up the slots.

In the education forum at the Ateneo de Manila University last week, the educational program of Albay attracted the attention of educators because of its tangible social impact.

Albay is the only province in the country with a Provincial Education Department, also known as Education Quality for Albayanos. The province will sign tomorrow a memorandum of understanding with the Land Bank of the Philippines for a long-term loan of P1 billion for the scholarship program.

The budget of the province’s Special Education Fund, separate from the regular Provincial Education Department budget, also grew from P5 million in 2007 to P18 million in 2010. The fund is used in sports programs in schools as well as building maintenance. The number of college enrollees in the province has grown 15 percent from 34,000 in 2007 to 38,000 this year because of provincial scholarships.

;58769691']Albay, Landbank sign P700m loan for college scholarships (http://joeyssalceda.wordpress.com/)
Posted on June 16, 2010 by TGE Blog Admin

http://joeyssalceda.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/img_0875.jpg

Albay province has signed this morning a P700 million loan package with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) to finance a first–in–the-country education strategy that aims to produce “a college graduate for every family” through an encompassing yet simplified study now-pay later scheme.

Albay Governor Joey Salceda, who authored the program, referred to it as an “Education Driven Development” (see presentation below); a development approach for his province anchored on a vigorous, well-planned, financed and executed college and vocational education, a system that practically invites more scholars, ups enrollment and produce more graduates.

Salceda signed the loan agreement with LBP President and Chief Executive Officer Gilda Pico at 10 am this morning, June 16 in the presence of LBP ranking officers and Albay Provincial officials, among them, members of the provincial board and members of the media at Land Bank main office in Malate, Manila.

The loan will be used to finance government scholars in the tertiary level, under the Albay Higher Education Contribution Scheme (AHECS), enrolled at the Bicol University and other community colleges in Albay which, this year alone will pay for over 12,000 college freshmen until they graduate. This is estimated to trigger a growth in college enrolment in Albay by 40%.

“I would have placed this amount in infrastructures. But I believe diplomas give better economic returns than roads and bridges,” Salceda said.

“A well-educated constituency has a lot of social payback and economic benefits. It expands their labor mobility. They will seek better jobs. The difference in economic return between an elementary graduate and a secondary graduate is about 7%. But the differential between a college graduate and a high school graduate is about 21%. With diplomas, they can seek jobs elsewhere and not cramp the limited jobs market of Albay. Diplomas are like visas”, he added.

Salceda further stated that at a certain stage, Albay will gain the reputation as the natural source of well-educated labor force. The availability of trainable workforce will serve as a come-on for investors.

Considered a first of its kind in the country, Albay’s education program in all levels, has lately been gaining grounds, among others, raising students’ learning standard as was proven in the 2009 National Achievement Test (NAT) where the province garnered the 106th place out of 202 divisions, a distant leaped of 69 places from a poor 175th in 2007.

Salceda said the province’s present goal is to get to the top 40 schools in NAT within the next three years, and the top 10 within the next six years; there is no room for complacency, simply no space for mediocrity. The education agenda, though, is backed up by a portfolio of interventions, among others, an institutional capacity-building program.

Albay is presently the only province in the country with a Provincial Education Department (PED) – best known earlier as Education Quality for Albayanos (EQUAL) – created by an ordinance, with plantilla staff approved by the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Budget and Management, overseen by a special advisory group – the Albay Council of Educators.

Salceda said Albay has committed over 17% of its annual budget now to education subsidy, under the PED, specifically EQUAL, which this year costs over P178 million – now the biggest item in its expenditure.

Click here to view and download the presentation (http://go2.wordpress.com/?id=725X1342&site=joeyssalceda.wordpress.com&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjoeyssalceda.files.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F06%2Feducation_june-16-landbank.pdf&sref=http%3A%2F%2Fjoeyssalceda.wordpress.com%2F)
http://joeyssalceda.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/education_landbank.jpg

The province’s Special Education Fund (SEF), separated from the regular PED budget, which is used in, among others, sports program and maintenance of schools and classrooms in schools divisions, grew from only about P5 million in 2007 to P18 million in 2010, according to Salceda.

“Albay’s education program is producing the social impact; the number of college population has grown by 15% in three years from 34,000 to 38,000 due to provincial scholarships; and college graduates grew by 31% per year from 6,300 to 8,300, more or less,” Salceda concluded.

Ady001

June 18th, 2010, 02:19 AM

^^ The Bicol Region is beginning to be a role model to all regions. At first CamSur was just one of the province, but 'lo and behold, grabe ang explosion of development.

Ady001

June 18th, 2010, 05:26 AM

Wanted: A President who invests in education
By Jobers Bersales
Cebu Daily News First Posted 12:06:00 06/17/2010 Filed Under: Education, Governance

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/opinion/view/20100617-276077/Wanted-A-President-who-invests-in-education

Days before the elections, a group of university presidents from Catholic educational institutions came out with a half-page advertisement in the national dailies to give unsolicited advice to whoever would win the presidential elections.

It has fallen upon the lap of President-elect Noynoy Aquino to address the issues that have long hounded higher education in this country, the very same issues raised by the heads of the University of San Carlos, University of San Jose-Recoletos in Cebu and the Ateneo de Manila University, University of St. Tomas and De La Salle University in Manila, among others.

One of the most immediate issues that Noynoy needs to respond to is the basic question of why there are no subsidies for private higher education when a large number of the workforce now toiling in call centers, for example, were produced by these same institutions. This large labor force is now actively participating in the economy and paying income taxes even when the State never spent a single centavo for their education. And as the costs of quality education rise, so does the need to find ways to stop tuition increases that are always borne by the parents and not the State.

In a country where the overwhelming majority of higher educational institutions are in the private sector, it is time for the incoming president to face this discrepancy squarely inasmuch as he, too, is a product of a private sectarian institution. This dismal state of higher education is concretized by the dismal performance of the country’s academicians in terms of the production of new knowledge. We rank lowest among our ASEAN neighbors in the publication of current-content scientific papers and articles in international natural and social science journals–despite the fact that we are supposed to have better command of the English language, the lingua franca of scholars worldwide.

If this trend is not reversed soon, we will end up aping all the new trends, scientific developments, inventions and overall technological finesse introduced by our neighboring countries like Thailand, Malaysia, and even Indonesia. Gone are the days when Filipinos used to be the main Asian professors of repute in institutions abroad as Thais, Malays, Singaporeans, Chinese and Indians are now lording it over in U.S. and European universities–despite the obvious difference in the way they speak English.

True, the problem lies with the fact that of all the countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippines has a lopsided higher education system in favor of private institutions. One only needs to look at performance in licensure examinations to note that only the University of the Philippines seems to be the only state university that consistently produces topnotchers– and it stands way, way above all the other myriad number of state universities in the country, many of them barely able to compete in such exams much less in the marketplace of ideas.

There is some kind of silver lining, though. The country produces a large body of scientific papers in the area of agriculture and agricultural engineering, with state universities like UP Los Baños, Leyte State University, and Central Luzon State University leading the pack of internationally-recognized research work. Here we can stand on our own and boast proudly of some notable achievements.

Still, without offending the sensibilities of scholars and scientists in agriculture (especially rice and sweet potato research as well as carabao cloning), the world tends to skip a heartbeat when new knowledge or some kind of invention is obtained by an engineer (especially mechanical engineering and information technology), a physicist (especially materials research and energy conservation) and chemistry (especially in biomedicine) and in pharmacy (in the production of new drugs from existing indigenous knowledge or ethnopharmacology).

It bodes well if the incoming President will look into the plight of higher education or more correctly, private higher educational institutions, which are once again poised for another round of tuition increases. Some subsidy from the State, both in the form of student tuition support as well as in providing grants for state-of-the-art research and facilities will help them keep up with our neighbors. It’s this, or we will just be content with great heroes in sports like boxing, while the best and brightest of this nation are wasted in 24-unit teaching loads, doling out knowledge from foreign textbooks, for the rest of their lives.

Ady001

June 18th, 2010, 05:28 AM

Old but something to ponder:

UN: RP trails Tanzania, Zambia in education

By Philip Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:48:00 01/20/2010

MANILA, Philippines—The United Nations has warned that the Philippines is in danger of leaving the poor behind when it comes to their education.

Noting an “absence of decisive political leadership,” a major UN report on education on Tuesday said the Philippines was in “real danger” of missing its target of providing universal primary education by 2015.

The 2010 Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report, which was launched by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at UN headquarters in New York cited the Philippines as a “particularly striking example of under-performance” in educational reforms as its current polices were failing to make a difference in improving the education of the poorest Filipinos.

“Education indicators for the Philippines are below what might be expected for a country of its income level … With an average income four times that of [African countries] Tanzania and Zambia, it has a lower net enrollment ratio,” the report said.

“The unfavorable comparison does not end there. Whereas Tanzania and Zambia have steadily increasing net enrollment ratios, the Philippines has stagnated,” it said.

RP could miss its goal

“Given the country’s starting point in 1999, achieving universal primary education by 2015 should have been a formality. There is now a real danger that, in the absence of decisive political leadership, the country will miss the goal,” the report added.

The Global Monitoring Report (GMR) is produced annually by an independent team of UN experts and is published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The report assesses the global progress towards the six EFA goals to which over 160 countries committed themselves in 2000.

These goals include expanding early childhood care and education, providing free and compulsory primary education for all, providing learning and life skills to young people and adults, increasing adult literacy by 50 percent, achieving gender equality by 2015, and improving the quality of education.

In the portion “The Philippines—leaving the marginalized behind,” the 2010 report said “extreme poverty and regional disparities were at the heart” of the mismatch between the Philippines’ income level and its poor educational outcomes.

It noted that, in 2007, the number of out-of-school youth aged 6 to 11 “broke through” the one-million mark and “there were over 100,000 more children out of school then than in 1999.” It added that around one-quarter of those entering school drop out before Grade 5.

Deeply marginalized

“The net enrollment ratio was 92 percent in 2007, which is comparable with countries at far lower levels of average income, such as Zambia, and below the levels attained by other countries in the (East Asia) region, such as Indonesia,” the GMR said.

“Why have countries that were so close to universal net enrollment at the end of the 1990s failed to go the extra mile? One factor is the difficulty in extending opportunities to certain regions and parts of society,” it added.

The report said that this happened to countries like the Philippines and Turkey that faced “problems of deeply entrenched marginalization.”

“In the Philippines, marginalization is strongly associated with poverty and location, with the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and some outlying islands falling far behind,” the GMR said.

Low investment

“It is evident in the cases of the Philippines and Turkey that current policies are not breaking down inherited disadvantage. One contributory factor is the low share of national income invested in education,” it added.

The report noted that the gap separating the poorest 20 percent of Filipinos from the rest of society was “far wider than in most countries in the region.”

“Those aged 17 to 22 in the poorest quintile average about seven years of education—more than four years fewer than in the wealthiest 20 percent. Data on school attendance provide evidence that current policies are not reaching the poorest,” the GMR said.
“Around six percent of 7- to 16-year-olds from the poorest households are reported as not attending school or to have ever attended. Extreme economic inequalities fuel education inequalities, notably by pushing many children out of school and into employment,” it added.

Deep fault lines

The report said regional data also reveal “deep fault lines” in educational opportunities within the country.

“Nationally, about six percent of those aged 17 to 22 have fewer than four years of education. In the best-performing regions—Ilocos and the National Capital Region—the share falls to one percent to two percent. At the other extreme, in the ARMM and Zamboanga Peninsula over 10 percent fall below this threshold,” the GMR said.

“The disparities are driven by a wide array of factors. The impact of high levels of poverty is exacerbated by conflict in Mindanao, and by the remoteness and wider disadvantage experienced by indigenous people in the Eastern Visayas and Zamboanga,” it added.

The sound of howitzers

To give a “human face” to the conflict in Central Mindanao and its ill effects on education in the region, the report included the story of 13-year-old Muhammed, a refugee living in a tent on the grounds of Datu Gumbay Piang Elementary School in Maguindanao.

“Most of the children come to class to escape the dismal living conditions in their tents. But there is no immediate escape from the destruction and violence they have witnessed,” the report said.

“When the children are in class, they are either lethargic or very nervous because [evacuees] often hear howitzers being fired not far from [them],” it added.

Quoting an evacuee who works in the school, the report said: “‘Students are often absent because they spend hours lining up for rations and water at the pump or because they’re sick.”

Shortages

Given these problems, the GMR said Filipino authorities faced “difficult policy choices if the Philippines is to achieve universal primary education by 2015.”

“Far more weight has to be attached to reaching marginalized populations and providing them with good quality education. Social protection and conditional cash transfer programs, such as those in Brazil and Mexico, could play a vital role in combating child labor and extending educational opportunities to the poor,” the GMR said.

The report added that another urgent priority was the use of local language when it comes to teaching in indigenous areas.

“The diversity of the challenges sets limits to what the central government can do. Regional and sub-regional authorities need to develop and implement policies that respond to local needs. However, the central government could do more to create an enabling environment,” the GMR said.

“The education system suffers from chronic shortages of teachers and classrooms, rising class sizes and low levels of learning achievement. Addressing these problems will require an increase in the 2.1 percent share of national income directed towards education in 2005—one of the lowest levels in the world,” it added.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100120-248349/UN-RP-trails-Tanzania-Zambia-in-education

bakasaurus

June 18th, 2010, 06:25 AM

Nice article find there Ady.

This is a very loud wake up call indeed. As I have said, there is no notable improvement in our educational system at all since the 80s.

There is one very obvious cause. Our %GDP budget for education remains at 2 to 3 %. That is around half or less than half of what our neighboring ASEAN countries allocated for their education. And nope, it's not an issue of our being poor because we are talking about a RATIO value here, not actual figures. It just says that we invest less in our education than our neighbors.

Noy! If you don't do something for our education, we will never progress further into developed country status. We would remain a market for other countries' technologies, and work in call centers and BPOs.

IT BOTHERS ME WHY NO PRESIDENT OF THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER HAD ALLOTED MORE THAN 5% of GDP for EDUCATION WHEN THERE IS NO GAMBLE INVOLVED HERE! THERE IS NO INVESTMENT RISK IN EDUCATION.

Ady001

June 18th, 2010, 06:27 AM

^^ It all starts with Education talaga. I must admit I may not have the best education and I may not have been molded by the best institutions, but I could do my share in the future to make our system better.

Sayang ang Pilipinas kung hindi pa 'to mapapalawig.

Ady001

June 18th, 2010, 06:44 AM

Add ko 'to. It's the TIMSS Advanced 2008 Report:

http://timss.bc.edu/timss_advanced/ir.html

the glimpser

June 21st, 2010, 02:27 PM

BI sees 20% rise in foreign students

By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:05:00 06/21/2010

MANILA, Philippines—For many Koreans, Chinese and Iranians, going to school in the Philippines is cool, especially those who are eager to learn how to speak English.

The Bureau of Immigration (BI) reported on Sunday a 20-percent increase in the number of foreigners who were issued study visas for the school year 2010-11.

In a report to Immigration Commissioner Marcelino Libanan, BI student desk head Teodulo Estrada said that as of June 15, a total of 6,416 foreign students had been issued student visas for this year’s first semester, compared to the 5,343 last year.

Of these foreign students, 1,871 were newcomers, while 4,545 were already studying here in previous semesters.

Estrada said the figures were likely to go up. He said “hundreds” of foreign students’ visa applications were still being processed in Metro Manila and other field offices.

There was still no breakdown, but in 2009, the BI recorded 10,934 foreign students. South Koreans topped the list with 2,812, followed by Chinese (1,904) and Iranians (1,870).

Rounding up the top 10 are students from India (553), Indonesia (526), United States (507), Sudan (234), Taiwan (227), Burma/Myanmar (207) and Vietnam (140).

Aside from the BI main office, there has been a steady increase in student visa applications filed with the bureau’s field offices in key cities such as Cebu, Baguio, Davao, Angeles and Iloilo.

Estrada added that language schools in the country had the most number of foreign students, followed by the different state universities and colleges, mostly in Cebu and Baguio.

English, dentistry

South Koreans are usually attracted to the English language schools while many Iranians enroll in dentistry courses.

One Iranian student who initially took up dentistry in one of the schools in Manila’s “University Belt” is Amireza Jafari Tehrani, 21. He shifted to an engineering course this semester, saying he was better in math.

“Many of our dentists back home are Filipinos and they are good, so many of my fellow Iranians come here to study dentistry,” he said in a phone interview.

He explained that Iranian youth liked to study in the Philippines, as well as in Thailand, because tuition was cheap.

“But more go to Philippines because they also want to be hone their English speaking skills,” he added.

RP as education hub?

Since the enrolment period, foreign students have been swarming at the ground floor lobby of the BI main office in Intramuros to apply for visas, prompting Libanan to deploy additional personnel.

According to Estrada, the surge in student visa applications is a positive development in the country’s efforts to become an educational hub in the Asia-Pacific region.

“We will continue to look for ways to liberalize our rules on student visas so that more foreigners will be encouraged to study here,” he said.

The BI recently entered into an agreement with East Timor to encourage Timorese students to study in the Philippines.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100621-276735/BI-sees-20-rise-in-foreign-students

MatudNilaBaby

June 21st, 2010, 02:39 PM

xxxriainxxx

June 21st, 2010, 02:58 PM

we also need to improve the teaching of the english in our country. even though it is medium of instruction through out the basic education but very few can master the proper way of communicating in english.

its embarrassing to note that our leaders boast of the philippines as the 3rd largest english speaking nation in the world if our transcripts of records is not even accepted as at par with the us, canada, uk and australia, the real english speaking countries in the world.

May point ka dyan. Pero hindi naman all the time..^^

MatudNilaBaby

June 21st, 2010, 05:24 PM

May point ka dyan. Pero hindi naman all the time..^^

until we adopt a k-12 curriculum and strengthen our english language program we will never be at par with g-7 countries, and thats probably why we're lagging behind on everything.

xxxriainxxx

June 21st, 2010, 05:52 PM

until we adopt a k-12 curriculum and strengthen our english language program we will never be at par with g-7 countries, and thats probably why we're lagging behind on everything.

G7 is a long stretch, maski man lang sana yung Scandinavian countries, or even closer to home- like Thailand and Singapore, yung mga Indonesian Uni nga mas mataas pa ang ranking sa UP, ADMU, DLSU.

MatudNilaBaby

June 21st, 2010, 06:23 PM

G7 is a long stretch, maski man lang sana yung Scandinavian countries, or even closer to home- like Thailand and Singapore, yung mga Indonesian Uni nga mas mataas pa ang ranking sa UP, ADMU, DLSU.

i tend not to compare the philippines with a fellow 3rd world country cuz we dont raise our level of competence or standards if we look at what they are doing. if thailand and singapore are progressing ahead of other asean countries its because they are adapting g-7 economic, business, government and educational strategies.

xxxriainxxx

June 21st, 2010, 06:29 PM

i tend not to compare the philippines with a fellow 3rd world country cuz we dont raise our level of competence or standards if we look at what they are doing. if thailand and singapore are progressing ahead of other asean countries its because they are adapting g-7 economic, business, government and educational strategies.

well true, we just really need to spend a lot on education and teacher training.

MatudNilaBaby

June 21st, 2010, 06:37 PM

well true, we just really need to spend a lot on education and teacher training.

... and family planning maybe! that's where the scandinavians can teach us a lesson that even if not all of them adapted the k-12 curriculum but because their population is relatively small, their governments can spend more on the quality of education they can provide.

Ady001

June 22nd, 2010, 02:15 AM

G7 is a long stretch, maski man lang sana yung Scandinavian countries, or even closer to home- like Thailand and Singapore, yung mga Indonesian Uni nga mas mataas pa ang ranking sa UP, ADMU, DLSU.

Powtek talaga. Tagilid yung TIMSS report natin. Grabe. 350 as opposed to Singapore at 600?! No wonder we have to beef up our teachers. Dapat na din sigurong mag-hire tayo nung mga kumukuha ng Applied Math at Mathematics subjects and science subjects para magturo ng high school.

MatudNilaBaby

June 22nd, 2010, 06:59 AM

Powtek talaga. Tagilid yung TIMSS report natin. Grabe. 350 as opposed to Singapore at 600?! No wonder we have to beef up our teachers. Dapat na din sigurong mag-hire tayo nung mga kumukuha ng Applied Math at Mathematics subjects and science subjects para magturo ng high school.

that the same style her in california, anyone with a bachelor degree can qualify to become teachers after getting the 5th year education training. there is no teacher's college in california only on the undergraduate level. they dont grant a bsed or bseed degree.

xxxriainxxx

June 22nd, 2010, 11:31 AM

... and family planning maybe! that's where the scandinavians can teach us a lesson that even if not all of them adapted the k-12 curriculum but because their population is relatively small, their governments can spend more on the quality of education they can provide.

hehehe dapat talaga mangkapon na tayo para hindi dumami ang mga kulang kulang. Kulang kulang na nga ang education natin, by Jun 30 kulang kulang pa leader natin. XD Peace! hhehe

Powtek talaga. Tagilid yung TIMSS report natin. Grabe. 350 as opposed to Singapore at 600?! No wonder we have to beef up our teachers. Dapat na din sigurong mag-hire tayo nung mga kumukuha ng Applied Math at Mathematics subjects and science subjects para magturo ng high school.

Sagana naman daw tayo sa singers eh. Tignan mo yung Proudly Pinoy Thread.:lol::lol::lol:

Yung mga nanay imbes na pag-aralin ang anak, kinakaladkad sa mga casting, pati apartment ko dati napagkamalang casting agency. Wrong priorities.

Agree ako dyan, yung mga nag-aApplied Math and Math na students pwede na din yan magturo sa elementary or high school. Ituro din pati Science. Hirap kasi sa atin ang liit ng sahod ng titser.

Ady001

June 22nd, 2010, 11:36 AM

xxxriainxxx

June 22nd, 2010, 11:39 AM

^^ I just read the TIMSS articles. Grabe. Nakakapanghinayang ng loob. I also read the Advanced TIMSS report where it pitted the country against Russia, Sweden Armenia, and bleh... we ended in the bottom.

Maganda kasing at least may patutunguhan yung ibang kumukuha. I was schooled in the Public school system and believe me, talamak talaga ang lack of classrooms, lot of really abled teachers, and the verve of learning. Dapat mawala na talaga ang sistema ng pangongopya sa ating lipunan.

I'm guilty I did it. Sinong hindi :D :D

Public school din ako, pero bihira ako mangopya- kasi masyadong competitive yung mga kaklase ko. Nung sa UP na ako, siguro mga 3 times lang ako nangopya - later on, I gave up, kasi mas magaling pa ako sa kinokopyahan ko, tuloy bumababa ang scores ko.:lol::lol::lol: toinks. ayon nakapasa din sa awa ng professor ko. :D

Ady001

June 22nd, 2010, 11:41 AM

xxxriainxxx

June 22nd, 2010, 11:43 AM

^^ Bakit kaya mostly sa university fini-fix yung estudyante ano? In other nations, especially Japan, wala na yung pressure pag college ka na because you have some of the tools you need, bakit nangyayari 'to dito? Dapat siguro mangalampag din ang CHED sa DepEd at mangalampag ang DepEd sa gobyerno.

I have to admit, yung mga elementary natin and high schools kulang na kulang talaga sa de kalidad na teachers. May mga teachers na nga kaming pinagtatawanan dati kasi talagang mali mali ang turo.

Retro

June 22nd, 2010, 11:49 AM

DepEd warns students, business owners

By INA HERNANDO-MALIPOT
June 22, 2010, 2:10pm - Manila Bulletin Online

The Department of Education (DepEd) has announced a directive that prohibits students in both public and private elementary and secondary schools from going to computer shops, malls, theaters and other leisure establishments during class hours.

According to Education Secretary Mona Valisno, going to these establishments has adverse effects on the students. “We are aware of the prevailing situation that there are students in the elementary and secondary levels who go to computer shops, malls, theaters, and the likes during their class hours while in their school uniforms,” she said.

Thus, the Department issued Order No. 86, series 2010 on June 18 which directs all school officials and employees concerned to institute and implement the necessary mechanism on the school discipline applicable under the said situation.

“They should monitor closely those students who are absent or cut class often,” said Valisno.

When it comes to the school discipline to be imposed, Valisno explained that this should primarily focus on guidance counseling of the students involved. “The principals or the teachers should have a dialogue with the parents of the students or even with their guardians to address the problem,” added Valisno.

Valisno also urged school officials and teachers to provide their students with worthwhile and productive activities, such as debates, and drama plays and theatrical programs.

“These activities, particularly those that can enhance creative and communicative skills, can be done during the free time of the students in school,” she said.

“We also suggest that the school officials and teachers concerned communicate and coordinate with their respective local government officials,” Valisno added. Through this, Valisno said that both parties could work on a possible implementation of the appropriate legislation to remedy such problem.

“These legislations may be in the form of regulating the proximity of computer shops, malls, theaters and the likes to schools,” she said.

The said directive may also be sent to the owners of the said establishments and instruct them not to allow entry of students during their class hours.

“The local government units (LGUs) can ask the business owners to check first the class schedules of students trying to enter the establishment,” she said.

According to Valisno, schools should provide their students with copies of their respective class schedules.

Reports to DepEd reveal that many students cut their classes and troop to computer shops to play online games and visit various social networking sites, such as Friendster and Facebook. Some even sneak to browse through pornographic sites.

To address this, DepEd will also be deploying monitoring teams in Internet shops to go against class-cutting pupils.

“We already ordered a tighter watch on Internet cafés, particularly those within school zones, during class hours,” Valisno explained.

Valisno admitted that since DepEd cannot solve this problem alone, cooperation between school officials, LGUs, and parents is a must.

“We appeal to owners of Internet cafés not to allow students, especially those still in their uniforms, in their establishments during class hours,” she said.

In Makati, the local government has already warned owners of computer shops of possible closure if they will not comply with the DepEd order and city ordinance.

For Maribeth Cortes, parent to first year high school student Vince, such an action by the local government is very important since parents like her cannot monitor the activities of their children whenever they are in school.

“I think the construction of computer shops should not even be allowed near school premises because these only tempt students to go there instead of attending their classes,” she explained in Filipino.

Valisno said that school officials and teachers should also be responsible in monitoring the activities of their students. “They should always remind their students not to go to these computer shops during class hours and call the attention of the parents of the child if the he or she cuts class very often,” she ended.

RonnieR

June 22nd, 2010, 11:49 AM

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/2197/metphotohirese.jpg
Students of Ramon Magsaysay Elementary School try out whistles given to them by the Quezon City Police District yesterday. The National Capital Region Police Office has launched a campaign to distribute whistles to students, who are encouraged to use them to catch the attention of roving police officers or barangay watchmen whenever they believe they are in danger or see a crime being committed. BOY SANTOS
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=586581&publicationSubCategoryId=65

xxxriainxxx

June 22nd, 2010, 11:50 AM

Ady001

June 22nd, 2010, 11:50 AM

^^ Siguro at some point in time, yeah we had teachers talaga na tagilid sometimes magturo. Di ko naman nilalahat pero we have to re-train and re-assess some of them to meet the ever increasing pressures in the world. In the article I read in TIMSS, there's quite a number of Filipino math and science teachers who are not confident or even prepared to teach the subjects. Sure there are many factors why this is happening and may not always be on the capability always of the teacher but it is somewhat alarming.

Ady001

June 22nd, 2010, 11:55 AM

MatudNilaBaby

June 22nd, 2010, 12:07 PM

At one time in my high school life, we learned analytical geometry sometime in 4th year pero Trigonometry, hahahay... wala...

Yung mga Rizal subjects dapat tanggalin sa main subjects in college. Would you use Rizal in real life situations? Bagay pa siya in high school or as a subject in Filipino in college but a whole subject for him dedicated in college? I don't think so.

Dapat talaga nating i-reassess din yung mga tinuturo sa bata these days especially in high school. OK ang smatterings of sex ed sa Science at an early age, but we also have to correct certain topics that are taught and we need to bring a more pragmatic sense of teaching.

my Pilipino and Rizal credits were taken out from my transcripts as non credit classes when i had it evaluated para makapasuk ako sa graduate school dito. being a bisaya the pilipino and rizal subjects are not very helpful subjects for me. maybe they can make it as electives in favor of english and the regional languages.

pulsephaze22

June 22nd, 2010, 03:06 PM

bakasaurus

June 22nd, 2010, 06:15 PM

MatudNilaBaby

June 22nd, 2010, 06:35 PM

Bai I think you got it the other way around. Most of literature will tell you that a decreasing/stabilizing population is almost always correlated with and due to increasing educational attainment. In particular, the educational attainment of females/women.

So it is far more logical to invest in education in order to also solve the problem of overpopulation.

So, here goes my cry again: INVEST MORE IN EDUCATION!

(And solve a couple of problems while we're at it.)

i think rainxxxx mentioned that already. im just adding what more can be done. when it comes to investing more in education im a great advocate of the k-12 curriculum. that alone levels the playing field and we can no longer be looked down having a k-10 education only. thats a step in the right direction if noy2x implements it.

bakasaurus

June 22nd, 2010, 09:12 PM

i think rainxxxx mentioned that already. im just adding what more can be done. when it comes to investing more in education im a great advocate of the k-12 curriculum. that alone levels the playing field and we can no longer be looked down having a k-10 education only. thats a step in the right direction if noy2x implements it.

Huh? What did xxriainxx mention that I repeated? We aren't arguing in the same plane here bai..

And I am just commenting on your suggestion about us emulating the Scandinavian example because of their low population. Go on reread my post kay wala ta nagtagbo.

MatudNilaBaby

June 22nd, 2010, 10:00 PM

Huh? What did xxriainxx mention that I repeated? We aren't arguing in the same plane here bai..

And I am just commenting on your suggestion about us emulating the Scandinavian example because of their low population. Go on reread my post kay wala ta nagtagbo.

the scandinavian model was suggested by somebody else before but i was not advocating for their system of education. they have much lesser number of years in their basic education training but their population is so small that their governments can invest more on education.

xxriainxxx suggested to invest more on education by increasing the budget

Retro

June 23rd, 2010, 08:37 AM

Use school vouchers TO MITIGATE SHORTAGES

Editorial - Wednesday, 23 June 2010
The Manila Times.Net

AMONG the accomplishments of the outgoing administration is the doubling of the budget for education.

When President Gloria M. Arroyo took office in 2001, the budget for state colleges, the Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) was only P90 billion. This year the budget for these educational agencies is P180 billion.

Up to February 2010, according to the President herself, the government, since 2001, has built 100,000 school buildings, hired 60,000 teachers, and increased their monthly salary from P9, 000 to P14,000 a month. It has also allocated P1.5 billion for teacher’s training in English proficiency. She said that mainly because of improvements in the educational system, our students’ test scores in the last four years have risen from 44 percent to 65 percent in elementary schools and 36 percent to 47 percent in secondary schools. The conditional cash transfer program and other programs of the DepEd and the Department of Social Welfare and Development have raised school participation rates impressively.

The President herself, however, also says that very much more must be done for us, basic education-wise, to reach the level of the best countries.

Shortages of education resources
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) has been consistently critical of the Arroyo Administration.
When the new schoolyear was about to open, ACT’s national chairman said in a statement that President Arroyo will leave a huge problem of shortages in education resources to her successor.

ACT chair Antonio Tinio’s statement said the Arroyo administration after nine years in office has utterly failed to eliminate shortages of teachers, classrooms, textbooks, sinks and toilets and other critical resources in our public schools.

Tinio said that school year 2010 to 2011 suffers a shortage of 54,060 teachers, 4,538 principals, and 6,473 head teachers; 61,343 classrooms, 816,291 seats, and 113,051 water and sanitation facilities. The DepEd will also need an additional P400 million to address the textbook shortage. So that the total amount DepEd will need to cover “all of these resource gaps” is P91.54 billion.

He acknowledged that the administration has been hiring 10,000 teachers and constructing some 3,000 classrooms annually. “However, these efforts are not enough compared to the sheer size of our enrolment. As a result, public school education in the Arroyo years is characterized by oversized classes with 60 or more students, contributing to a further decline in the quality of education,” Tinio said. We have in fact observed that in some schools there are classes with as much as 80 pupils.

We agree with ACT that President-elect Noynoy Aquino should include eliminating these shortages among his priorities.

But our solution is not to saddle the DepEd with accelerated hiring and classroom- and toilet-building programs.

Our suggestion is to do something quick to decongest our public schools and offer some of the children a much better school environment, better textbooks and perhaps better-managed schools—in the private sector.

We recommend the expansion of the Education Voucher System, which is already one of the DepEd’s relatively successful programs.

DepEd’s school voucher system

First, what are education or school vouchers?

Many countries use the school voucher system to solve problems like ours—solving congestion and shortages and helping poor children get a better education than what they could get in the free public school.

But in the United States the school voucher has also been used to address the problem of tax-payer parents unhappy with the quality of the education and the moral social upbringing their children get in government-run schools.

These parents have a valid complaint. Their taxes support the public schools which give their children a kind of education and a school experience that violate their sense of excellence, or notion of morality, or their religious faith. It is only just and fair for them to get back the money they pay to the government (as part of their taxes) for the education of their children. They can then use that money to buy the education and school atmosphere they prefer in a private school.

Most of the time, in America, the parents have to add to the voucher amount to finance the entire cost of their children’s private school enrolment. Still, that’s a lot better than paying for the whole tuition while at the same time paying a large sum to support government schools their children are not using.

DepEd’s GASTPE program
The DepEd’s Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) already serves to decongest our high schools by supporting poor but deserving students to enroll in private high schools. This is carried out through the Education Voucher System and Education Service Contracting.

The voucher is for tuition fee subsidies of P10,000 for those in the National Capital Region (NCR) and P5,000 for those outside NCR. The money is paid directly to the private school.

The government spends some P4 billion to subsidize 700,000 beneficiaries.

Instead of spending P91.4 billion in building new classrooms, hiring more teachers and principals for our public schools, why not spend a goodly part of this money for vouchers for more student beneficiaries. At P4 billion for 700,000 beneficiaries, P40 billion will fund seven million students’ transfer to private schools.
This means removing almost 1/3 of the 24 million public school population. Which in turn means the existing public-school facilities, teachers and principals will more or less suffice for the remaining 16 to 17 million pupils left in the public schools.

This method would also remove the corruption that we are sure attends the classroom-building program.

This school voucher system could even be combined with a program to attract the participation of domestic and foreign philanthropic individuals and institutions.

RonnieR

June 24th, 2010, 04:16 AM

Sex-obsessed

Editorial Desk
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Publication Date: 24-06-2010

The ongoing controversy over sex education in the Philippine school curriculum reminds Filipinos of that old joke about a man taking a Rorschach inkblot test. Asked to describe what he saw in a given inkblot, the man would always say the same thing: a naked woman. At the end of the test, the psychologist shook his head and said, I’m afraid you are sex-obsessed. To which the man indignantly answered: But who’s been showing me the dirty pictures?!

We do not mean to make light of serious objections to the department of education’s memorandum No. 26, which allows the use of the teaching modules on sex education for students at least nine years old. But we do mean to expose to ridicule the extreme position of the likes of ex-senatorial candidate Jo Imbong, who together with several others filed a petition before the Quezon City Regional Trial Court seeking to restrain the DepEd from implementing the memorandum. The petition includes the following passage, which reveals the lack of reasonableness, the breathtaking bad faith, of their position: “For being baseless, DepEd Memo 261 is unreasonable and arbitrary unless DepEd is candid enough to admit that its real agenda is to transform the sex behavior of our kids towards being sex-obsessed.”

What possible motive would drive the officials and staff of the DepEd, many of whom are parents or even grandparents too, like Imbong and her co-petitioners, “to transform the sex behavior of our kids” into sex obsession? To impute such unreasonable, indeed immoral, conduct to the country’s education officials, all the while assuming a monopoly on public interest and good intention, is not only outrageous; it is unchristian.

Imbong had earlier called the sex education modules unconstitutional. (Her basis is Article II, Section 12, which provides that “The natural and primary right and duty of parents in the rearing of the youth for civic efficiency and the development of moral character shall receive the support of the government.”) This assertion is echoed in the petition. The petitioners argue that sex education in the curriculum deprives the students’ parents of their right to rear the youth and develop their moral character. But there is nothing in the memorandum, or indeed in the practice of the DepEd, which has pilot-tested the modules in the last three years, to suggest that parents have lost their right to inculcate values in their children. Indeed, the new initiative can be understood precisely as the government support envisioned in that provision.

What does Memorandum No. 26 say anyway? It provides for the integration of “reproductive health concerns” into the already existing Population Education (PopEd) programme for elementary and secondary school students, through a new initiative called 'Institutionalising Adolescent Reproductive Health through Lifeskills-based Education'.

Why is there a need for such integration? “Despite the institutionalisation of PopEd programme in the DepEd and the issuance of AO-34, young people continue to experience future and life threatening conditions ...” (and the memorandum specifies RH problems and increasing rates of early unprotected sex). Faced with this reality, what should the education department do? “The critical role of education in addressing these conditions and in developing capacities of young people to decide on positive life choices has been recognized. Several studies made in other countries proved that lifeskills-based education of young people helped improved [sic] their knowledge and minimized engagement in risky sexual behaviour specifically those related to early unprotected sex, early pregnancies, and STIs/HIV/AIDS.”

In other words, the age-appropriate, pilot-tested, teacher-prepared modules are meant to help students minimise or even avoid sexual engagement before the proper time, and to minimise the consequences of premature sexual activity. To Imbong and others who take the extreme position, however, it is sex education itself that will lead to or increase risky sexual behaviour. But there is no science to back them up. That is why they have taken to dropping dark hints about the DepEd’s “real agenda".
http://www.asianewsnet.net/news.php?id=12707&sec=3

Retro

June 24th, 2010, 05:32 AM

^^ Ano ba yan ang lakas talaga ng simbahan. Yun bagong DepEd secretary galing na naman sa hanay nila. Siguradong back-burner ulit yun sex-education sa ating bansa :ohno:

DLSU president accepts DepEd post under Aquino admin
ANDREO C. CALONZO, GMANews.TV
06/23/2010 | 09:49 PM

Bro. Armin Luistro, the president of De La Salle University (DLSU) in Manila, has accepted President-elect Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III’s offer to become the Education secretary under his administration.

“After due consultation with various stakeholders in the Lasallian community, Bro. Armin Luistro has accepted the invitation of President-elect Aquino to be the Department of Education (DepEd) secretary," the DLSU statement released Wednesday night read.

In accepting Aquino’s offer, Luistro — a member of the De La Salle Brothers in the Philippines — became the sixth member of Aquino’s official family.

Others who have accepted posts in the Aquino administration were lawyer Paquito "Jojo" Ochoa Jr. (executive secretary), lawyer Edwin Lacierda (presidential spokesperson), Corazon "Dinky" Soliman (Social Welfare and Development chief), and Teresita "Ding" Deles (presidential peace adviser).

Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chairperson Leila de Lima has already admitted that she would be part of Aquino’s Cabinet but refused to say what position. Reports said she would be the next Justice secretary.

Ties with Aquino’s family

Luistro, along with other De La Salle Brothers, has close ties with the Aquino family especially to Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon “Cory" Aquino. He even delivered a homily entitled “Cory, the Heart of a Saint" during her wake in the La Salle Greenhills Gymnasium in Mandaluyong City last August.

In accepting the DepEd post, Luistro will be replaced as DLSU president through a selection process to be done by the university’s board of trustees, according to the statement.

“While Bro. Armin recognizes the challenges that this transition will pose, he is confident that the tradition of excellence and resilience so deeply embedded in the community will give rise to a stronger University, ever more committed to both Church and nation," the statement said.

Luistro studied from elementary to high school in De La Salle in Lipa City in Batangas, before taking up an undergraduate degree in philosophy and letters in DLSU Manila.

The incoming DepEd secretary got his master’s degree in religious education in the same university. - KBK, GMANews.TV

xxxriainxxx

June 24th, 2010, 06:22 AM

^^ ano pa nga ba. put a religious to take care of education. Good luck.

Ady001

June 24th, 2010, 06:26 AM

^^ I hope he finds a common ground and mapagbati niya ang simbahan sa topic na 'to.

Ady001

June 24th, 2010, 06:48 AM

Quezon City investment in education producing brighter students
(The Philippine Star) Updated June 24, 2010 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - The Quezon City government’s big investment in education is now producing more encouraging results.

This could be gleaned from the fact that QC public schools have become training grounds for bright students participating in international competitions. Many of them usually come home with the bacon, so to speak. Take the case of two QC students who won in international competitions held in George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas April 14-19. Ryan Ramirez of Quezon City High School and Yomkippur Perez of Batasan National High School bagged the silver and bronze medal, respectively, in the International Sustainable World Energy Engineering and Environment Project (I-SWEEEP) Olympiad for 2010.

“We are proud of them. It only shows that the city’s prioritization of education has come a long way. We must continue to improve the quality of education to produce students like them,” Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said.

Ramirez earned the silver medal in Senior Energy category for his project titled “Developing bacterium-fermented banana (Musa Spientum) peelings on wastewater environment as a substrate for dual-chamber microbial fuel cell” and Perez, the bronze in Senior Environment category for his project titled “Utilization of chicken eggshell as an absorbent material of biological origin for the removal of lead ions in aqueous solution.”

I-SWEEEP, which is the largest science fair open to middle and high school students worldwide and organized by the Cosmos Foundation, a non-profit organization, is intended to spark interest and awareness about the planet’s sustainability challenges, and to help find solutions to the pressing challenges in the fields of energy, engineering and environment.

A total of 1,000 brightest science-like-minded students and their supervisors from 70 countries and 43 US states had joined the competition and displayed their 470 science projects.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=587120&publicationSubCategoryId=442

Retro

June 24th, 2010, 07:03 AM

Aquino’s 12-year basic education agenda

Thursday, 24 June 2010 00:00
The Manila Times.Net
BY ALFREDO G. ROSARIO

During the campaign, Liberal Party standard-bearer Benigno Aquino 3rd came out with a basic education agenda crafted by his education team, raising from 10 to 12 the number of years to earn a high school diploma. This means seven years instead of six in elementary and five years instead of four in high school.

Aquino had bewailed the low performance of high school graduates today in hurdling college entrance examinations “because of poor language communication, low math and science aptitude, and poor analytical skills.”

“I want at least 12 years for our public school children to give them an even chance of succeeding,” he said. “I will expand basic education in this country from a short 10-year cycle to a globally comparable 12 years before the end of the next administration [2016].”

In most developed countries in the world, the basic education for their children runs uniformly for 12 years. In the US, elementary and secondary education involves 12 years of schooling by students to earn a high school diploma.

It is precisely the awareness of Aquino that many countries do not accord much recognition to our college graduates because of their dismal performance in their chosen careers that he wants a highly competitive basic education system.

Aquino said the cost of his education program will require close to P100 billion for the six years of his administration, or a yearly budget of P20 billion in terms of more schools, more teachers and more textbooks, but he is not daunted by the huge expense if only to improve the quality of education for our graduates.

He laid down a 10-point program to reform education which includes a universal pre-schooling for all, bringing back technical education in high school, greater efficiency in math and science, subsidizing private schools as partners in basic education and the use of quality textbooks.

He said that from pre-school to Grade 3, the mother tongue will be used in teaching English and Filipino as subjects. From Grade 4 to 7, English will be used as the medium of instruction for science and math, and Filipino for Araling Panglipunan (social studies).

For high school, English will be the medium of instruction for science, math and English, and Filipino for social studies and technical-vocational education.

Aquino’s education agenda is fine and edifying because of its lofty objective to raise the quality of education in this country. We have become notorious for producing half-baked graduates. But how will the public take these reforms, which will require additional costs and more time to acquire an education?

Parents have been already groaning under the dead weight of rising prices in everything—in tuition fees, school expenses, transportation and food. To add more years in the education of their children will stifle their dream of seeing them graduate early and become productive citizens.

The compelling force of students is their burning ambition to succeed by finishing school early. One who expects to be a lawyer has to spend under the Aquino education plan 12 years in primary and secondary education, four years in earning the required bachelor’s degree, another four years in law proper and one year for law review and the bar examination.

He will have to spend 21 years to become a lawyer, assuming he passes the bar. A medical student will take more years to become a doctor.

The real problems why our graduates are not at par with those of other countries are poor academic standards in our schools due to incompetent teachers, overcrowded classrooms, low-quality textbooks and lack of other teaching aids.

The fire of competition among students that prevailed in the pre-war years is sorely missing today.
Teachers are too lax in grading their students, passing those who really are not deserving largely out of pity or generosity in consideration of their parents’ hardships in sending them to school.

Quality teaching is a vital factor in producing bright students. In 1941, when seventh grade was abolished, sixth-grade and seventh-grade graduates found themselves classmates in their first year in high school.

That many sixth-grade graduates surpassed their older classmates in class standing and written examinations only proves that what really matters in achieving high academic standards are quality teaching and the willingness of motivated students to excel in a climate of spirited competition.

This disproves that more years are needed to produce proficient graduates. Filipinos are naturally intelligent and easy to teach. But many factors distract students from achieving high grades, such as the modern vices brought about by the television age, the lure of their favorite sports, computer games and drug addiction, to name a few.

While the Aquino education reform program has its merits, it is not practicable and timely to pursue it during this period of uncertainty brought about by the skyrocketing costs of electricity and gasoline that have caused, in turn, rising prices in food, clothing and shelter.

Let us leave the choice of spending more for the education of their children to those who can afford even 14 years for basic education and spare the poor from the increased schooling time for their children.

Ady001

June 24th, 2010, 07:14 AM

Changed my comment. I just read it and I was wrong in commenting it positively.

While it is probable that a 10 year education system can still produce quality graduates at par with the world, there are certainly obstacles that had been overlooked by this article.
One, sure, those students who were crammed when grade seven was abolish had found those in grade six to adapt swimmingly with the trend but do you expect the same kind of teaching at that time? Remember that time changes as well, and you cannot expect the level of math to be taught the same way they are today (I could remember the ancient arithmetic books we had before and believe me, they're nothing to today's demands.)
Second do you generalize that all Filipinos are smart and naturally intelligent. First and foremost you are committing a rather obstuse reasoning that all Filipinos are smart and intelligent because even our TIMSS grade is the lowest in all countries surveyed in the TIMSS Advanced Report in 2008. You cannot expect other students in other provinces to be as bright as Pisay students when they have the lack of books or educational materials to encourage learning.
Third, sure you may leave the basic education to the rich and 10 years to the poor but isn't that a statement that rather implies education should only be for the rich and not for the poor? Where is the equality here? How can you strip off a bright poor student's future with just 10 years of education? Remember that in one of the articles I posted and the comment that came with it, 10 years could stymie the efforts of a student for a foreign scholarship?
Fourth, sure, strip off drug addiction but can you avoid TV? Computer Games? Or should you even avoid SPORTS?! Kaya pala tayo nangungulelat sa sports at di maka-produce ni isa mang gintong medalya dahil lang sa ganitong pagsusulat. Instead of encouraging students to pursue their sports, be healthy, active and competitive, you discourage them and strip off their freedom in choosing where
they are good at? Not all computer games are bad; there are even some reports that some computer games have profound effects in thinking, and while computer games may not instill as much imagination as reading books, they are more interactive and thus could spur even creativity to our students.
Can you avoid inflation, the rising costs of basic commodities? No. Everything changes, even education, and the only thing that could help our children in the future instill pride in their own country is by preparing them educated.
Either the one who wrote this article is a nincumpoop or someone who had a hard time paying his taxes.

Retro

June 24th, 2010, 03:53 PM

Use pork barrel for education, business leaders urge lawmakers

By IBARRA C. MATEO -GMA News.TV
06/24/2010 | 02:48 PM

Senior Philippine business and education leaders have urged lawmakers in the 15th Congress to use their pork barrel funds to supplement the country’s meager education budget, saying most students are unfit for higher levels due to lack of support for schools.

Representatives from the Philippine Business for Education (PBed), Education Nation, and Foundation for Worldwide People Power also threw their support behind the proposed 12-year basic education program of President-elect Benigno Simeon “Noynoy" Aquino III but advised him not to lose sight of the reforms needed at the tertiary level.

The three organizations, which are actively campaigning for education reform in the country, outlined their suggestions in a news conference Wednesday at the PBED office.

Businessman and PBed Chairman Ramon del Rosario said the proposed 12 years of basic education “is part of the long-term solution to improve Philippine education and to prepare students for a life of work."

Del Rosario presented dismal figures on the current state of Philippine education: only two out of every 100 high school graduates are fit to enter college or university level, while only 1 percent of the total number of high school students and only 15 percent of the total number of elementary students achieve mastery based on the National Achievement Test results.

PBed trustee Jose Cuisia Jr. said the Priority Development Assistance Fund, commonly known as pork barrel, of previous congresses should have prioritized the education sector. “Maybe they should say that PDAF should go to education this time," he urged incoming lawmakers.

Each senator has as much as 200 million pesos while a member of the House of Representatives is allotted 70 million every year in the PDAF, which allows a lawmaker to categorically name priority projects for government funding, according to official records.

“Forgotten child"

The education budget for 2010 is estimated to be 161.4 billion pesos, or 12.37 percent of the national budget. The PBed also estimated that on an annual basis, the Philippines spends US$150 per student while Thailand allocates US$890 and Malaysia US$1,500 per student.

Former Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz, who is now with the National Institute of Policy Studies, said an additional P20 billion is needed to finance the proposed two additional years of education every year.

Edilberto C. de Jesus, president of the Asian Institute of Management, told the news conference that basic education is the “correct focus" of the incoming Aquino administration, but he emphasized that the secondary and tertiary education should not be neglected.

A former education secretary, De Jesus called the secondary level of education the “weakest link" of the three levels. He added that sometimes, it is called “the forgotten child."

Ayala Foundation’s Guillermo Luz said math and science should be given extra emphasis in the primary and secondary education levels to enable students to develop their critical skills. “Without math and science expertise, weak students in the vocational and technical courses do not survive," he said.

Letter to Aquino

In a letter dated June 1, 2010 addressed to President-elect Aquino, the business and education leaders said his appointees to the Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education, and TESDA “must be willing and able to work together as originally envisioned after the management of education was first trifocalized because education reforms must be system-wide."

They also expressed the hope that “education will become a key lever for poverty alleviation and good governance" in their letter.

Bro. Armin Luistro, president of De La Salle University (DLSU) in Manila, has accepted Aquino's offer to take on the post of Education Secretary under his administration.

“Quality education, broadly and freely accessible, is indeed the best weapon against poverty, because it forges a nation where citizens are imbued with purpose and vision," said Maria Lim Ayuyao of the Foundation for Worldwide People Power.

Espousing the cause of underpaid teachers, Ayuyao said a “modest but clear gesture of solidarity from President Noynoy such as firm measures to streamline the delivery of Government Service Insurance System benefits would surely go a long way in boosting our teachers’ morale."

Among the members of the three groups that are campaigning for education reform are the Asian Institute of Management, Ayala Foundation, Catholic Education Association of the Philippines, Education Network Philippines, League of Corporate Foundations, Metrobank Foundation, National Institute for Policy Studies, Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities, National Institute for Science and Math Education Development, and PHINMA Education Network. – YA, GMANews.TV

epik ll ian

June 24th, 2010, 09:48 PM

^^ It's rather depressing/disappointing that the amount we spend on an education per child is about ONE TENTH of what our neighbors in Malaysia offer their students. Thank God people are noticing this problem. It took a long time, but you can't go wrong with an investment in education. It's true how it is the best weapon against poverty.

In that Aquino 12 Year article they said, "The compelling force of students is their burning ambition to succeed by finishing school early. One who expects to be a lawyer has to spend under the Aquino education plan 12 years in primary and secondary education, four years in earning the required bachelor’s degree, another four years in law proper and one year for law review and the bar examination.

He will have to spend 21 years to become a lawyer, assuming he passes the bar. A medical student will take more years to become a doctor."

SO? Tough it out! Be a good tax payer and do what's best for your country. Man, get some common sense. Sure, I believe we need better teachers (which also means EDUCATING THEM MORE) and better teaching materials, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also be a proponent of the K-12 program. Personally, I feel like I can't be prepared enough. I talk with my friends who are 4th year dental students, and even though they've toughed it out through a K-12 education program + 4 years undergraduate studies + 4 years of intense dental school, they still feel like they're not ready to go out and practice. Sure, a lot of what you learn actually comes from experience, but it's all based off your education. I'm almost finished with my undergraduate work, and I still feel like if I were to stop in my tracks now, I don't know if what I know now is adequate enough to get a legitimate job. I still feel like there's a lot out there that I don't and should know. In my opinion, those who go against all the schooling required to be a doctor or a lawyer should just not do it or not have a say in how much education is required. They are really difficult jobs, and I don't want to be a client/patient of an under-qualified "professional." I don't want to place my life in the hands of a doctor who only bothered to learn the rudimentary things required to be a doctor - just as much as I don't want to have a not as well learned lawyer defending me in a court case. It's just not going to happen.

Quezon City investment in education producing brighter students
(The Philippine Star) Updated June 24, 2010 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - The Quezon City government’s big investment in education is now producing more encouraging results.

This could be gleaned from the fact that QC public schools have become training grounds for bright students participating in international competitions. Many of them usually come home with the bacon, so to speak. Take the case of two QC students who won in international competitions held in George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas April 14-19. Ryan Ramirez of Quezon City High School and Yomkippur Perez of Batasan National High School bagged the silver and bronze medal, respectively, in the International Sustainable World Energy Engineering and Environment Project (I-SWEEEP) Olympiad for 2010.

“We are proud of them. It only shows that the city’s prioritization of education has come a long way. We must continue to improve the quality of education to produce students like them,” Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said.

Ramirez earned the silver medal in Senior Energy category for his project titled “Developing bacterium-fermented banana (Musa Spientum) peelings on wastewater environment as a substrate for dual-chamber microbial fuel cell” and Perez, the bronze in Senior Environment category for his project titled “Utilization of chicken eggshell as an absorbent material of biological origin for the removal of lead ions in aqueous solution.”

I-SWEEEP, which is the largest science fair open to middle and high school students worldwide and organized by the Cosmos Foundation, a non-profit organization, is intended to spark interest and awareness about the planet’s sustainability challenges, and to help find solutions to the pressing challenges in the fields of energy, engineering and environment.

A total of 1,000 brightest science-like-minded students and their supervisors from 70 countries and 43 US states had joined the competition and displayed their 470 science projects.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=587120&publicationSubCategoryId=442

Sorry this is off topic, but the kid's name is Yomkippur??? O_O
Jewish Holiday First Name + Spanish Last Name + Filipino kid = HUH????
Anyway, cheers to them. Mazeltov!

Mr. Sandman

June 24th, 2010, 11:21 PM

Ady001

June 25th, 2010, 06:19 AM

jpdm

June 25th, 2010, 02:20 PM

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/6021/gen1y.jpg

The incoming DEPed secretary.

xxxriainxxx

June 25th, 2010, 02:38 PM

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/6021/gen1y.jpg

The incoming DEPed secretary.

Parang isang karakter sa mga nobela ni Rizal.

oreotm

June 25th, 2010, 03:02 PM

^^ Sometimes parents have the weirdest names to think of nowadays.

Iniisip na lang kasi parati ng ibang pinoy na OK na, that we have to settle for mediocrity when in fact this is the very reason di tayo maahon-ahon. Our population will remain to be one of the most lambasted in the world if we cannot put our act together, increase the number of years, and eventually implement the much needed reforms in education.

sinabi mo pa! parents nowadays specially those teenager parents name their child the weirdest! hahaha naalala ko tuloy ung fanpage dati sa facebook "my sister will name her child megatron......"grabe epic hahahah anyway off topic na!

great184

June 25th, 2010, 05:19 PM

It's true - this and the Jejemons - the primary source of education (and values) among the masses is ABS-CBN and GMA, and unfortunately not school.

Juan Pilgrim

June 25th, 2010, 09:12 PM

^^ parents should at the least spend time to google the meaning or connotation of the name they are giving their child or children.

"One Mr. Melchior Sagun and Mrs. Rowena Sagun named their new born daughter May Melena Sagun."

Melena is the passage of black, tarry stools. Melena is the presence of digested blood in the feces and makes the stools appear black and tarry.

:horse:

Retro

June 26th, 2010, 12:12 AM

Deped employees challenge Luistro :lol:

Posted on 06:48 PM, June 25, 2010
BusinessWorld Online

A group of non-teaching employees of the Department of Education (DepEd) has challenged incoming secretary Armin A. Luistro to manage the department properly.

Mr. Luistro, the president and chancellor of the De La Salle University, earlier accepted president-elect Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" C. Aqiono III’s offer to take the basic education portfolio.

DepEd National Employees Union (NEU) president Domingo B. Alidon presented five "parameters" that Mr. Luistro needed to follow to manage the department properly and to promote harmony between the administration and the union.

The parameters are:shunning politicking in the DepEd by not letting government officials interfere in the selection of school officials and other education employees; professional management of the DepEd, which includes properly specifying the role of employees, proper consultation with all employees on issues, and "treating employees as humans, not machines;" respecting the right of DepEd employees to form a union; promoting transparency in all the dealings of the department; and continuation of good reform programs implemented by past secretaries, such as the "Brigada Eskwela," bridge program and the policy prohibiting unfit employees from taking a higher job.

Mr. Alidon also said that the next DepEd secretary should not just be an academician in the DepEd, but should establish good managerial skills, noting that Mr. Luistro’s education management experience is in private, Catholic and higher education institutions.

"Being a priest does not guarantee good management [of the DepEd]," Mr. Alidon said, citing the case of former education chief Andrew B. Gonzales, another Lasallian priest, who he said was linked to the anomalous purchase of more than ten luxury cars for officials from 1998 to 2001.

Mr. Alidon also called on Mr. Luistro to involve education stakeholders in discussing the controversial sex education modules.

"Mr. Luistro should consult with DepEd employees, teachers, parents, and other education stakeholders on what the DepEd’s stand on the modules would be," he said.

Mr. Alidon was one of the petitioners in a court case seeking to stop the teaching of the sex education modules in schools.

The NEU is composed of about 40,000 non-teaching DepEd personnel nationwide. -- Nathaniel R. Melican

jpdm

June 26th, 2010, 12:18 AM

I-try muna bago husgahan si Bro. Luistro.

Tsaka yung mga corrupt sa DEP ed, hindi pari si Luistro, Christian brother lang.Yung ibang mga character sa DEp ed mga reformist kuno pero mga protektor lang ng mga raket sa department tulad ng ghost purchases, fraudulent purchases tulad nung noodle scam and book scam.

Dapat linisin ni Bro Luistro ang DEp Ed para sumapat ang pera at tumaas ang morale ng mga matino dun.

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 02:54 AM

epik ll ian

June 26th, 2010, 05:20 AM

He's a priest? This doesn't mean he's some puppet ambassador from the central Catholic church is he? Goodbye sex education, hello population surge!

le Reine

June 26th, 2010, 06:28 AM

^^Well, here we go... I guess let's just remain skeptical for now.

Incoming DepEd chief eyes review of sex ed program
06/26/2010 | 03:28 AM

Religious brother and incoming Education Secretary Armin Luistro has vowed to reconsider the implementation of the department’s sex education program once he assumes office on June 30.

“I want to focus on programs that need to be continued because I’m sure there are also programs there that are actually good, but there are also programs that has to be reviewed such as the sex ed issue," Luistro told reporters in an interview in Manila on Thursday night.

The incoming head of the Department of Education (DepEd) however admitted that he has yet to spend time rethinking the sex education program.

“I have really not spent any time thinking about that (sex education)… I don’t know anything about the modules so I cannot say anything about the program right now," he added.

The DepEd started the teaching of sex education in both public and private schools this school year, to grade school pupils who are at least nine years old.

The move was met with criticism by the Catholic Church and some parents — even resulting in a class suit against education officials. (See: Parents sue DepEd for including sex education in schools)

Luistro, for his part, said that it is important to consult various stakeholders regarding the issue, and then formulate the appropriate kind of education based on their views.

“We have different definitions of sex education. I think the question that should be asked is not if you are in favor or not, rather what kind of education should be given," he said.

Luistro likewise said he would rather focus on finding his replacement as president and chancellor of De La Salle University (DLSU) in Manila before tackling issues in the department.

“My priority right now is my replacement. I cannot just leave things behind…because this happened so fast I didn’t plan this," he said.

Luistro, a member of the religious De La Salle brothers, accepted on Wednesday President-elect Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III’s offer to become DepEd chief following consultations with the DLSU community. (See: DLSU president accepts DepEd post under Aquino admin)

The incoming DepEd secretary, along with other De La Salle Brothers, has close ties with the Aquino family especially to Aquino’s mother, the late President Corazon “Cory" Aquino. He even delivered a homily entitled “Cory, the Heart of a Saint" during her wake at the La Salle Greenhills Gymnasium in Mandaluyong City in August last year.

continue reading here http://www.gmanews.tv/story/194471/incoming-deped-chief-eyes-review-of-sex-ed-program

x12y12

June 26th, 2010, 08:28 AM

Nanflexal

June 26th, 2010, 12:19 PM

Tanong lang guys, magkano ba on budget ng DepEd pag bili ng isang computer, kasi may maraming balita na masyadong overprice na yon 1 set ng computer dahil umaabto daw ng 80k.

grabi naman tong mga tao sa DepEd.

bakit hindi kayo bumili ng isang IBM or / HP server na may 8 GB of RAM then kabitan nyo ng 8 Virtual desktop para 9 na student pwedi gumamit ng isang pc na sabay sabay or custom build desktop.

here is what you need:

1 Set ng Computer 4 or 8 GB / LCD / VGA Monitor keyboard & mouse. - 30,000
1 Set OS licence = 7,000
8 pcs LCD / VGA Monitor - 2k vga monitor or 4k LCD monitor = 32,000
8 Virtual desktop - 5k each virtual desktop = 40,000
8 keyboard - 160 each = 1,280
8 mouse - 120 each = 960

+ USB Hub - 700

Total: P111,240.00

Benefit: 8 Students can use at same time

The host pc is reserve for instructor / teacher

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 02:31 PM

amigo32

June 26th, 2010, 03:44 PM

Tanong lang guys, magkano ba on budget ng DepEd pag bili ng isang computer, kasi may maraming balita na masyadong overprice na yon 1 set ng computer dahil umaabto daw ng 80k.

grabi naman tong mga tao sa DepEd.

bakit hindi kayo bumili ng isang IBM or / HP server na may 8 GB of RAM then kabitan nyo ng 8 Virtual desktop para 9 na student pwedi gumamit ng isang pc na sabay sabay or custom build desktop.

here is what you need:

1 Set ng Computer 4 or 8 GB / LCD / VGA Monitor keyboard & mouse. - 30,000
1 Set OS licence = 7,000
8 pcs LCD / VGA Monitor - 2k vga monitor or 4k LCD monitor = 32,000
8 Virtual desktop - 5k each virtual desktop = 40,000
8 keyboard - 160 each = 1,280
8 mouse - 120 each = 960

Total: P111,240.00

Benefit: 8 Students can use at same time

The host pc is reserve for instructor / teacher

ayaw ni P-noy ng kurapsyon. sumbong mo. tingnan natin kung hanggang eleksiyon lang ang kanyang pramis:D

Nanflexal

June 26th, 2010, 04:00 PM

^^ Whaat?! Where did you get that news? Talagang may mga hiwagang nangyayari sa DepEd ah...

AFAIK:

1 CPU for Core 2 Quad = 15,000
1 Refurbished Monitor = 1,500
1 keyboard = 180
1 mouse = 130

That's 16,810 without the OS, and if 7,000 (proven if my theory serves right kung OK ang Windows 7 for all 8 units) it should be all 141480

Kamag anak pa mismo ng nanalong bidder yon nagsabi sa akin dahil gumawa ako ng Computer nila minsan.

ok lang yon bidder walang problem dahil 17k 18k lang yon 1 Set na PC na benibenta nila sa DepEd pero pag nasa DepEd na yon PC umaabot na yon 80k bawat isa dahil sa mga patong patong patong na price na ginagawa nila.

kasi hindi ka raw mananalo sa bidding ng Deeped kung wala kang pakisama. paki-sama sa corruption ganun ba yon.

Retro

June 26th, 2010, 04:26 PM

^^ Dapat sana naka e-bidding yun lahat kasali sa bidding. Tapos online naka publish yun quoted price on all participants including coa para transparent yun transaction. Yun lang ang possible way para maging tuwid yun transaction.

:lol:

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 04:35 PM

^^ Dapat ding may transparency of procurement ang mga bagay na yan. IMHO, I think buying computers at some shops here in Manila is cheaper than that.

Baka ibig nilang sabihin eh yung 80k yung pag-procure ng Core i7, which is not practical at the moment.

Nanflexal

June 26th, 2010, 04:41 PM

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 05:10 PM

^^ Dapat hindi yan pa-imbestigahan, dapat kung may procurement ng computers dadaan talaga sa public bidding, tapos scrutiny of third party orgs.

Retro

June 26th, 2010, 06:39 PM

Two more years not enough to improve education, says solon

By Leila B. Salaverria
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:28:00 06/26/2010

MANILA, Philippines—The proposal to add two more years of schooling would not help students if the perennial problems besetting the educational system are not addressed, according to a lawmaker who happens to be a former professor.

Gabriela party-list Representative Luzviminda Ilagan, who taught at the Ateneo de Davao University for 41 years, said that what needs to be done, rather than asking students to attend elementary and high school for two more years, is to give students quality textbooks, more classrooms, and better-paid and better-prepared teachers, among other things.

“There cannot be a dramatic and qualitative change with the addition of one year in elementary and another year in secondary school,” Ilagan said in a statement released by the House of Representatives.

She said increasing the number of years of basic schooling would just be a burden on parents, and would compound the problems stemming from the lack of teachers, classrooms, books and chairs.

It will also delay the students’ chance to get a job and help their families, she added.

“Worse, the parents will have to spend for two or more years, which will make it more difficult for those who can barely send their children through high school. Job opportunities or employment will be set back by two years as students aim to acquire a high school diploma for employment,” she said.

According to Ilagan, there was no need to imitate the educational practices of other countries, since the Philippine setup, while needing improvement, “seems to be working.”

“If we are not globally competitive, why are we deluged with foreign students wanting to avail themselves of our educational services?” she said.

Educators have been pushing the idea of adding two more years to basic schooling, warning that the Philippines has been lagging in education because its students spend only 10 years in elementary and high school. The 10 years of basic schooling are hardly enough to prepare the students for college, they contend.

In the same statement, Iloilo Rep. Janette Garin aired an opposing view, and pushed for the addition of two more years of schooling. Garin believes students would reap the benefits of such a setup.

Garin said students who would go to school for two extra years would have more knowledge and would be more competitive even if they do not get a college degree.

The additional expenses would be money well spent, she added.

“The expense on additional books, classrooms and teachers will be an investment in our people, our social capital who will propel the country to more progress. The needed budget might appear huge but the return on investments in people will be worth the investment,” she said.

She believes that parents would not be shouldering that heavy a burden if two more years are added to basic education.

“We should also avoid (if possible, eradicate) the concept that children should spend fewer years in school so that they can help their parents on the farm and by providing money as househelp. They can do more than that,” she said.

Marikina Rep. Marcelino Teodoro, for his part, said the proposal for additional school years should be studied well.

“President Aquino should first review the existing educational programs of the government, because there is a possibility that the existing programs can be more cost-effectively reformed if given the additional resources,” Teodoro said.

He also believes the next President should boost the technical and vocational courses in order to help the labor market.

The push to add two more years to basic schooling is to keep it in step with moves in Europe and North America to standardize educational systems.

In line with the Bologna Accord, an agreement among 46 European nations which took effect at the start of this year, Philippine undergraduate degrees would no longer be recognized there because they are not compatible with their own schools.

Some universities in the United States also do not recognize a Philippine college degree unless it includes two more years of study.

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 06:52 PM

^^ I think Ilagan should also think that getting a good degree abroad also entails having to study at least 12 years with basic education. We have to implement this and improve our educational system, mode of teching, facilities, study materials and the like. Kaya most of our students naghahabol sa college life because they weren't taught the best when it comes to their foundation years.

What if it Delays? If we subsidize elementary school and fund for scholarships for high school we would shoulder education to the right minds. Kaya tayo dinadagsa ng foreign students is because our educational setup is less expensive compared to other countries, but she is talking about college education. And what about those in high school na foreigners? Have you heard of the British School in Manila? They will still have to study to their own curricula.

Ang dapat dito is a combination of the right tools, the right implementation at the right time. And now is the time. I do not mind paying extra taxes just for the sake of our education to be at par with the rest of the world. If she is in the sane of mind, she must also think it is for the betterment of our kids and that it is a long term investment.

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 07:45 PM

More facts to dissect the meat of the matter:

The Bologna Accord, our state of education and the OFW connection
by reynz on June 18, 2010

It’s sad that according to one of the comments in B7, this has been in the cauldron for 10 years and yet, our education officials just sat on it and nothing was done to make some changes and/or improvements to satisfy the Bologna Accord. This is not serving us any better. There are only two (2) choices – follow the European standards or convince them to adopt our system, which will not happen. Obviously, the only choice is to make some radical changes to our educational system.

About 46 countries including all the 27 members of the European Union, with the exception of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, San Morino, and the Ukraine have decided to adopt the Bologna Accord this year – 2010.

I can’t help but notice: “Bakit parang wala lang?“, as far education officials are concerned?

What is the Bologna Accord?

In 1999, the Ministers of Education of 29 European countries agreed to make the school systems of their countries compatible with each other. Degrees from one country would then have to be accepted by any country signing the Accord. The agreement was signed at the University of Bologna in Italy.

What’s in the Accord?

Here’s some that I gathered:

• Under the Bologna Accord, European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) is very much like our system of “units”. One ECTS-credit is equivalent to about 30 hours of study.

• A bachelor’s degree can be earned in three years. Europeans three-year bachelor’s degrees are equivalent to America’s four-year undergraduate degrees.

• The European three-year degrees is considered distinct from the Indian BComm, which is not equivalent to a bachelor’s degree as it often requires further study before the degree recipient is qualified to enroll in a graduate management program.

More bachelor’s graduates, and consequently, more potential master’s students.

The Bologna Accord creates a shorter undergraduate degree – 3 years. It is expected that there will be more European students who will successfully complete bachelor’s degrees, which would, in turn, create a large pool of potential graduate students. The estimate is 2.4 million students per year by the year 2010.

Before the Bologna Accord, first degrees in Europe which is equivalent to an American bachelor’s degree plus master’s degree were supposed to take 5 years to complete. However, in practice, the length of study was often considerably longer than 5 years because of students’ tendency to re-sit years and take a long time to write a final thesis—without which, many degrees could not be awarded.

And so the length of these first degrees was a deterrent from attempting them and a barrier to education. Of those that did enter higher education, on average, students in 5- to 6-year courses had a 17% higher dropout rate than students in 3- to 5-year courses of study.

With shorter degrees, it will encourage more students to earn a bachelor’s degree.

For example:
• In Italy, first degrees took an average of 5.6 years to complete.
• In France and Germany, degrees were typically completed in 5.3 and 6 years, respectively.
• In Austria and Greece, a first degree took an average of 7.3 years to complete!

In Europe, very long first degrees were the dominant model. With the Bologna Accord, there will be a fundamental shift. More bachelor degree graduates would mean more potential master’s students. While it’s difficult to predict what the student will do after graduating with a bachelor’s degree, it is their hope that they will continue to work on a master’s degree.

What’s in it for us?

The Philippines uses the American educational system. Our Engineering courses use the Washington Accord. Bologna Accord tries to make the European education compatible with the American system.

But the Bologna Accord is bad news to graduates in the Philippines intending to further their studies in Europe. It is also bad news to those who would be looking for a job in Europe. Then again, it could also be good news for us. Why? This will force our Department of Education to adopt major improvement changes to our educational system to meet the requirements of the Bologna Accord. The question is, will they? And when?

According to Isagani Cruz:

“Starting this year, undergraduate degrees in the Philippines will no longer be recognized in most European countries. Jobs in most European countries that require undergraduate degrees will no longer be open to Filipinos, who went to school in the Philippines.” (Source: Philstar)

Take note, “will no longer be open to Filipinos” was how it was written on the article. (We don’t know if it applies also to foreigners who went to school in the Philippines.)

What will DepEd do now?

“The Philippines is the only country in the world with 10 years of basic education; every other country has 12 (except for Myanmar, which has 11). All international agreements assume that students entering college have had more than 10 years of basic education. For example, both the Washington Accord and the Sydney Accord explicitly require 12 years of pre-university education and the Dublin Accord requires 11 years. Europeans always take 12 years to finish basic education.” (Source: Philstar)

Quo vadis jobless Filipinos?

This brings us back to the bottom line of education. Finding opportunities. I don’t want to sound sarcastic and cynical, but when President Noy vowed to curb forced migration, Bologna Accord seemed to be doing it for him for it sounded like a lost opportunity for Filipinos wanting to work and/or find opportunities in Europe.

I hate to say this, but this Accord effectively renders undergraduate studies in the Philippines useless. It’s bad enough that employment discrimination in the Philippines is not only rampant and almost in-your-face, but we also don’t have enough local employment opportunities to absorb dislocated workforce. Result? Migration continues and so are family separations.

http://reynaelena.com/2010/06/18/the-bologna-accord-our-state-of-education-and-the-ofw-connection/

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 07:50 PM

Grabe na...

Aquino-Roxas letter to Dr. Isagani Cruz on Basic Education Reform

DR. ISAGANI CRUZ

Philippine Star

Dear Dr. Cruz:

We read with interest your commentary of last 7 January 2010 on the Liberal Party position on basic education, notably, the addition of two years to the basic education cycle. Allow us to make a number of clarifications to set the policy position straight.

1. The Philippines has the shortest education cycle preparatory to university. Ours is 10 years; the rest of the world is 12. In short, we have a curriculum that, on paper, covers the same subject matter as the rest of the world but which we cram into 10, instead of 12, years. This means that our teachers take all kinds of short cuts to try to cover the material or just simply do not attempt to cover the entire syllabus in a given year for lack of material time. This shortchanges our children’s education.

2. Our Liberal Party position (not just mine nor Senator Mar Roxas’, but our collective position) is to add two more years to basic education to bridge this glaring gap.

3. The manner by which we will add the two years is to do so incrementally and to have the entire cycle in place by the end of the next Administration (i.e. 2016). This is through a strategy that our education team first laid out in 2004 in DepED when the Bridge program was to have been implemented but which the President aborted before it had a chance to produce. The schema for this is attached for your own review and comment.

3.1 In SY 2011-12, the high school Bridge program will be re-introduced as a remedial year for four years. In the fifth year, this will be transformed into the first year of high school.

3.2 This transformation is contingent on enhancing a program that makes “every child a reader (and numerate) by Grade 3 (later Grade 2 and even by Grade 1)”. For the first four years, this will be run simultaneous to the HS Bridge program. Once it is in place (and after the fourth year), there should be no need for the HS Bridge program which then allows us to transform that remedial year into the first year of a 5-year HS.

3.3 At the same time (and starting year 1 of the new Administration), we intend to start building up towards a universal pre-school in every public elementary school (to be called kindergarten). This will target all 6 year olds who are not enrolled in Grade 1 (about 60+% to date). Once the universal pre-school (kindergarten) is realized in Year 5, we intend to transform this into the first grade of a 7-Grade elementary cycle.

3.4 Using this strategy, we intend to have moved from a 10-year cycle to a full 12-year cycle by SY 2015-16.

4. Through this strategy, there will be no schoolyear when there will be zero enrollees in high school or in university as you surmise. The numbers for particular years may be lower but should still be significant in terms of enrolment. (On the other hand, if DepED were even moderately successful in terms of reducing dropouts at every grade level such that the per year/grade size (e.g. enrolment) were increased even by 10%, this would add about one million more students in the entire system as a function of retention in school. So, private schools and universities should not be “bankrupted by having zero enrolments” for any particular year.)

5. This strategy is where we differ with the president and with other presidential candidates.

5.1 Our position: This is a problem of basic education (too little), therefore it should be fixed at the basic education level. It covers subject matter that the rest of the world covers at the elementary and secondary levels. Therefore, the solution has to be dealt with at the elementary and high school levels. Hence, the 12-year cycle. Further, by making this investment at the basic education level, the costs (e.g. both public education spending and private sector education contracting) is rightly in the hands of government as its constitutional responsibility to provide basic education for all Filipinos.

5.2 Gibo Teodoro thinks that the answer is to increase university schooling by an additional year. That extra year is nothing more than remediation and makes university an extension of high school which is not the solution. It also brings down the quality of our universities and mixes up their objectives. Further, this also shifts the responsibility for paying for the additional year on to private households because university education, even in state colleges, is not paid for by the government and therefore is not free. Lastly, this strategy also excludes those who have not finished a full basic education cycle. Hence, those that drop out before completing high school have no chance at this additional year of education.

5.3 The president is even more misled in thinking that a bridge between high school and university is the solution. The two years proposed is remediation. Who is responsible for these two years of extra schooling? CHED (i.e. universities) – But students are technically not enrolled in university yet…or DepED (i.e. high schools) – But students have already graduated from high school even if they do not pass university entrance exams.

That’s not what we need; we need basic education. Like Gibo Teodoro’s position, this strategy transfers to private households the responsibility for funding the additional years and excludes those who do not complete high school.

6. Our Liberal Party position is clearly superior to the other positions for three reasons:

6.1 It gives all Filipinos access to more education because it is focused on basic schooling starting at kindergarten. (From world historical experience, more basic education – particularly, high school – is a major poverty-reduction strategy. In this country, we will never beat poverty with such a short basic education cycle. Let’s put aside our misplaced national pride and learn from the rest of the world what it has done to grow and develop their people.)

6.2 Since the majority of our children attend public schools, the cost for tuition and direct schooling is borne by the State under our policy and not by the family (though the family will have to answer for the incidental costs which are much lower than tuition). These additional costs are affordable (given how this Administration has used or rather, misused, funds) and absolutely necessary to make.

6.3 With a 12-year cycle, even those who do not have the ambition or interest to go on to university should have enough basic education to prepare them for the world of work. At 18 years of age, high school graduates should have the tools and the emotional and mental maturity that would make them better prepared for work than 16 year olds graduating under a 10-year cycle.

Our Liberal Party position (and the 12-year cycle is only one of 10 critical reforms we would undertake in basic education) is the result of months of study undertaken by our education team who have had the benefit of being at the helm of public education in the last ten years or more. These include three former secretaries of Education (Edilberto de Jesus, Butch Abad and Fe Hidalgo), two undersecretaries (Mike Luz and Chito Gascon), the former head of the DepED Planning and Research group, herself an assistant secretary (Lily Roces), and a number of other former DepED directors and private educators, including presidents of some of the leading universities in the country.

Let us close by stating that the Liberal Party reform agenda for Education is not a personal position. It is the result of evidence-based research and study. That’s the way our education system has got to be reformed. And that’s the way it will be managed if we are elected because education outcomes are not quick fixes (as the president thinks it is).

We will not let education reform become a populist item. It will take at least ten years to see the results of such reform. Hence, we need to have the vision, courage and fortitude to see it through to its logical ends.

We hope we have clarified our Liberal Party position on the 12-year education cycle. As one of the most competent commentators on education reform, we hope that you can help us explain this difficult topic so that this campaign is run on issues and not just on personality and advertising.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!

SENATOR NOYNOY AQUINO SENATOR MAR ROXAS

Presidential Candidate Vice-Presidential Candidate

Liberal Party Liberal Party

11 January 2010

Manila, Philippines

http://mlq3.tumblr.com/post/387116518/aquino-roxas-letter-to-dr-isagani-cruz-on-basic

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 07:57 PM

Sige pa...

A bit old but has some sensible and meaty points:

Is adding 2 more years in high school improve Philippine public education?

by reyna24 on July 16, 2008

Big question these days mga kunichiwa: If you add another two (2) years of basic education sa public schools, will this improve the education in the Philippines? Isang malaking kestyon mark at disgustion, I mean, diskusyon karon because there is now a mandatory implementation of a 12-year basic education program for public schools na gina-revive ng Department of Education to improve the “level of learning” in our turd world kawntri.

Knowing ba you kung merong ngang scientific ek-ek chorvaloo studies na there is a big difference nga if you finish 10 years basic education versus 12 years? Trulalo or what, fack is, based on previous surveys, the Philippines out of 45 countries, ranked 41st and 42nd only in Math and Science, respectively. Heck! At least naay pa gyud three (3) countries na ga-pyerde natin di va?! Hahahahaha!

Ngayon was it because dahil subali’t datapwa’t 10 years lang ang basic edukeyshun chorvaloo naten? Or ang kalaban naten na mga countries like Korea, Singapore, Japan, US at UK that spends so much on edukeyshunalization? Comparable ba ang salary level nang mga teachers nila saten? Comparable ba ang educational facilities nila saten? Comparable ba ang government education budget nila saten? Comparable ba ang teaching abilities nang ating mga professora zora zorro? Babalik na naman tayo sa corruption! Hayyy naku!

I have nothing against the move nang Department of Ed na dagdagan nang additional two years ang public education kung eto na lang ang nalalabing paraan so that ang ating bansang Pinas would appear sa world map nang best in science and math chorva at hindi na lang parating Korea, Japan, Singapore at Barrio Siete.

But think about this: kahit na dagdagan mo nang isang dozenang taon ang public education if you cannot improve several other factors that contributes to making a quality education, papalpak din sya. It’s a whole lot of factors involved na dapat pag-tuunan nang pansin because each one contributes sa kalidad nang edukeyshun.

Por ejemplo:

1.) Foremost would be the kalidad nang mga titsers at professora zorro naten. How do you attract and would you be able to attract high-caliber professors and teachers kung ang sweldo still stands at what it is right now? Eh diba kaya nga naging domestic helper si Inday na dapat guro sya? Ano ang ginagawa nang Department of Ed sa problemang nag-sisilayasan ang mga titsers para maging labandera nang mga Arabo, Chekwa at Jyafon?

2.) Continuing sa punto uno, how do you attract people na lumipat nang teaching profession dahil sa sweldo? Haller! We all cannot be Mother Teresa forever and devote our time sa free teaching services when we know na ang ating mga politicians have millions of allowances whereas yong ating mga abang guro eh sensilyo lang ang per diem! Kelangan pa ba naten nang powerpoint presenteyshun nito?

3.) Lapis at monggol. Even if you increase it by two (2) years, ano ang gagawin ninyo sa libro, lapis at monggol na kelangang nila for this additional two years. Ngayon lang nga, I read on the papers na mali-mali pala ang mga textbooks na na-imprinta. Totoo ba ang nabasa ko?!

4.) School size at school infrastructure. Isa sa aking pangkin is professor sa isang public university sa Rizal. Sabinetch saken, yong isang klase daw nya eh umaabot nang sisenta katao. Halllerrr! Ano yon? Rock concert? Ano ngayon ang programa nang Department of Ed na eto ngang mga International Schools sa Manila eh they try to limit their class to less than 30 pero ang ating mga public school eh nag-mistulang Wowowee sa dami?

5.) Tuition. Pano na ako? San ako kukuha nang pan-twisyon nang mga boylets ko?! Pano ang ating mga abang mag-bubukid? I know for one thing na dun sa Barrio namen, can’t afford ang karamihan at ultimo kalabaw eh sinasanla just to send their kids to school. With additional 2years ? Eeeekk! Ilang kamote ang ititinda nang Tatay para pan-twisyon? Tataas kaya ang personal income nang mga ka-tribu ko so we would have enough anda to send these kids to school? Will the gobyernes help increase the per day arawan?

6.) Tumigil na nang kaka-experiment to use Filipino/Tagalog as medium of distrakyuns. Utang na loob! Inglisin nyu na! Ano ba kayo?! That does not mean na porque Inglis ang turo eh indi na tayo Pinoy! Hallerrr! Teach the teachers English. How to write and to speak it. Kelangan ko pa bang i-explain eto?!

Aware ang lola that our educational system is just ek-ek to the blues and this can’t be fixed in one chuvalais. Which is why, congratulate ko ever ang Department of Ed with the moveto improve our system of education. Now, as to whether or not agree ako sa priorities nila, wez ko sasabihin! Hahaha Baka bawiin nila diploma ko at ako eh pabalikin sa High School! Hahaha

Wish lang nang lola, wag nilang kalimutan ang juice na kelangan to make this work. Higher pay, more budget for teachers, books and school materials, more buildings, more teachers for a small class size and cute Professors like me.

So be the first to call, I am available. For WORLD PEACE, I can be one heck of a lovely macho professor in heels.

http://reynaelena.com/2008/07/16/is-adding-2-more-years-in-high-school-improve-philippine-public-education/

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 08:23 PM

Cebu schools gear up for two additional years :applause::applause::applause:
By MARS W. MOSQUEDA JR.
June 22, 2010, 5:47pm

CEBU CITY – Schools and colleges in Cebu are now taking measures and steps in preparing an additional two more years in the educational system which is in accordance with international standards. This move will make basic education in the Philippines 12 years, instead of the current 10.

However, the Department of Education (DepED) in Central Visayas is apprehensive about the expenses to be incurred by the two-year addition to education, both by the Department and by parents of school-going children.

DepEd 7 Director Recaredo Borgonia is suggesting that the two additional years be implemented in the basic years, like pre-elementary or elementary levels, to ensure that this benefits majority of the students.

"We should put the additional two years at the lower levels because our statistics show that only a few percent of our elementary and high school students go to college," said Borgonia in esterday's 888 News Forum at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel.

Borgonia said placing the additional two years to basic education, especially in the elementary level, would surely better the situation for students who cannot afford to go to college.

"What we can do is strengthen pre-elementary and elementary education and there, the DepEd can help," said Borgonia.

Fr. Felino Javines Jr., Vice President for Academic Affairs of the University of San Carlos (USC), said the University is now gearing up for the transition from K10 to K12 levels, to comply with said international standards.

K10 means a student has to undergo kindergarten, six years of elementary, and four years of college. K12 means two more years but where to put the additional two years remains a questions, said Borgonia.

Fr. Javines said the USC is hopeful that the new administration of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III will implement the additional two years the soonest time possible.

The additional years is necessary so as to meet the Bologna Accord, which comes into effect this year in the European Union. As it is, currently, if one were to send one’s child to a EU-member country to study, the child’s Philippine diploma will not be recognized because graduates of Philippine schools would have gone through an insufficient number of years in school.

One negative effect of the Bologna Accord will be to deprive Filipinos of many job opportunities abroad. Once adopted by the European Union, educational experts foresee the United States taking a similar, critical attitude toward Philippine education credentials.

"We cannot emphasize enough the devastating effect this would have on the employment prospects of Filipinos abroad," said Fr. Javines.

http://www.mb.com.ph/node/263267/

le Reine

June 26th, 2010, 08:23 PM

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 08:23 PM

A few points to sum up. We need an upgrade, in years, equipment, teachers, teaching methods and knowledge.

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 08:24 PM

I think this person doesn't need just 12 years of BASIC EDUCATION but still needs a lot more. I had a hard time reading this crap and I just gave up halfway. And s/he talks about quality education. *facepalms* :ohno:

Hehe, check the latest post by the same author regarding the Bologna Accord which I posted above it.

le Reine

June 26th, 2010, 08:43 PM

A few points to sum up. We need an upgrade, in years, equipment, teachers, teaching methods and knowledge.In addition, we really have to control the big increase in population. Almost 2M children are born annually. That's too much drain on already meager resources.

Hehe, check the latest post by the same author regarding the Bologna Accord which I posted above it.Aaahh... I didn't check the source, too long. The last article was such a pain to read. :lol:

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 08:46 PM

Grabe flood ko sa thread na 'to ah...

Anyway, some first hand experiences and comments on a related topic regarding The Bologna Accord:

kengkay says:
June 18, 2010 at 9:06 am

di ba reyns yung mga medicine professionals nga natin di accredited yung studies nila sa germany and vice versa? i know of a nurse who holds a very high position in the middle east, tapos when she married a german, she applied for jobs in germany. no jobs kasi daw she needs to study again. ayun, she’s working for burger king now.

reynz says:
June 18, 2010 at 9:10 am

true Kengs. similar sya sa Canada. my friend from Catanduanes migrated to Canada 3 years ago. Civil Engineer, licensed sa Pinas. anak nang patola, he was told to study again in Canada before ma-recognize yong bachelor’s daw nya. To think na Pinas is followingthe Washington Accord. Ayun, sa inis, bumalik sa Catanduanes.

reynz says:
June 18, 2010 at 9:24 am

nga pala, i remember, PRC don’t recognize Germany’s professional credentials hahaha! i was reminded of Beng’s husband who is a German doctor. di ba nga, they were supposed to open a clinic in Davao, but PRC required that the husband take the medical board exams? ayun! napalayas bigla si Beng nang Davao hehehe

Rosa says:
June 18, 2010 at 1:26 pm

Actually Reynz, nagiging progressive na dito sa Alberta Canada. If you are able to work here as an engineer, after a year and after passing a required course in professional ethics, madali na. But this only applies to engineering graduates with international experience so I am seeing a lot of young Filipino engineers now working in the oilpatch. Even ten years ago, it would have been so hard to get a job here as an engineer but because of the boom, a lot of newly arrived engineers with experience were hired. I had to upgrade myself and I even went to finish a Masters just to show that I can even better myself here. But I remember the examiner making fun of our three year engineering degree. I answered that it is a 5 year engineering course but he said he subtracted the two years that should have gone to secondary schooling. It is high time that our country follow the 12 year program and also add a full day kindergarten. Also have options for kids who want to go to trades school since they also make good bucks or sometimes even better than professionals. On top of that throw in mandatory second language like Spanish and Chinese and computer fundamentals. As for teachers, forget it, you have to start from the beginning. At least with nursing, one can work at nursing homes while challenging the exams. Filipino accountants can easily find employment here since Filipino accounting graduates are highly regarded here.

reynz says:
June 18, 2010 at 1:47 pm

yeap Rosa. there are only 2 choices. follow the standards set by Europe or convince Europe to adapt to our standards haha! i guess the choice is clear hahaha!

reynz says:
June 18, 2010 at 9:37 pm

Let me share some comments on the same topic on a separate thread:
–
Reynz, The problem is, the US, Canada and Australia are planning to follow suit. Its on the news.

Noynoy has to juggle two problems

1. lack of school and teachers for the over populated studentry
2. and the upgrading of the years to 12 years.

I think this Bologna accord is for the better. The thing is, it seems to be a hindrance because we have the problem of lack of facility.

Kaya kasi nagrereklamo ang magulang at ayaw gawin na 12 years ang basic edu kasi dahil sa uniform, baon at gamit. Kung ako sa dep ed, babawasan ko yung mga projects kuno na walang katuturan tulad nung mga basket weaving etc na pahirap sa estudyante. sa amerika they focus more on science project at hindi kung anik anik na katarantaduhan ng mga teacher para kumita.

isa pa, sa america walang uniform. dapat alisin na rin uniform ng mga bata sa public school. dagdag pahirap pa yun sa magulang.

tapos sa public school sa america ang pagkain sa recess ay libre.

kung magagampanan ng gobyerno to lahat, di magrereklamo mga magulang kasi wala na sila gagastusin sa 12 years na yun

reynz says:
June 18, 2010 at 9:38 pm

another comment responding to the comment above (from a separate thread)
—-
I agree with [deleted] points.

Also, alisin na lang nila ang mga walang kwentang subjects or merge na lang with other subs na related naman sa kanila. Katulad ng [deleted] at [deleted]. Ako, nagtuturo ako ng [deleted] sa school, potek, wala naman bearing sa [deleted] ang mokong na subject na yun at yung core principles naman nya e nadidiscuss sa isang subject ko ng sociology. It is a waste of time for both instructor and student.

Pwede naman siyang imerge sa mga subjects na may kinalaman sa civics, social sciences or even governance. Tapos imajor revamp nila ang elementary at high school. Sira ang mga foundations ng mga bata – dapat lahat ng basics sa elementary lang. Wag na irecycle sa high school. Dapat preparatory na for college ang high school.

Takte, daming problema nito. Ang sakit sa ulo. Shit talaga.

reynz says:
June 18, 2010 at 9:40 pm

another response….
—-
tama yung sinabi ni [deleted]

dapat alisin mga subject na walang kwenta. sa PE na lang sa halip na sports ang tinuturo, eh sayaw ang pinagkakaabalahan. Sa music, 10 years kami may music sa private school pero sa totoo lang, sa UST lang ako natuto magbasa ng nota at kantahin ang nota diretso mula sa piano piece. isang sem pa lang yun ha… eh sa basic ed ang tinuturo sa music mga walang kwenta.

Yung cultural dance, drama ekek dapat sa orgs and clubs na lang.. na kung saan optional.

wala ako nakikita na problem sa transitioning frrom 10 years to 12 years.

No offense, pero sa totoo lang, hindi naman lahat, yung mga graduate ng edu dito sa atin mga bopols karamihan. Dapat ang educ ang may pinakamahirap na board exam. kaya yung mga naupo sa dep ed, mga bopols din. madami na ako nakatrabaho na graduate ng educ, pero painlan ilan lang yung talagang magagaling at matatalino.

kulang sila sa analytical thinking di tulad ng ibang profs na graduate ng ibat ibang course. simnpleng management hindi nila makaya. Kaya tingan mo sino ang mga nagiging dean of studies sa mga schools, pag hindi nurse, doctor o business ad grads at madalang ang educ graduate.

Masyado medieval ang teaching skills at system ng mga educ grad. Kung ako sa ched, pagagandahin at pahihirapan ko ang ciurriculum ng teachers kasi sa qualkity ng education, punot dulo nito ay ang mga teachers. No offense. hindi naman lahat. Kaya medyo tama ang comment ni rossana dun sa showtime kasi nga most of the teachers, kahit dito sa amin sa catholic school, ay ganyan ang mga intellectual capacity.

Dapat teachers ang mas pinakamagaling sa lahat ng profession at mas mataas ang sweldo.

Chi says:
June 19, 2010 at 5:40 am

i must admit, wala ako natutunan sa music hahaha. pero alam kong kumumpas ng beats kc kailangang gawin sa flag ceremony 4/4 sa lupang hinirang at 2/2 sa school anthem “oh [insert alma matter here] dear college…” hahaha. with matching ngatog ng tuhod sa harapan ng whole student body! hahaha. litsi! bakit nga ba kelangan gawin yon?

reynz says:
June 19, 2010 at 7:14 am

natuto ako magtanim nang kamote. wa biro, pati kamoteng kahoy. yan ang PE namen nun sa elementary. ang siste nito, pag harvest season na, i have no more clue kung sino ang kumukuha. i hear, principal daw. i hear teachers daw. di ko alam, what i know is that, elementary pa lang ako, alam ko na ang ibig sabihin nang kurakot. hahaha

Chi says:
June 22, 2010 at 6:55 pm

ay oo totoo yan! naranasan kong mag gardening (as in mag gapas ng damo sa field! at and other ac tivities gaya ng paglilinis ng office ng principal, i was in elementary noon! pati pagtitinda sa canteen e duty rin namin. naka! child labor nga ata ginawa sa men! hayz

Chi says:
June 19, 2010 at 5:26 am

“dapat teachers ang pinakmagaling sa lahat ng profession”
this is what i’m pointing out matagal. sa teachers matututo ang lahat ng students. they should be the most intelligent of all for they are the ones who will give inputs to our children. but no! karamihan ng ng bata ngayon na magka-college will say “education na lang ang kukunin ko kc mahina ako” i’ve heard this before so many times. infact mrami akong ka batch na teacher ng science ang math na di marunong mag compose manlang ng simple sentence. i think i have already mentioned this in one of my comment somewhere here in b7. kakalungkot talaga. and i can remember, i think when we were in high school, supposedly dadagdagan daw ng grade 11 diba? correct me if i’m wrong please. pero walang nangyari. ayan late na tuloy and education natin. at present ang equivalent ng bachelors degree is higher educ lang dito sa UK, and ang masters degree(depende sa units at subjects parin) e bachelors lang and that is equivalent to less than NVQ5 lang! litsi! e pedeng karirin ang isang NVQ level in 6 months lang na once a week lang ang meeting with the assessor gawa lang assignment! gggrrrr! nkakawalang gana talaga at nakakapanghimutok!
BTW, DO YOU KNOW NA ANG MGA NURSE DITO HINDI DATI NAPUNTA SA SCHOOLS? TRAINING LANG SA OSPITAL? LITSI KYA KABADO AKO MAOSPITAL DITO E. HAHAHA. totoo to honestly.

Rosa says:
June 19, 2010 at 8:23 am

This goes back to Noynoy’s plan to increase the salary of teachers. That is the only way we can attract students to enrol in education if they see that it is financially rewarding and also keep the experience teachers from applying abroad. A lot of kids miss classes during the typhoon season. I always wondered why we do not have classes starting in Sept. ending in June so that only half of the rainy season is class time. It will also reduce absenteeism. I know summer would be missed but I’d rather have the kids safe at home than go to school during the typhoon season.

Dorcas says:
June 19, 2010 at 1:46 pm

agree ako na alisin ang subjects na walang kwenta. di na necessary ang mga yun for global competition, at dagdagan din ang basic ed for another 2 years as long as academic ang mga iyon. Tanggalin din ang mga educ’l administrators na kulang sa competence to manage the schools. kasi naman ang dep ed are promoting teachers to administrators base on diplomas na hindi naman natin masisiguro na consistent ang skills, competence and dedication ng taong may ari nun. What I mean, di alam mg manage at sahod lang ang habol, tapos wala lagi sa skul and di alam kung what’s happening in the skul and what needs to be done about the problems there. Di rin dinidiscipline kung ang teachers ay incompetent and lazy kasi pareho sila.

Marlne Howe says:
June 20, 2010 at 9:57 am

Same here. When they sent my transcript of records for evaluation to go back to college here in the US, they deducted my credits to make up the two years in secondry school that we don’t have in the Philippines.

http://barriosiete.com/bologna-accord-effectively-making-undergraduate-studies-in-the-philippines-useless/

Ady001

June 26th, 2010, 08:48 PM

In addition, we really have to control the big increase in population. Almost 2M children are born annually. That's too much drain on already meager resources.

Tapos, 'ala pang trabaho, di pa nagbabayad ng taxes... :ohno::ohno:

MatudNilaBaby

June 27th, 2010, 12:35 AM

Tapos, 'ala pang trabaho, di pa nagbabayad ng taxes... :ohno::ohno:

another reality sa mga philippine nurses thats working in the us and canada. the reason why many pinoy work as rn or lvn here its because registered nursing education is earned at a minimum of two years college education in the associate degree level.

our nursing education is 4 or 5 yrs, minus two years of basic education, then that levels off our 2 years lag. thats the sad truth about bragging that philippine educated nurses are better.

Ady001

June 27th, 2010, 04:32 AM

^^ That means if we don't implement education degrees at the soonest time possible we'll lose as well employment opportunities in, say, other countries that implement the Bologna accord?

Looks like speaking English isn't the only thing we have to do in the working world.

epik ll ian

June 27th, 2010, 04:42 AM

The Philippines would be richer if we had more talented Businessmen and less nurses/doctors.

Business people create big corporations which CREATE jobs and stimulate the economy. Nurses and Doctors just create individual worth. Not to say we don't need them, but we have too many of them and need some more smart minded business people.

Ady001

June 27th, 2010, 04:45 AM

MatudNilaBaby

June 27th, 2010, 04:58 AM

^^ Well not only that, we also need a lot of top researchers and developers. In the creative field, we also need a lot of fresh talent that would bring new fruits to the table. And how can that be achieved? Education of course.

Man, imagine that... We won't have to get stuck with borrowing ideas every time.

thats what we need a strong "R&D" component of our educational system.

look at how our elected congressmen and senators argue in the philippine congress and senate? their arguments are mostly of western ideas. cant our leaders think of our very own initiatives?

Ady001

June 27th, 2010, 05:03 AM

epik ll ian

June 27th, 2010, 05:06 AM

^^ Well not only that, we also need a lot of top researchers and developers. In the creative field, we also need a lot of fresh talent that would bring new fruits to the table. And how can that be achieved? Education of course.

Man, imagine that... We won't have to get stuck with borrowing ideas every time.

Right right, I completely agree. These development ideas are also followed through by a business that can market them :)

MatudNilaBaby

June 27th, 2010, 05:10 AM

^^ The Bologna Accord may be of Western Concept but they are also pragmatic, timely and something that should be shoved to the noses of these politicians. R&D has to also start by propagating the Filipino First ideology once again.

we can be good at that in the fields of agriculture, aquamarine biology, arts and culture. pero kanang engineering, medicine and computer technology saludo nalang tayo sa mga japs, europeans and americans. we're better off if we establish linkages and collaboration among the top universities of the world.

epik ll ian

June 27th, 2010, 05:11 AM

^^ That, AND it would be good if we had a greater emphasis on studying abroad during college. Usually most of the Filipinos who go oversees to study don't end up coming back.

MatudNilaBaby

June 27th, 2010, 05:24 AM

^^ That, AND it would be good if we had a greater emphasis on studying abroad during college. Usually most of the Filipinos who go oversees to study don't end up coming back.

thats totally true. i think up stopped sending young college professors for post graduate education because they dont come back anymore once they reach the us, canada or uk. mabuti pa ipadala sila mag research sa timbukto para mobalik gyud sila.:lol::lol::lol:

kenken94

June 27th, 2010, 05:56 AM

Govt urged to hike budget for education to 9% of GDP
Top News
Saturday, 26 June 2010 18:56

TO be on par with neighboring countries and improve basic education, the Philippines needs to allocate at least 7 percent to 9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to the Department of Education (DepEd) until 2015.

DepEd’s budget this year is only P172 billion, even below the 2009 funding of P174 billion. The department had previously requested P190 billion from general appropriations to solve the country’s perennial lack of classrooms, teachers, textbooks and other needs.

The Philippine Business for Education (PBED) and the Education Nation—composed of leading businessmen, educators and nongovernmental organizations calling for reforms in the country’s education system—said today’s basic education spending of 2.5 percent of GDP is way below the global average of 5 percent.

Ramon del Rosario Jr., a member of the board of trustee of PBED, said, “7 percent is the desired education budget as a percentage of the GDP that is needed for the Philippines to catch up with the rest of the world.” He was quoting a report by the Australian Agency for International Development (Ausaid).

He said the country fares poorly in education allocation compared with Malaysia and Thailand, which spend 4.5 percent and 4 percent of their GDP for education, respectively. Per capita spending also showed the Philippines lagging with only $150 per student compared with $1,500 in Malaysia and $900 in Thailand.

Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz said much more is needed, citing a study of the DepEd with the World Bank during the time of former Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus that found the education budget must be 8 percent to 9 percent of GDP until 2015 to solve the shortages in infrastructure, teachers and teaching materials.

“This is the lowest figure that we have come up with. This is a catchup budget without the additional two years in basic education,” said Luz.

This year’s budget is apportioned thus: P141 billion for personnel services, P22 billion for maintenance and operating expenses and P12 billion for capital outlay. For 2011, the DepEd said it will ask the Aquino administration for twice the amount or about P350 billion.

Education Secretary Mona Valisno also said the country needs to construct about 66,000 classrooms to meet the ideal international classroom-to-student ratio of 1:36.

Antonio Tinio, national president of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, said the department is actually short of 54,060 teachers, 4,538 principals 6,473 head teachers, 61,343 classrooms, 816,291 seats and 113,051 water and sanitation facilities this school year.

He said the textbook shortage alone needs some P400 million to address and the myriad problems of education need as much as P91 billion to resolve. C. Mocon

Nanflexal

June 27th, 2010, 08:25 AM

kenken94

June 27th, 2010, 12:52 PM

Parang exaggerated naman siguro ang 9% ng GDP, mataas naman ang literacy natin kaysa sa Malaysia at sa ibang neighbors natin ah. Standing at 94% yata ang mga edukado sa Pilipinas............ at saka di lang naman edukasyon ang priority ng Gobyerno yung mga kulang na trabaho ang isa dun. Kung mas mababa lang sa 9% pero di kukulang sa at least 3.5%. Kailangan din kasi natin nga mas malaking budget sa inprastraktura at iba pang prioridad ng Gobyerno.

Ady001

June 27th, 2010, 01:56 PM

Ady001

June 27th, 2010, 01:57 PM

we can be good at that in the fields of agriculture, aquamarine biology, arts and culture. pero kanang engineering, medicine and computer technology saludo nalang tayo sa mga japs, europeans and americans. we're better off if we establish linkages and collaboration among the top universities of the world.

Dog eat dog world na ta karon. Anything we get our hands on to, go shall we.

MatudNilaBaby

June 27th, 2010, 07:05 PM

mwg12a

June 27th, 2010, 10:31 PM

In addition, we really have to control the big increase in population. Almost 2M children are born annually. That's too much drain on already meager resources.

Aaahh... I didn't check the source, too long. The last article was such a pain to read. :lol:

dapat kapunin ang lahat na mahihilig at hindi gumagamit ng protection.
Siguro may law na parang sa china. 1 o 2 anak lang ang puede.

xxxriainxxx

June 28th, 2010, 06:48 AM

dapat kapunin ang lahat na mahihilig at hindi gumagamit ng protection.
Siguro may law na parang sa china. 1 o 2 anak lang ang puede.

Kaya ngayon sa China, andaming lalaki na walang asawa kasi kulang sa babae.

epik ll ian

June 28th, 2010, 07:16 AM

dapat kapunin ang lahat na mahihilig at hindi gumagamit ng protection.
Siguro may law na parang sa china. 1 o 2 anak lang ang puede.

People don't have kids anymore. They have litters of children haha.

It's time to tone it down a little. Make protection a little more accessible and free.

Ady001

June 28th, 2010, 07:42 AM

^^ Dapat baliktad... I-tax ng malaki ang anak ng anak.

OT: Dapat sa Population Thread na 'to.

xxxriainxxx

June 28th, 2010, 10:03 AM

^^ Dapat baliktad... I-tax ng malaki ang anak ng anak.

OT: Dapat sa Population Thread na 'to.

That's what I've been telling everyone for the last 10 years.

Zero tax for couples with one child/two children

Graduated taxation for couples with more than two.

Couple with over 4 children should be given option for free, government sponsored sterilization.

OT nga. sorry po.

kenken94

June 28th, 2010, 02:22 PM

^^ 9% pa nga is kulang pa in terms of rehabilitating our schools. If PNoy would like to really improve it dapat we have to have spending in education. Sure Literacy wise lamang tayo but in terms of quality, wala talaga. Pwede naman sigurong paunti-unti yubg pag-abot nga 9% ng GDP for education. Di naman sigurong ilagay lahat sa isang bagsakan.......... meron ding ibang prioridad ang Gobyerno maliban sa edukasyon.

epik ll ian

June 28th, 2010, 04:19 PM

^^ Dapat baliktad... I-tax ng malaki ang anak ng anak.

OT: Dapat sa Population Thread na 'to.

Yeah that's a good idea actually. The tax should increase in a stepwise fashion per child. Each additional child will cost you this much more in taxes. It'll teach people that they should only create what they can support. The world isn't a free place.

In the U.S., we've come to terms that a lot of people will do "it" regardless of whether told or not. However, there's a huge emphasis here on using protection - condoms, contraceptives etc. That's why in a lot of places you go, the health center, family planning, the doctors office, you can readily get these things for free. People in the States are very careful when they do "it." However, that's not say that there are still no teen pregnancies. I'm just saying that from what I can tell, a majority of those people weren't careful with protection, and that's why they are where they are - pregnant. These items should be readily available. You can stop SOME people from doing it, but naturally people are going to do what they want to do, and if they have to do it, they should be at least be given the option to play it safe.

Kintoy

June 28th, 2010, 04:36 PM

epik is the prime example why we need population control. :lol:

RonnieR

June 29th, 2010, 04:35 AM

Entry level salary of teachers is now P16,000 or US$347/month. No wonder, there are so many students now who are taking Education.

CHED chief proposes to consolidate education agencies
(The Philippine Star) Updated June 29, 2010 12:00 AM

MALOLOS CITY , Philippines - Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Secretary Emmanuel Angeles wants to consolidate the country’s education agencies under one department in order to have focus in the educational system.

He was referring to the Department of Education (DepEd), the CHED, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda).

“They have different focus. There’s no coordination,” Angeles said in an interview at the economic briefing between China and the Philippines at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Clark Freeport last Saturday.

DepEd handles basic education while CHED is in charge of high school and college education. Tesda provides middle level manpower training.

He noted that other countries in Southeast Asia, like Thailand, have experimented with a trifocal education system but later reconsolidated the agencies under one department. Angeles also said the budget for education should be increased from 2.35 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to at least four percent.

He said this could be done if legislators will allocate 10 percent of their annual pork barrel for the development of education in their respective districts. The funds, he said, need not go through the hands of education officials.

“Many of them (lawmakers) provide scholarships and build schools but we have to institutionalize it,” Angeles said.

Angeles said he is preparing a proposal to president-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III for the improvement of the educational system.

He is also proposing the automatic scholarship of some 520,000 college students from the poorest families.

“My idea is to have one scholar in college from every family, because if they graduate, they will help their siblings,” he said.

He also said the curriculum from elementary to college should be upgraded to prepare students for industry requirements.

Education Secretary Mona Valisno said she will present a set of urgent concerns to Aquino when he assumes his post.

“I will be former secretary by July 1. But the team at DepEd will bridge with President Noynoy our concerns as he committed that education will be a priority in his administration,” she said.

Valisno said she will particularly support the demand of public school teachers to implement the salary increase for entry-level teachers from P16,000 to more than P20,000 per month, while master teachers should receive P33,000 per month from P26,000 per month.

In June last year, President Arroyo approved the Salary Standardization Law III (SSL3), which covers all government employees, including teachers.

“These salary increases are already embodied in the law. We’ll be happy to make representations with the DBM (Department of Budget and Management) on this for teachers,” she said. – With Rainier Allan Ronda

Ady001

June 29th, 2010, 09:33 AM

^^ :applause: next big step in getting one after I fully pay my dues.

Next Step: Tighten Regulation For New Teachers.

(OT: I might post an essay I'm working on with regard to Philippine education. Katuwaan lang naman.)

Ady001

June 29th, 2010, 09:35 AM

That's what I've been telling everyone for the last 10 years.

Zero tax for couples with one child/two children

Graduated taxation for couples with more than two.

Couple with over 4 children should be given option for free, government sponsored sterilization.

OT nga. sorry po.

Believe me, I was still in high school when you first told that. :D

Ady001

June 29th, 2010, 09:37 AM

EUREKA!
School year resolutions for parents

By Queena Lee-Chua
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:53:00 06/27/2010

Filed Under: Education, Children, Family

IT TAKES a village to raise a child. Parents and teachers need to work together to ensure that children learn in the most effective and satisfying ways possible.

Whether you are a parent class representative (chosen by the other parents to represent their concerns to the administration and faculty) or have not attended any parent-teacher conference at all, you can always become a better guide.

Here are five school year resolutions you can keep, at least for the next 10 months:

1. I will be there for my child, especially for significant events.

When both parents work, taking time off to attend school events requires months of planning and advance scheduling. But go ahead, do it.

Look through the school calendar and mark the days for parent-teacher conferences, father-son days, graduation and so forth. You do not want your child to rely on his teacher as surrogate father during camp, do you? You cannot ignore a teacher’s warning about your daughter’s failing marks or miss graduation because you have to go out of town, can you? Your children may forgive you (eventually) for these lapses, but they will never forget. And they might not fully trust you again.

2. I will address my child’s academic difficulties early on.

If you wait until report card day to deal with your child’s learning difficulties, then it may be too late. Failing marks are not made overnight – they result from bad grades in quizzes, long tests, quarterly examinations.

Keep communication lines with your child open. Ask him every day (or every other day) if he understands the lessons. If not, ask him how you can help. Monitor his grades in the quizzes. If he repeatedly flunks, then something is wrong.

Unless the majority of the class also gets low marks (in which case it is perhaps due to teacher incompetence), repeated failures are a sign that your child needs urgent help.

Schedule a consultation with the teacher immediately and, together, develop a plan to help your child.

3. I will ensure that my child develops solid study habits.

Studying well is a habit like any other. It can only be developed over time and through constant guidance.

When your child comes home from school, does he deal with homework immediately, or does he procrastinate? Establish a routine for your child: snack, bath, homework, games, television or computer, sleep. If needed, give the yaya enough power to enforce your rules.

Just because you are at work does not mean you should relinquish all responsibility. Call home and check on your child. Remind him to put study before play. When you get home, find out if he has completed his homework.

Do not do your child’s assignments. You are the parent. Your task is to ensure that your child does the work.

4. I will learn to let go, especially when my child gets to middle school, high school or college.

There is such a thing though, as being too present in your child’s life. “Helicopter parents” hover over their children, micromanaging each and every second, questioning their decisions and never letting them make mistakes. Worse still, they fix their children’s mistakes.

Are you in school every day? Your child is the student, not you. Do you call up teachers frequently, so much so that they dread hearing from you? You need to know your child’s teachers, but consulting them on every topic is overkill.

Let your child make mistakes. That is the only way he can learn. Of course, I am not saying that you should let your child flunk. But an 8 out of 10 is not the end of the world, as long as your child understands his mistakes and corrects them the next time around.

If you are always doing his projects, his papers, his homework, he will never learn. If your child does something wrong and never learns to face the music, then he will never grow.

5. I will stop comparing my child to others.

Children have different strengths and weaknesses, and that is how it should be. Think about how boring the world would be if everybody were a science genius!

Do you expect Junior to be a language whiz, just because his elder brother was editor in chief of the school paper? Accept that Junior may not turn out to be a writer, but he may be a budding artist!

Are you hung up on your child’s marks, so that a 9 out of 10 is unacceptable? Your child will become anxious, and he will stop enjoying school.

Do you call up other parents and compare your children’s grades, crowing when your child fares better or trying to tear down others whose grades are higher? Recognize that children are different. Rejoice in the successes of others.

Parents who have a lot of time on their hands tend to compare their kids to others, basically because they have nothing else to do. Develop a hobby. Volunteer in church. Turn your energies into something positive. Get a life separate from your children’s.

E-mail the author at blessbook@yahoo.com.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/learning/view/20100627-277908/School-year-resolutions-for-parents

Ady001

June 29th, 2010, 09:38 AM

Textbook crusader cautions DepEd

By Philip Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 04:58:00 06/29/2010

Filed Under: Education, Books

MANILA, Philippines—A self-styled crusader against “sick books” Monday assailed as “dangerous” a proposal by the Department of Education (DepEd) that it be allowed again to commission and publish textbooks for public schools.

Antonio Calipjo-Go, academic supervisor of Marian School of Quezon City, said that the DepEd should instead increase the textbook price to get more publishers interested in bidding out a textbook project and then “haggle” with them for the best manuscript.

“It would be dangerous for the DepEd to publish and commission its own books because there would be no involvement or input from outside. There would be no check and balance there,” Go said in an interview.

“That is a very self-serving proposal and it is also not true that the DepEd books before contained no error.”

Assistant Education Secretary Jonathan Malaya last week blamed “cost-cutting” by publishers for the error-riddled textbooks and the 1995 law that scrapped DepEd’s authority to commission and publish its own teaching materials.

He said that the DepEd had asked Congress to revisit or amend Republic Act No. 8047, or the Book Publishing Industry Development Act.

“Essentially when this law was passed, we lost our flexibility when it comes to textbooks. We cannot produce our own manuscripts,” said Malaya, who is also the DepEd spokesperson.

Go, who began a crusade 13 years ago to rid textbooks of errors, said the DepEd should not blame the blunders on “cost-cutting publishers” because its Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS) was supposed to evaluate the textbooks before publication.

DepEd to blame

“If somebody is to blame, it should be the DepEd. Publishers pay P40,000 for the evaluation by the DepEd of their proposed textbooks so it should get the best evaluators and reviewers,” Go said.

“If the evaluators say the manuscript did not pass, then don’t pass the book. It’s as simple as that,” he added.

Go said that if a textbook call failed, the DepEd could again issue another textbook call and invite publishers to participate.

He said the DepEd should also increase its proposed price for textbooks so that publishers “would not be pushed to cut corners.”

“The price now is about P42 to P43 per textbook. That’s around P20 more than a price of a copy of the Inquirer,” Go said.

“They could increase it to maybe P60 to entice more publishers and then get the best passing manuscript and haggle with its publisher,” he added.

Cutting corners for profit

Go said publishers were forced to cut corners in textbook production because the textbook prices proposed by the DepEd were not high enough for publishers to make a profit.

“And the DepEd wants good paper quality and other things which would be hard to produce at P42 per copy,” he said.

Malaya said the DepEd now relied on the bidding process to get quality textbooks “and that bidding process is one of the problems.”

“Having a bidding means trying to get the lowest price. So, the manuscripts submitted are not good. Of course, you have to cut your costs. You’re a publisher,” Malaya said.

“This is a business enterprise. You have to cut costs. So, when you cut costs, you submit a manuscript that’s [substandard],” he said.

“If you look at our recent textbook calls, there were so many failures. No one passed. And when you get a failed textbook call, it’s the students who suffer because they get no new book.”

Perfect with errors

A study conducted by a team of professors from the University of the Philippines-Diliman said the errors were a result of IMCS rules that gave a perfect grade even for textbooks that contained major errors.

Go said in a letter to the Inquirer that to give DepEd the authority to publish its own textbooks would be “like rewarding the DepEd and the IMCS for their monumental incompetence.”

The letter said in part:

“The IMCS was set up precisely to screen, review and evaluate textbooks for possible adoption in public schools. If the manuscripts submitted to it are not good, all it needs to do is to reject them, until it is able to come up with the best. Once it approves a manuscript and gives the go signal to print, the IMCS assumes full responsibility for the final outcome.

“Publishers are required to pay the IMCS the sum of P40,000 for every book they submit. This amount, to my mind, binds and obligates the IMCS to hire and commission the most competent editors and reviewers to help it decide whether to pass or fail submitted works.

Wagyu beef

“After each Textbook Call, it becomes the duty of the IMCS to choose the best manuscript and then sit down with the winning publisher to discuss the best possible price which will be fair to both parties. When authors and publishers are confident that they will get a fair price under a climate of fair play, they will naturally do their level best to come up with really good materials. One cannot hope to be served Wagyu beef if his budget is just right for tinapa.

“If there is a failed Textbook Call, the DepEd should just keep on issuing the same invitation. I don’t see any reason why publishers will shy away from something which will surely bring in the money. Just as long as there is a level playing field, market forces dictate that producers will produce the best products to attract the widest range of consumers.

“Rewarding the DepEd by giving it the awesome power to publish public school textbooks without any outside interference will be the biggest error we can possibly commit.”

Errors remain

Since launching a crusade against error-filled textbooks, Go has written scathing commentaries, testified in congressional hearings and put out from his own pocket P1 million worth of ads.

The errors he has pointed out remain in the textbooks, which continue to be used in schools. He has also been slapped with libel suits.

The problem is only one of the major headaches in the education system confronting the incoming administration of Benigno Aquino III.

They include classroom shortages, teacher training and resource allocation—blamed for the country’s lagging behind its neighbors in Southeast Asia in economic and political development.

Go has said that textbooks “must be purged of all stale data, misinformation, idiocies and inanities, fallacies and errors.”

“This we must do if we are to save our children from the darkness of our own making. A law must be passed which will make the writing and publication of defective textbooks a crime with a corresponding punishment,” he said.

“The proper education of our young is the great moral battle that must be waged by all Filipinos who love their country.”

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100629-278126/Textbook-crusader-cautions-DepEd

jpdm

July 1st, 2010, 01:08 AM

Nursing out, agribusiness in as top job generator

By Kristine L. Alave
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:02:00 06/30/2010

Filed Under: Employment, Nursing matters, Education

MANILA, Philippines—Nursing is out, agribusiness is in.

Students who want to land local jobs easily after graduation should take note of the country’s key employment generators in the next five to 10 years, the Department of Labor and Employment said.

The Labor Department said agribusiness topped the list of key employment generators in its study of the labor market in various regions in the next five to 10 years.

Other industries that will demand labor in the near future include: cyberservices, health and wellness, hotel and restaurant, medical tourism, mining, construction, finance, manufacturing, real estate, transport and logistics, retail, and overseas work.

Emerging industries in the country in next 10 years are creative industries, strategic farming and fishing, power and utilities and renewable energy, according to the Labor department’s Project JobsFit study.

‘Hard to fill’ jobs

Criselda Sy, director for local labor, said discussions with various industries showed that these sectors have “hard to fill in demand posts.”

She noted that the four most popular college courses—nursing, information technology, education, and hotel and restaurant management—do not respond to the need of the local communities.

Sy said Filipino students have no idea of competitive courses to take in college, which has led to surpluses and a mismatch in skills.

As such, the Labor department is urging a review of the Philippines’ education curriculum to address the jobs mismatch and introduce students to other job opportunities.

Labor officials said the curriculum was no longer responsive to the needs of the labor market.

Labor Undersecretary Romeo Lagman said schools should review their curriculum and steer their students toward key employment generators.

“We have to start an intensified career guidance program starting in third year high school and this should include gender awareness, current work practices, and potential opportunities for both technical-vocational and college courses to ensure that students make effective career choices,” Lagman said.

epik ll ian

July 1st, 2010, 02:09 AM

^^ Yes, finally!!! People are discovering that there IS a world outside of nursing!!! ^_^

Ady001

July 1st, 2010, 03:00 AM

^^ You cannot believe the number of people graduating from nursing without jobs.

Askal82

July 1st, 2010, 03:19 AM

epik ll ian

July 1st, 2010, 05:20 AM

^^ You cannot believe the number of people graduating from nursing without jobs.

Knowing how EVERYBODY is becoming a nurse ... I can imagine. haha :bash:
I wish people could shift this same passion(?) for nursing over to research, development, and business instead. These jobs are what push economies forward - not a nation full of nurses. Not saying it's not a good or respectable job, but there's a world out there to explore and conquer. Not everybody out there can be a nurse, and now people are seeing the consequences.

I use (?) because I'm assuming it's more of a trend than it is a passion - much like how wearing bell bottom jeans was a trend in the '70s.

pulsephaze22

July 1st, 2010, 11:55 AM

More foreigners flocking to RP to study languages
Posted on June 27th, 2010 under The Good Balita

Foreign students continue to flock to the Philippines, with a majority of them enrolling in language schools.
The Bureau of Immigration said as of June 15, a total of 6,416 foreign students were issued student visas.
The number of student visas issued this year increased by 20 percent, compared to the 5,343 last year, he added.
The Bureau said the surge in student visa applications could help the Philippines become the educational hub in the Asia-Pacific region.
“We will continue to look for ways to liberalize our rules on student visas so that more foreigners will be encouraged to study here,” B-I said.
The figures could go up further as hundreds of foreign students continue to process their visa applications.
These current figures pertain to foreign students who had applied for visas at the BI main office in Intramuros, Manila. Student visa applications have also risen in BI field offices in the cities of Cebu, Baguio, Davao, Angeles, and Iloilo, with the cities of Cebu and Baguio having the most number of foreign students.
Out of the 6,416 student visas issued this year, 1,871 are for newcomers and the rest for foreigners already studying here, the bureau added.
Under BI rules, a college or university cannot admit foreign students for enrolment unless it has been accredited and authorized by the BI.
(Story courtesy of Philippine Star)

jpdm

July 1st, 2010, 03:49 PM

Retro

July 1st, 2010, 05:23 PM

Knowing how EVERYBODY is becoming a nurse ... I can imagine. haha :bash:
I wish people could shift this same passion(?) for nursing over to research, development, and business instead. These jobs are what push economies forward - not a nation full of nurses. Not saying it's not a good or respectable job, but there's a world out there to explore and conquer. Not everybody out there can be a nurse, and now people are seeing the consequences.

I use (?) because I'm assuming it's more of a trend than it is a passion - much like how wearing bell bottom jeans was a trend in the '70s.

^^ Actually hindi naman sayang yun course that those students take up since it so happen that there are limited private hospital to get their internship practice at kung foreign job opening naman hindi naman sila qualified yet due to lack of experience and years of practice.

I recall in yesterday P-Noy inauguration speech he mention he will focus in education and health care. This mean we can tapped those newly graduate nurse to serve naman sa mga rural at public hospital by providing them a temporary job by serving those gov't. institution let say at least a minimum of 3 years. Then after that those practicing nurses has the option to continue their profession in private medical institution locally or further pursue their career sa abroad.

So its a win-win situation by helping those nursing graduates now since we will be needing them in the coming future.

Ady001

July 2nd, 2010, 03:51 AM

^^ I was thinking of letting my brother, who graduated from that course to go onward to Medicine, pero sobrang mahal.

epik ll ian

July 2nd, 2010, 06:54 AM

^^ Actually hindi naman sayang yun course that those students take up since it so happen that there are limited private hospital to get their internship practice at kung foreign job opening naman hindi naman sila qualified yet due to lack of experience and years of practice.

I recall in yesterday P-Noy inauguration speech he mention he will focus in education and health care. This mean we can tapped those newly graduate nurse to serve naman sa mga rural at public hospital by providing them a temporary job by serving those gov't. institution let say at least a minimum of 3 years. Then after that those practicing nurses has the option to continue their profession in private medical institution locally or further pursue their career sa abroad.

So its a win-win situation by helping those nursing graduates now since we will be needing them in the coming future.

Win-win situation ... yeah. However, from what I seen there is definitely not a nursing shortage coming around any time soon. Like the article says: Nursing OUT. What the economy is lacking in right now are jobs such as skilled entrepreneurs and technological research and development experts. These fields will give rise to industries. These industries will create JOBS and products which can sell to other countries. The economy will then flourish. The nation will flourish. People will have a higher quality of life. Nursing doesn't create jobs, and it doesn't stimulate the economy. It only generates self-worth. If the Philippines could just manage to land at least one huge corporation - SONY/LG/Honda scale - the Philippines would be golden.

Retro

July 2nd, 2010, 07:45 AM

Win-win situation ... yeah. However, from what I seen there is definitely not a nursing shortage coming around any time soon. Like the article says: Nursing OUT. What the economy is lacking in right now are jobs such as skilled entrepreneurs and technological research and development experts. These fields will give rise to industries. These industries will create JOBS and products which can sell to other countries. The economy will then flourish. The nation will flourish. People will have a higher quality of life. Nursing doesn't create jobs, and it doesn't stimulate the economy. It only generates self-worth. If the Philippines could just manage to land at least one huge corporation - SONY/LG/Honda scale - the Philippines would be golden.

^^ Well ok din yun sinabi mo concerning those skilled entrepreneur, technology research and development expert. Pero what I'm trying to address is how those nursing graduate can continue their skills development in the field of medicine if they stop practising their profession and pursue other jobs. Pagka alam ko there is shortage right now sa mga gov't hospital and public health care center ng mga nurses since yun former nurse staff who have gained field experience are already working abroad. In fact in other private hospital and medical institution there is a shortage na experience nurses kaya most of the time you will see more student nurse and interns. Hindi ko lang alam kung nagtitipid lang yun mga hospital kaya mas marami yun intern nurse kaysa regular working nurse. Just my observation lang :cheers:

kalbongdad

July 2nd, 2010, 02:46 PM

si leon guerrero bumanat para sa mga kaliwete....kaya lalo syang mahal ng masa.......go lito lapid....na realize ko na oo nga ano dapat bigyan pagpapahalaga kaming mga kaliwete... jejejeje....yung mga ladlad nga pinahahalagahan....:lol:

johnmizer

July 3rd, 2010, 08:14 AM

cute talga mga batas ni lito lapid... mas magaling nga talga sya kay...

the glimpser

July 3rd, 2010, 02:42 PM

the glimpser

July 3rd, 2010, 03:35 PM

Lawyer urges revocation of new CHED policy

By Edson C. Tandoc Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 15:15:00 07/03/2010

MANILA, Philippines—New graduates of state universities and colleges will likely find it difficult to take board exams if a new policy adopted by the Commission on Higher Education is not revoked, an educator and lawyer warned Saturday.

The new policy requires all state universities and colleges—SUCs—to secure permits from the CHEd for all their board programs, otherwise the Professional Regulatory Commission would not allow their graduates to take licensure exams.

But former congressman and San Beda Law School Dean Ulpiano Sarmiento III warned in an interview with the Inquirer on Saturday that this new policy, which CHEd advertised in a few broadsheets the other day, would "create a revolution" among the SUCs.

He said: "I don't think the SUC administrators will agree to that. This is an affront to their academic freedom."

But if SUCs disregard the new requirement and the PRC heeds its agreement with CHEd of refusing to give board exams to SUC graduates without CHEd's special orders, it would be the new graduates who would be in limbo.

Thus, he is asking incoming CHEd chair Patricia Licuanan to immediately revoke the new policy of outgoing CHEd chair Emmanuel Angeles.

Sarmiento said that while he believed that Angeles "meant well," the new requirement was illegal since SUCs are not under the CHEd.

He said: "State universities and colleges come into existence not through the pleasure of CHEd but through legislation. They are legislated into existence."

Sarmiento said Angeles could have made the requirement in response to the fact that many SUCs offer courses they are not capable of teaching in the first place, resulting in substandard courses and unqualified graduates.

But he said infringing on the academic freedom of SUCs "is not the way to solve this."

He said that the CHEd sits on the governing board of each SUC anyway. It is through this power that the CHEd can uphold the quality of teaching in each SUC.

Sarmiento said: "The CHEd and the SUCs should be powerful allies, catering as they do quality education to all citizens. It is therefore strongly suggested that the incoming chair, the learned Dr. Patricia Licuanan, immediately revoke said policy to avoid any further confusion to the SUC communities."

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20100703-278969/Lawyer-urges-revocation-of-new-CHED-policy

Retro

July 5th, 2010, 07:11 AM

Reporters’ query on sex education curtly dismissed :bash:

BY FRANCIS EARL A. CUETO REPORTER
Manila Times.net - July 5, 2010

REPORTERS covering the Department of Education (DepEd) decried a statement made by Secretary Brother Armin Luistro, who was reported to have said that that he does not need the help of media in going about his duties at the agency. “Education Secretary Brother Armin Luistro is either misinformed or he doesn’t know what he is saying,” Education department reporters group president Hannibal Talete said over the weekend, in response to Luistro’s statement, “Hindi nakakatulong ang media [The media do not help in any way].”

According to Talete, they were dismayed at Luistro’s behavior and actuation toward the media that he apparently regards as a nuisance in the performance of his duties as Education secretary.

“We don’t know where he’s coming from,” he said.

Talete noted that Luistro acknowledged the role and importance of media not only in informing the public but also in helping unearth the truth when he joined calls for former President Gloria Arroyo to step down at the height of the “Hello, Garci” controversy.

The controversy erupted from allegations of poll fraud against Arroyo, who was said to have phoned former poll commissioner Virgilio “Garci” Garcillano to rig the May 2004 elections in her favor. She denied the accusations.

More quits
Luistro’s apparent disregard of the media came when he was asked last week what he thought of a plan by his predecessor at Education department to introduce sex education in public elementary and high schools across the country.

Supposedly, the new Education chief curtly dismissed the question.

“Natatakot lang ata sya sagutin ang tungkol sa sex education dahil biased sya sa mga bishops [Maybe he was afraid to answer the question on sex education because he was biased in favor of the bishops],” the reporters said.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has expressed strong protest against the plan of former Education chief Mona Valisno.

The reporters also expressed surprised at Luistro’s display of arrogance in dismissing the media.

They also noted that Valisno appeared to have more guts in making a stand on the controversial issue of sex education.

The reporters said that the former Education chief stood her ground on her plan despite earning the ire of the influential Catholic Church and other religious groups.

Valsino’s courage was cited by Education Assistant Secretary Jonathan Malaya before employees of the department who honored Valisno during formal turnover ceremonies on July 1.

“In this aspect, [Valisno], even though she is a woman, has more guts compared to him [Luistro],” the reporters said.

Unbecoming response
“Ang dali naman ni Brother Armin magbago o ganun talaga ang mga ‘well-educated’ at lumaki sa mga institusyon na hawak ng mga pare o madre [How quick it is for Brother Armin to change or is it really that way with the well-educated who grew up in an institution controlled by priests or nuns]?” they asked.

Until his appointment as Education chief, Luistro was the president of the exclusive De La Salle University. He is not a priest, though, but a La Sallite brother.

The reporters said that they would not clash with Luistro but would not be cowed by such shabby treatment.

Earlier, they bewailed the Education secretary’s treatment of a radio reporter who tried to get his opinion on sex education.

The encounter happened during the turnover ceremonies held on Thursday at the Education department main offices along Meralco Avenue in Pasig City (Metro Manila).

Radio dzMM reporter Denis Datu asked Luistro after the ceremonies if he is in favor of implementing sex education in the country’s public elementary and high schools.

The Education chief brushed aside Datu’s question with a curt, “Wag ninyo akong tanungin, dahil kayong media hindi kayo nakakatulong [Don’t ask me, because you, the media, you don’t help in any way].”

Other reporters there were surprised by the unbecoming response of the Education secretary.

The Manila Times called Luistro many times for his side on his controversial statement but the calls were unreturned.

Ady001

July 5th, 2010, 07:29 AM

^^ At long last, salamat din at may mga matitino pa talagang mga mambabalita sa bansa natin.

MatudNilaBaby

July 5th, 2010, 07:26 PM

MatudNilaBaby

July 7th, 2010, 03:37 AM

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/market-cebu-english-hub

april boy

July 7th, 2010, 03:15 PM

^^^^
Well, its shows that Bro. Armin doesnt like the way media is handling the issue.

epik ll ian

July 7th, 2010, 03:52 PM

Either way it's still unprofessional.

april boy

July 7th, 2010, 04:26 PM

Either way it's still unprofessional.

I think you are right.:)

april boy

July 10th, 2010, 05:22 AM

Old article but very important to emphasize

RP schools on list of top 200 Asian universities

Saturday, 15 May 2010 00:00
BY FRANCIS EARL A. CUETO Reporter
Manila Times

FOUR Philippine universities made it to the top 200 list of Asian universities drawn up by the consultancy Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. (QS) for 2010.

The top Philippine university on the list was the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University, which tied with Taiwan’s National Central University in the 58th slot.

It was a big jump for Ateneo from the 84th spot last year.

State-run University of the Philippines, however, fell from 63 to 78, while University of Santo Tomas advanced to 101st from its former 144th spot.

De la Salle University suffered the worst blow among the four Philippine universities, falling to 106th from the 76th spot.

Some universities from Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and Thailand ranked higher than the four Philippine schools that made it to the top 200. The four universities also represent a glaring minority, given there are around 2000 higher learning institutions in the country.

According to Wikipedia, Quac-quarelli Symonds specializes in education and study abroad. It has over 100 employees and been operating globally from offices in London (head office in Hampstead, North London), Paris, Singapore, Stuttgart, Boston, Washington D.C., Sydney, Shanghai, and Johannesburg since its founding in 1990 by Wharton School Master of Business Administration graduate Nunzio Quacquarelli.

In measuring quality, QS used the following criteria: Asian academic peers (30 percent), papers per faculty (15 percent), citations per paper (15 percent), student-faculty ratio (20 percent), Asian employer review (10 percent), international faculty (2.5 percent), international students (2.5 percent), inbound exchange students (2.5 percent), and outbound exchange students (2.5 percent).

Rounding up the top 10 universities are the following: University of Hong Kong ; The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; National University of Singapore; The Chinese University of Hong Kong; The University of Tokyo (Japan); Seoul National University (South Korea); Osaka University (Japan); Kyoto University (Japan); Tohoku University (Japan) and Nagoya University (Japan).

Nursing schools assailed

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) gave its final warning to the 147 nursing schools around the coutry that failed to reach the national passing rate of 46.14 percent in the nursing licensure examination in the last five years.

”The quality of education won’t increase unless you phase out substandard schools,” CHED Chairman Emmanuel Angeles said during a press briefing.

Angeles said that CHED already issued memorandums to these nursing schools, ordering them to “shape up” or be “phased out” by 2011.

Angles said the closure of the substandard schools would minimize “frustrations and wastage among nursing graduates” and promote “quality education.”

CHED also announced it would require certification from the schools that their students are qualified to take the succeeding board examinations. The certificate will also serve as a permit to continue offering professional courses.

Inspections among these higher education institution, which will start simultaneously this school year, will be conducted by representatives from CHED, Professional Regulation Commission, Department of Interior and Local Government and will allot an six-month period for possible upgrades in their institution.

Students will be given the opportunity to transfer to a CHED-accredited schools should their current institution fail to comply with the set standards.

Based on the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) records, the National Capital Region has the most number of schools with “poor performance” in the nursing board exams with 22.

On the other hand, Silliman University leads the list of the top 20 nursing schools in the country with an average of 96.57 percent followed by Saint Louis University , 95.42; Trinity University of Asia, 95.06; University of Santo Tomas, 95.06 and Cebu Doctors University, 91.89.

Angeles has proposed that the budget for education be increased from 2.2 percent of the whole Gross National Product to 4 percent.

”In the whole Asia, we have the lowest budget for education,” he said.

”You cannot do it overnight. You cannot do it in six years alone. It is a long-term plan,” Angeles added.

With reports from Kristine Bunda and Kevin A. Santos

Ady001

July 10th, 2010, 01:21 PM

Very alarming. Mukhang china-challenge na ata dominance ng UP but it could've been better if we've had a better scheme of education which is doable.

castermaild55

July 11th, 2010, 05:03 PM

http://bmblog.bagarinao.com/index.php?/plugin/tag/japanese
http://bmblog.bagarinao.com/index.php?/archives/28-Ayas-First-Sportsfest.html

epik ll ian

July 12th, 2010, 12:33 AM

^^ Haha I like that. "Ganyan talaga ang mga Hapon. Siniseryoso nila ang trabaho nila."
So true. Last time I went back, they really amazed me.

april boy

July 12th, 2010, 12:51 AM

Lone Pinoy-owned silicon wafer firm to relocate R&D to Singapore

BY PAUL ICAMINA
Malaya Business Insights
July 12,2010

For lack of local expertise, First Philec Solar Corp., the only Filipino-owned company making silicon wafers for solar power, will base its R&D laboratory in Singapore.

While there is the desire to set up the research and development lab in the Philippines, there are very few PhDs and post-graduate scientists and engineers able to do solar energy R&D, said Dr. Dan Lachica, First Philec president and CEO.

"The end goal is to develop local R&D capability, but I need PhD talents in the Philippines now," Lachica added.

He is working on collaborating with Philippine universities to develop home-grown talent with post-graduate degrees in solar power technology.

Meanwhile, Philec will have to do its basic research in Singapore, Lachica said.

First Philec Solar of the Lopez Group of Companies is the first large-scale silicon wafer slicing company in the country. It aims to produce 240 million wafers annually, which will support approximately 750 megawatts of solar energy. At full capacity, it will be one of the biggest of its kind in Southeast Asia.

The company converts silicon ingots into wafers that are thinner than 160 microns and is the primary supplier of solar-grade silicon wafers to SunPower, the world leader in high-efficiency mono-crystalline silicon solar cell production.

For all that, the Philippines has abundant potential for solar power but very little know-how to harness it.

This is the assessment of Dr. Danilo B. Romero, a Filipino physicist at the University of Maryland Laboratory for Physical Sciences.

"There is no local expertise," he said. "There is local capability to fabricate but technology measurement and characterization of photovoltaic technology, for example, is lacking."

In the best case scenario, the know-how is within Metro Manila universities. The situation "gets worse" outside the metropolis, said Romero, a Balik Scientist of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Solar power R&D is getting a "quantum jump" at the University of the Philippines Diliman, Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University, "but it is not as widespread as it should be," said Romero who specializes on next-generation solar power technology.

He has just wrapped up his stint at the UP National Institute of Physics. While here, he helped fine tune the academic capacity at UP, Ateneo and La Salle to do solar power R&D.

He also helped draft a proposed study on solar energy devices based on nanotechnology that was submitted by these universities to the DOST.

Romero described the state of solar power R&D in the Philippines as first generation, involving silicon-based technology. Second generation technologies include plastic solar cells which are soluble to make them thinner than human hair.

"It’s like silk screen, and malleable enough to put on, say, clothes. It’s not as efficient as silicon but potentially a lot cheaper," he said.

Third generation solar power, he said, is almost in the realm of "science fiction." While investment risks are very high, power generation is very efficient and cheap.

Solar power is still expensive to generate, he said, and it will still be years before it is put to mass use.

Power from a solar panel now costs $3 per watt, Romero said.

The si-called Balance of Systems Cost – the amount it takes to convert from Direct Current to Alternating Current, plus the battery to store power, and so on – means an additional $2.50 per watt.

In pesos, the total is roughly P5 to P10 per kilowatt hour (kWh). "This is not cheap," Romero told Malaya Business Insight.

It costs around $30,000 to power a 200-square-meter house with the usual refrigerator, television, entertainment systems and lights. In pesos, this amounts to about P1.5 million.

"The cost has been going down fast in recent years, from $80 per kWh in the 1980s to about $3 now, but it’s still a very expensive technology," said Romero. "This is because of the expensive materials used to fabricate solar panels that collect the sun’s energy."

"We need not wait for 20 to 25 years to lower the cost further, that’s too long. So there’s a big push in the United States with massive investments on R&D to bring down the cost to the equivalent of about P1 per kWh. Whether we can achieve this or not, we don’t know," he said.

Romero’s research at the University of Maryland involves plastic photovoltaic, instead of the conventional silicon-based technology. It is not as efficient as silicon in collecting the sun’s energy, but if successful will significantly lower the cost of solar power.

MatudNilaBaby

July 12th, 2010, 01:19 AM

Retro

July 12th, 2010, 10:36 AM

^^ We should diversified our R&D not only in solar but also in other alternative energy such as wind and storage battery. I've read that lithium battery is next alternative to power our future automobile.

april boy

July 13th, 2010, 03:16 PM

he should not be discouraged right away instead he should lead our local scientists and engineers into doing intensive research and development on solar energy. he can expand and form a research consortium of universities to involve science graduate students outside of metro manila.

agree here.:cheers:

x12y12

July 18th, 2010, 03:03 AM

Every filipino have a dream. Lets give them chance to fulfill them

randma at 80 is in kindergarten to learn the 3 Rs, counting above 10

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:49:00 07/18/2010

Filed Under: Education, People

TAGAYTAY CITY—Peering through her glasses, Nanay Remy aims her pencil at a lined pad paper and carefully writes what she remembers of the alphabet: A, C, B, I ...

Despite her failing memory, bad eyesight, arthritis and barely enough money for transportation, 80-year-old Remedios Pascua goes to school every day.

Pascua cannot read. Not street signs nor jeepney signboards. She cannot even play bingo with her senior friends because she cannot distinguish letters from numbers.

“I dream of being able to read. It’s hard to be illiterate,” she says in a mixture of English and Filipino. She smiles and her face creases. “I know I’m old but I want to learn. I study hard and I’m happy.”

Pascua, a widow for more than 10 years now, has survived with just her “smarts.”

She claims she can only count up to 10 yet she sold wares in the market and could give correct change. She owns a watch and can tell time.

She also voted in the last elections. One of her children accompanied her to the polling precinct and read to her the names of the candidates. But Nanay Remy herself shaded the oval on the ballot, indicating her preference for Noynoy Aquino.

Pascua says she has been voting since the time of Ferdinand Marcos, whom she remembers as “Imelda’s husband who was removed.”

The determined grandmother has been given a chance to catch up on her lost education. Pascua is the oldest student at an Alternative Learning System (ALS) Center at the Divine Word Seminary run by the Arnold Janssen Catholic Mission Foundation in Tagaytay City.

The ALS, a program under the Department of Education, is a practical option to the existing formal instruction for out-of-school youths and adults aged 16 years and over.

Favorite pupil

Ritchelle Razon, Pascua’s teacher, talks about her favorite pupil: “We had to start with the very basic—like teaching Nanay Remy which jeepney to take to go to school, followed by the a-ba-ka-da (ABCs) … but sometimes she forgets what she has already learned.”

Pascua, a resident of Barangay Mendez, Tagaytay, signed up for the ALS in February just before the program marked its first year and sent off its first batch of graduates, according to program head Olivia Tolentino.

Some 140 students aged 10 to 22 report to the seminary’s old dispensary. Some are taught basic education, others take elementary and high school classes. Many of them dropped out of school because of poverty or family problems.

Pascua shares a classroom with students the same age as her grandchildren. They attend the basic learning program, which is equivalent to the kindergarten level in formal school. They learn basic math, reading and writing.

“I am not ashamed. All of us have to learn how to read and write. You don’t go to school already knowing everything,” Pascua says during a break from class.

At first, she was a novelty among her younger classmates. Later, Pascua became an inspiration to the ALS teachers and fellow students.

“There are times when you don’t feel like going to school. Then you remember Nanay Remy, who goes to school every day. So you get up, take a bath and go to school because you know Nanay Remy is going to be there,” says Tolentino, who has made Pascua an example to her students.

“They’re younger and stronger, with better memories but they don’t try hard enough. So I tell my students: ‘Look at Nanay Remy, she’s 80, but she’s enthusiastic about going to school,’” she adds.

Pascua grew up in Rizal province during World War II and stopped going to school because of her family’s circumstances.

Asked if she had any ambition while growing up, she gave no answer.

Perhaps being deprived of an education so early in life may have snatched her ability to dream at a young age, says Tolentino.

Pascua was in Grade 1 when she left school to help her mother take care of her siblings. She was third in a brood of 12 and the eldest daughter.

“I regret that I was unable to go to school. My mother had given birth. I was the eldest girl so I had to do housework or nobody would cook, clean or wash clothes,” she says.

Her father was also afraid that sending her to school would expose her to the possibility of his daughter being courted by her teachers.

All her brothers, however, were sent to school.

Some even found good jobs. As far as Pascua could remember, one worked in fisheries while another worked as a land surveyor.

She had the chance to go to school after the war, but she got sick with malaria.

A few years later, she met Ricarte, her future husband. They got married and started a family in Tagaytay City.

Their union was blessed with eight kids. He worked as a sorbetero (ice cream vendor) and she, a labandera (laundrywoman).

She says some of her kids were able to reach high school but some had dropped out because they lacked funds.

Writing her name

Proudly, she shows the Inquirer that she can already write her name, albeit slowly. She misses the “u” in her surname. When she realizes her mistake, she erases it and tries again.

“Yesterday, I borrowed some money from a friend to buy these,” Nanay Remy says, pointing to her new glasses. “Sometimes, when I’m writing, I find it hard to see the lines.”

For students, she advises “Life is more difficult if you can’t read or write. Go to school. Finish school and it will be easy for you to find a job.”

Ady001

July 21st, 2010, 02:19 AM

DepEd invites ‘sick books’ crusader to face authors

By Philip Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 05:21:00 07/21/2010

Filed Under: Books, Education

MANILA, Philippines—It may well be a lion’s den of Ph.D. holders, but “sick books” crusader Antonio Calipjo Go is unfazed.

He has agreed to attend a Department of Education (DepEd) seminar on how to avoid errors in textbooks.

Go said he had agreed to speak on Aug. 5 at the seminar which would be attended by people he had long tormented for the sad state of public school textbooks: DepEd officials, authors and publishing houses.

Go said that he was initially given only two hours in the morning of Aug. 5 for his talk but he asked the DepEd to extend it.

The DepEd obliged and extended the talk to practically the whole morning. It also scheduled an open forum after Go’s presentation.

“I also decided to attend because we have a new administration. I am also hoping that it would fulfill its promise to bring about change in the system,” Go said.

The academic supervisor of Marian School of Quezon City said he had received several invitations before but this time, he agreed to attend.

“I’m hoping that the people who organized the seminar are really sincere. I’ve been saying before that I am ready to help and I don’t consider these people as my enemies,” Go said.

Education Undersecretary Vilma Labrador wrote Go on July 5 and asked him to attend the seminar organized by the Instructional Materials Council Secretariat (IMCS), Go’s longtime bête noire at the department.

Avoiding errors

“We are inviting you or your representative to serve as a resource person on Aug. 5. Your topic will focus on Avoiding Errors in Content: The Value of Research in TX (textbook) Development,” Labrador said.

The IMCS reviews textbooks that winning bidders in multimillion-peso tenders submit prior to publication, but Go and other critics have repeatedly found major errors in the published materials.

Despite the efforts of these crusaders over the past dozen years, the council has failed to address or minimize the problem in basic education whose quality deteriorated under the nine-year watch of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Go has said that cost-cutting by publishing houses in the various stages of book production, including research, was partly to blame for the textbooks mess.

Authors, publishers and officials of the DepEd have sought to discredit Go, who has spent P1 million out of his own pocket to publish articles pointing out mistakes and items lost in translation in textbooks.

For his efforts, Go has been accused in tabloid newspapers of being a blackmailer and has been slapped with libel charges.

Request for credentials

Go will have a chance to face his critics since publishers will not be the only ones present at the three-day seminar, which will begin on Aug. 3.

Labrador said authors, editors, book designers, illustrators, “and other stakeholders in the book publishing industry” would also be present.

“May we also request you to provide us with your curriculum vitae and a copy of your presentation one week before the activity? The latter will be reproduced and distributed to the participants during the seminar,” she said.

GTPro

July 22nd, 2010, 11:00 AM

Retro

July 22nd, 2010, 03:45 PM

^^ There goes the K12 proposal down the drain...:ohno:

12-year education under new admin not possible, says DepEd

Manila Bulletin Online
By INA HERNANDO-MALIPOT
July 22, 2010, 4:57pm

The implementation of the 12-year basic education cycle will not take place in the next six years, under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said Thursday.

Luistro said changing the current 10-year cycle to 12 years is possible under Aquino’s term but may not be implemented because the existing curriculum should be finished first. “But once decision has been made, it would be irreversible,” he firmly said.

The 12-year basic education cycle is among the top priority areas of Aquino in the 10-point educational agenda during his campaign. But, Luistro said that the issue whether to add two more years will be resolved only when a general review of the basic education curriculum has been conducted. “The question is not whether we should add or not. Rather, it should focus on having holistic curriculum for every Filipino child.”

Luistro said that the issue is not if there is a need for two more years. “Why not add two more years if needed? Even if it’s 13 or 14 years as long as we can prove that is what the students need but if we can come up with a core curriculum that is packed with concepts our students really need, maybe 10 years would suffice.”

Meanwhile, he clarified that he is not going against any order of President Aquino.

“The marching order is address educational backlog in two years. Mainly, those are classroom shortages, teacher-related issues, and school facilities. The issue on the 12-year cycle is another thing,” he said.

Luistro said that the President has given DepEd the direction it should take.

Ady001

July 23rd, 2010, 02:12 AM

^^ Ano kaya ang mangyayari sa estudyanteng PNoy? :ohno: :ohno:

epik ll ian

July 23rd, 2010, 06:00 AM

Oh my gawd ............

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't like this new DepEd Chief >:O

boom_box

July 23rd, 2010, 09:35 AM

wala lang... pero I feel baka mas bagay siya dito even if he didn't win sa last election..

Richard Gordon for UP President (http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=225987507830&share_id=112232005495989&comments=1#!/pages/Richard-Gordon-for-UP-President/141772022515490?ref=share)

crappypants

July 27th, 2010, 10:54 PM

The student nurses should go into Medicine instead. Govt. can help subsidize the costs of turning the nurses into doctors.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...shortage_N.htm
doctor shortage looms as primary care loses its pull
left, and Melissa Buddensee, MD, check her breathing during rounds at Concord (N.H.) Hospital. Experts predict the U.S. will be 40,000 doctors short by 2020.

MEDICAL STUDENTS NOT OPTING FOR FAMILY CARE

The percentage of seniors graduating from U.S. medical schools and choosing residency spots in family medicine has declined 53.7% from 1997. Seniors in family medicine:

Source: American Academy of Family Physicians

DOCTORS' STARTING SALARIES

2007 averages:

Radiology: $350,000
Anesthesiology: $275,000
General surgery: $220,000
Otolaryngology: $220,000
Emergency: $178,000
Neurology: $177,500
Psychiatry: $160,000
Internal medicine: $135,000
Family medicine: $130,000
Pediatrics: $125,000

Source: The Journal of the American Medical Association

*

By Janice Lloyd, USA TODAY
Family medicine is what Doug Dreffer has wanted to practice ever since he was a second-year medical student 14 years ago at Ohio State. He listened to a different drummer from the majority of doctors entering a workforce in which subspecialties generally are considered more glamorous — and lucrative.

"All the sexy shows on TV are about ER work or surgeons," Dreffer says. "Grey's Anatomy. ER. Whatever it may be. There is no Marcus Welby on TV — 'cause it's just not cool."

Television aside, medical specialists cite an array of reasons why more medical students aspire to be Grey's Anatomy's McDreamy neurosurgeon Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), than wise family practitioner Marcus Welby, played by Robert Young in the 1970s series.

Longer days, lower pay, less prestige and more administrative headaches have turned doctors away in droves from family medicine, presumed to be the frontline for wellness and preventive-care programs that can help reduce health care costs.

The number of U.S. medical school students going into primary care has dropped 51.8% since 1997, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

Considering it takes 10 to 11 years to educate a doctor, the drying up of the pipeline is a big concern to health-care experts. The AAFP is predicting a shortage of 40,000 family physicians in 2020, when the demand is expected to spike. The U.S. health care system has about 100,000 family physicians and will need 139,531 in 10 years. The current environment is attracting only half the number needed to meet the demand.

At the heart of the rising demands on primary-care physicians will be the 78 million Baby Boomers born from 1946 to 1964, who begin to turn 65 in 2011 and will require increasing medical care, and the current group of underserved patients.

GENERAL PRACTICE: New doctors avoiding most-needed, worst-paid field
SURGEONS: U.S. is short on them, too
ONCOLOGY: Cancer doctor shortage expected

If Congress passes health care legislation that extends insurance coverage to a significant part of the 47 million Americans who lack insurance, the need for more doctors is going to escalate.

The primary-care doctor — a category that includes family physicians, general internists and general pediatricians — has been held up as the gatekeeper in keeping people out of emergency rooms and controlling health care costs. But medical analysts say giving this limited pool of doctors responsibility for millions more patients is problematic.

"That tsunami wave (of patients) is going to be huge," says Bruce Bates, interim dean at University of New England's college of osteopathic medicine in Biddeford, Maine.

Finding a doctor will get increasingly difficult, waits for appointments will grow longer, and more sick people will turn to crowded emergency rooms, says Ted Epperly, president of the AAFP, an association that represents more than 93,000 physicians. Or, if a patient goes to a doctor's office, he might not be treated by his doctor: One way overwhelmed family physicians have been dealing with patients is to have office visits overseen by a nurse practitioner or a physician's assistant, some of whom can dispense certain prescriptions and recommend specialists, Epperly says.

"At the time we need family-care physicians the most, we are producing the least," Epperly says. "The nation's medical schools are failing to produce a workforce that is essential to caring for America's communities."

How the gap is filled

In March 2009, U.S. medical school graduates filled only 42% (1,083) of the 2,555 resident positions for family medicine. More than 200 of the positions were left unfilled nationwide. The majority of other spots were filled by non-U.S. citizens educated internationally (20.7%), graduates of colleges of osteopathic medical schools (10.5%) and U.S. citizens educated internationally (18%).

Even the graduates of international medical schools and colleges of osteopathic medicine are showing signs of losing interest in primary care. Osteopathic training is nearly identical to traditional medicine but focuses more on the inner workings of the musculoskeletal system and puts a big emphasis on the importance of family care.

Bates says only 26% of the University of New England's grads chose family practice this year, compared with 40% "when I started this institution 20 years ago."

The shortage, which Epperly calls a "crisis," has gained the attention of the politicians looking at revamping the nation's health-care system.

"Patients with access to quality primary care are more likely to remain healthy and prevent costly and distressing chronic diseases, but the current shortage of primary-care doctors prevents too many Americans from getting the care they need, especially in rural areas," says Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., who plays a key role in Congress' health care debate as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Congress is looking at bills that could help doctors who choose primary care with loan forgiveness or other debt relief and payment increases for their services.

Medical school tuition and expenses generally range from $140,000 to $200,000, according to Merritt Hawkins & Associates, a leader in recruiting and placing physicians. A primary-care doctor usually makes $120,000 to $190,000 a year, compared with $530,000 and higher for those in neurosurgery, according to the Merritt Hawkins salary survey from 2007.

Dreffer is still paying back his loans to Ohio State but says he made the right career choice.

"Absolutely. For me it's about why I came into family medicine," he says. "I consider it a privilege. I like people. I like relationships. That's what family medicine is about. It's not about doing procedures or a cool heart bypass. You get to be part of your patient's life story."

He has seen interest in family medicine change as the medical director of training programs at Family Health Centers in Concord, N.H., and Hillsboro-Deering, N.H.

"More than half of the spots filled are by non-U.S. medical graduates," Dreffer says. "Our pool used to be mostly U.S. medical graduates." One problem with using foreign students is the draining of talent from their home countries. Another is their English-speaking skills, which might make communication with patients more challenging. All are required to take stringent exams in the USA, however. An upside is their willingness to work in underserved areas often rejected by U.S. graduates, including rural areas and inner cities, according to studies done by the American Medical Association.

Part of the reason U.S. medical school graduates are rejecting primary care, Dreffer and Bates say, is because some U.S. schools promote subspecialties or research, higher-paying careers with more prestige.

"I would put a lot of weight on the culture of the school being a big influence," Bates says, adding that doctors pursuing family medicine often will hear, "you're too smart to be in primary care."

Eleven of the top allopathic (conventional medicine) medical schools, including Harvard and Johns Hopkins, have internal-medicine departments but lack separate family-medicine departments. Most internal-medicine doctors get out of primary care and go on to specialties within five years of leaving school, says AAFP's Perry Pugno, director of the division of medical education.

"I think the way you get exposure and cultivate it plays a role," he says. "In some of the bigger schools that generate more primary-care positions by percentage — some of the state schools and osteopathic schools — they have better mentorships and exposures early on."
__________________

Igsuonnimo

July 29th, 2010, 12:43 PM

DepEd to revive Food-for-School program (http://www.malaya.com.ph/07292010/metro4.html)

THE Department of Education said it is looking at reviving the Food-for-School Program (FSP) this school year to reach out to more children and their families, particularly in impoverished areas of the country.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro said they are meeting with the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Department of Agriculture on the mechanics of the program. "We’re still discussing the program. The only new player here is the Agriculture department because we have previously worked with the DSWD," Luistro said in Filipino.

The DepEd chief said they will ensure this time less wastage of resources and the delivery of rice, the main component of the program, to the correct recipient. "We’re looking at a different program dahil gagawin namin itong community-based at inter-agency program para mas epektibo."

DSWD Secretary Corazon Soliman earlier said the Aquino administration is reviewing the program first implemented by his predecessor after they discovered "leakages" in the distribution of rice supplies to the beneficiaries.

The program was launched by DepEd in 2004 to arrest hunger and malnutrition among poor schoolkids under the Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Plan. Pupils from preschool to Grade 1 who attend school are given a kilo of free fortified rice from the National Food Authority for 95 days in five months.

DepEd data said 2.8 million schoolchildren have already benefited from the program since its inception, improving school attendance, academic performance and retention rate while ensuring that the children were fed.

But a Commission on Audit report three years ago said the program had become untenable as teachers ended up spending their own money to help defray the cost of the distribution of rice.

Several groups espousing reform in education and governance such as E-Net Philippines also opposed the program, calling it a strategy for patronage as local government and DepEd officials were the ones selecting the beneficiaries.
– Ashzel Hachero

Retro

August 3rd, 2010, 04:56 AM

DND chief backs ROTC revival :ohno:

By Alexis Romero (The Philippine Star)
Updated August 03, 2010 12:00 AM Comments

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of National Defense (DND) is in favor of efforts to make the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) mandatory again, saying this would instill discipline among students while augmenting the country’s military forces.

“This (revival of ROTC) will help bring back discipline,” Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin told The STAR yesterday.
He said the program can be a source of commissioned officers and personnel involved in disaster response operations.

DND spokesman Eduardo Batac said making ROTC mandatory would help the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) increase its manpower amid a huge budget deficit.

“The principal reason would be to form augmentation force for the AFP in the face of budget constraints,” he said.

“The President has expressed the need to increase the strength of the AFP but we have to look at the implications.

One of the good sources without burdening the budget is the revival of the ROTC program.”

Batac said the need to augment military personnel is becoming more evident given the rising population of the country.

“You’re talking of a population of around 90 million yet you have an AFP which has 120,000 (troops). The last time we increased forces was during the time of (former President Ferdinand) Marcos,” he said. The DND spokesman claimed that the ROTC has been a good source of competent military officers and personnel. The mandatory ROTC program was abolished in 2002 after then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law Republic Act 9163, which established the National Service Training Program (NSTP).Due to the enactment of the law, the ROTC became just one of three programs offered to college students.

The other components of the NSTP are the Civic Welfare Training Service, which encourages students to participate in developmental programs, and the Literacy Training Service, which trains students to become teachers of school children and marginalized sectors.

Cebu Rep. Eduardo Gullas has filed House Bill 737, which aims to make ROTC an academic requirement, but this has been opposed by the militant Kabataan party-list, which claimed that the program is prone to abuses.

Batac said that the AFP will not tolerate hazing and other human rights abuses in case the mandatory ROTC program is revived.

“If there are incidents of hazing or other violations of regulations, we will deal with this severely while following due process.

It has never been our policy to violate human rights,” he said.

Batac added that the developmental components like civic activities and literacy training are incorporated in the military trainings.

“Even the basic principles of the AFP adopt these approaches. We still coordinate with local governments to find ways to support the national government.

We recognize that it has to be a holistic approach,” he said.

epik ll ian

August 3rd, 2010, 05:17 PM

Would that mean 2 years of mandatory military service like what South Korea has?
It's difficult, but I think it would be a good idea. A lot of guys refer to this military process as a person's passage to becoming a man. It would not only help the army, but it will fix a lot of immaturity and disciplinary problems. There are somethings regarding discipline, cooperation and your place in society that only the institution of the military can teach.

Retro

August 4th, 2010, 07:59 AM

^^ No I thing what they mean is similar set-up longtime ago that all college male students has two take at least 4 semester of this ROTC training course.

bakasaurus

August 4th, 2010, 05:28 PM

MatudNilaBaby

August 4th, 2010, 10:02 PM

^^ No I thing what they mean is similar set-up longtime ago that all college male students has two take at least 4 semester of this ROTC training course.

if theyre making it mandatory again, students opting for rotc can skip PE cuz real rotc training is physically challenging and strenuous. but it does good to the body.

in this day and age, rotc should not only be mandatory to college males but to females, too.

Ady001

August 5th, 2010, 02:04 AM

That explains why a lot of Koreans go to the US to escape those 2 years. Lol.
And by the way, did you even experience ROTC to have an inkling of what you're saying?

Man I hope ROTC would go back. Not only will it give adequate knowledge of military lessons to our young but also implement discipline as well. But they really have to closely monitor it.

Or perhaps incorporate na lang 'to for COCC or CAT.

pi_malejana

August 5th, 2010, 02:07 AM

Man I hope ROTC would go back. Not only will it give adequate knowledge of military lessons to our young but also implement discipline as well. But they really have to closely monitor it.

Or perhaps incorporate na lang 'to for COCC or CAT.

un pong CAT diba sa High School yun?? nawala rin ba ito kasabay nung ROTC?

Ady001

August 5th, 2010, 02:19 AM

^^ Hindi naman... Pero I think it's also a good idea to instead of reviving ROTC, incorporate na lang yung COCC or CAT.

epik ll ian

August 5th, 2010, 02:42 AM

That explains why a lot of Koreans go to the US to escape those 2 years. Lol.
And by the way, did you even experience ROTC to have an inkling of what you're saying?

Yes, I do have an inkling of military life. On top of that, my dad also served in the Airforce for 8 years. It disciplines you, and it sharpens and matures your personality. Like I said, the Koreans frequently refer to their military duties as "becoming a man." It also instills you with a bigger sense of duty to your country which I'm not going to lie - a lot of people don't have as big of this kind of spirit as they should. There's a lot of people whose lives can straighten up with military service. It will prevent a lot of people from becoming carefree hoodlums. On the other side of the coin, there are some people who come out of the military that will continue to act as a fool, but that's just an unchanging personality flaw. For the most part, that's not the case.

I have one friend that I met up with who recently got out of his military duties, and I must say - he's definitely a lot less scatterbrained than he was before and more mature. My roommate has to leave for the service this September. It's kind of frustrating since I'll be finishing my last 2 years of college without him. Oh well, you have to do what you have to do!

Man I hope ROTC would go back. Not only will it give adequate knowledge of military lessons to our young but also implement discipline as well. But they really have to closely monitor it.

Or perhaps incorporate na lang 'to for COCC or CAT.

Fully agree.

skywalker2008

August 6th, 2010, 12:33 PM

^^ There goes the K12 proposal down the drain...:ohno:

12-year education under new admin not possible, says DepEd

DepEd bent on implementing 12-year basic education program

By Regina Aguilar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 16:58:00 08/06/2010

CEBU CITY, Philippines – Despite opposition from various sectors, the Department of Education is determined to implement its plan for a 12-year primary and secondary education program.

The DepEd would soon implement an enhanced 12-year basic education program, seven years for the elementary level and five years in the secondary level, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said Wednesday night.

The new program would roll out a simplified and a competency-driven curriculum that would produce professionally competent and skilled high school graduates of legal age for the country, Luistro noted.

"Our plan is not just about to add years to the current education cycle but to conduct an actual review of the whole curriculum and to come up with a more simplified new basic education program focused on enhancing the competencies of our high school graduates," he said during the general membership meeting and awards night of the Cebu-based organization Coalition for Better Education held Wednesday night at the Cebu City Sports Club.

About 100 educators and quality education advocates applauded the plans of the department.

more... (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20100806-285279/DepEd-bent-on-implementing-12-year-basic-education-program)

bakasaurus

August 6th, 2010, 12:40 PM

DepEd bent on implementing 12-year basic education program

By Regina Aguilar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 16:58:00 08/06/2010

CEBU CITY, Philippines – Despite opposition from various sectors, the Department of Education is determined to implement its plan for a 12-year primary and secondary education program.

The DepEd would soon implement an enhanced 12-year basic education program, seven years for the elementary level and five years in the secondary level, Education Secretary Armin Luistro said Wednesday night.

The new program would roll out a simplified and a competency-driven curriculum that would produce professionally competent and skilled high school graduates of legal age for the country, Luistro noted.

"Our plan is not just about to add years to the current education cycle but to conduct an actual review of the whole curriculum and to come up with a more simplified new basic education program focused on enhancing the competencies of our high school graduates," he said during the general membership meeting and awards night of the Cebu-based organization Coalition for Better Education held Wednesday night at the Cebu City Sports Club.

About 100 educators and quality education advocates applauded the plans of the department.

more... (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/regions/view/20100806-285279/DepEd-bent-on-implementing-12-year-basic-education-program)

Luistro is going back on his word ey?

Now we're talkin!:banana::banana::banana:
After I finish schooling here I'm excited to return and teach again!

epik ll ian

August 6th, 2010, 05:07 PM

AMAZING NEWS!!!!! :)

Ady001

August 7th, 2010, 03:32 AM

Luistro is going back on his word ey?

Now we're talkin!:banana::banana::banana:
After I finish schooling here I'm excited to return and teach again!

Really... now they're talking...

I'll be excited teaching if that's the case... I'll get my education degrees after makapag-ipon...

Ephesus29

August 9th, 2010, 09:51 AM

I definitely agree on this one. This is the best thing that could happen in the Philippines education system.

Plus the system should reinstate the "English" as the medium of instruction (not tagalog) in education. :ohno: in all level in the system.

China, Japan, Korea and other non-speaking countries in the world are now learning English as a second language and acquiring communication skills. Apparently.. to be able to compete in the Global economy according to those students..their country must have human resources that could communicate in English globally.

Philippines...used to be the second largest English speaking country in the world..but that has changed..I wonder what went wrong.....

MatudNilaBaby

August 9th, 2010, 10:51 AM

Manila-X

August 9th, 2010, 11:05 AM

RonnieR

August 9th, 2010, 12:33 PM

^^ good news. Related.

DepEd bares 12-year basic education plan
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/08/09/10/deped-bares-12-year-basic-education-plan

Ephesus29

August 10th, 2010, 12:43 AM

you know who to blame for changing the national language from english to pilipino aka tagalog. at least sa cebu, english and bisaya are still considered our national languages. honestly, we dont care that much about pilipino.

Let me get this clear...pilipino..as in "the language" not the people. If it is what I think you meant..then we're on the same boat.

Whom to blame? quite frankly..I don;t have any clue..I would guess..Dept of Education? need help on this one.

Ephesus29

August 10th, 2010, 12:51 AM

Manila-X

August 10th, 2010, 04:04 AM

Now I understand why a lot of "PINOY" migrants/immigrants claims to be a Univerity graduate...could hardly express him/her self.

The system should encourage fluency in English communications as a pre-requisites for graduation.:)

Right. If the subject is in English, then it should be straight English. If its Filipino then its Filipino.

English should be used in of course English and also in science, mathematics and social studies.

The use of Taglish in teaching is a deterrent to the development of Filipinos especially in communication. And this is not just outside school but in other institutions and in everyday conversation.

And this also end up through some Filipinos using the same language to foreigners especially those who could not understand your native language. I've heard several myself.

Mercato

August 10th, 2010, 08:43 AM

English is still the medium of instruction in Philippine schools.

What Filipinos should learn is to speak straight English without mixing Filipino words in a sentence say Taglish and such.

That's the same for Filipino:yes: I concur.
Now I understand why a lot of "PINOY" migrants/immigrants claims to be a Univerity graduate...could hardly express him/her self.

The system should encourage fluency in English communications as a pre-requisites for graduation.:):yes: I concur.
Right. If the subject is in English, then it should be straight English. If its Filipino then its Filipino.

English should be used in of course English and also in science, mathematics and social studies.

The use of Taglish in teaching is a deterrent to the development of Filipinos especially in communication. And this is not just outside school but in other institutions and in everyday conversation.

And this also end up through some Filipinos using the same language to foreigners especially those who could not understand your native language. I've heard several myself.:yes: I concur.

btw, main reason why I wrote ... @Wanch, I didn't know you're a Mod? perhaps a mod in HK? thats great :cheers:

skywalker2008

August 10th, 2010, 10:40 PM

Teachers wary of 'trial-and-error' 12-year educ program (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/198195/teachers-wary-of-trial-and-error-12-year-educ-program)
08/10/2010 | 09:28 AM

Public school teachers appealed to education officials Tuesday not to use trial-and-error in implementing its 12-year basic education program.

The Teachers Dignity Coalition (TDC) said the government cannot afford to put the children's future at stake with a half-baked program.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro on Monday announced a plan to implement President Benigno Simeon Aquino III's plan to add two more years to the current 10-year basic education. (See: DepEd to phase in 12 years of basic education)

Luistro said the Department of Education (DepEd) will present the proposal to the public on October 5, World Teachers' Day.

Luistro explained that the reforms will be implemented gradually. It might not even be implemented until the next administration, he said.

Benjo Basas, TDC chairman, said in an interview over dwIZ, ""Ang amin lang, huwag sana ito magkaroon tayo ng ugali na trial and error. Hindi simple ang tina-trial dito. Kung magkaroon ng error di simple ang maaring maging masamang epekto sa buong bansa (Our only concern is, education officials should not turn this into a game of trial-and-error. This is no simple trial. And if the program turns out to be riddled with errors, this will have a big effect on the nation).

Basas, voiced concern over the lack of teachers, noting that even under the current 10-year program, there are already not enough teachers.

"Yun nga ang isa sa pinakadahilan ng ating contention. Doon sa existing 10 years kulang na (Even in the existing 10-year setup, we do not have enough teachers)," he said.

He said the DepEd needed 120,000 teachers this year but managed to hire only 10,000. "These are the things that must be considered and given priority," he said.

In an earlier statement on its website, the TDC had expressed apprehension about the planned expansion of basic education by two years.

Basas had said government efforts to reform the education sector will not be effective if it fails to address the real issues on the field.

“We’ve been experiencing shortages in classrooms, school buildings, teachers, textbooks and other needs and every year the government is burdened with the backlogs of the previous year. This is primarily due to low investment in public education." he said.

The group said it is willing to hold a dialogue with education officials and even with Aquino so they can present the issues affecting the sector. –VVP, GMANews.TV

skywalker2008

August 10th, 2010, 10:47 PM

RP students win 92 medals in Singapore’s math competition (http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20100810-285977/RP-students-win-92-medals-in-Singapores-math-competition)

By Jerry E. Esplanada
Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 14:57:00 08/10/2010 Filed Under: Education

MANILA, Philippines -- It’s a "mission accomplished" for the Philippine team to the just-concluded 2010 Singapore International Mathematics Competition (SIMC).

With a 92-medal haul, including 12 golds, the young Filipino numbers aces placed second overall in the 10-nation contest, topped by China which won a total of 282 medals.

The Philippines also tallied 26 silver and 54 bronze medals in the competition, according to Dr. Simon Chua, president of the Mathematics Trainers' Guild-Phils. (MTG) and head of the country's delegation.

The RP team members, all wards of MTG, a non-government group which promotes excellence in math training and education, also took home 44 merit, or runner-up certificates.

China bagged 39 golds in the SIMC. South Korea was third with eight, followed by Hong Kong (7), Taiwan (6), Indonesia (5), Malaysia (4), Thailand (3), host Singapore (2), and India, which failed to get any medal, said Chua in an e-mail to the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Tuesday.

The Philippines' gold medals came courtesy of Adrian Reginald Sy and Matthew Angelo Isidro, both from St. Jude Catholic School; Shaquille Wyan Que from Grace Christian College; Farrel Eldrian wu from MGc New Life Christian School; Errol John Suarez from Bicol University Integrated Laboratory School; Raphael Villaluz from San Beda College-Alabang; Frederick Matthew Corpuz from Colegio San Agustin-Makati; Gabrielle Anna Gabaton from Pasig Catholic School; Jervis Ong Chua from Philippine Cultural College; Kate Andrea Bonamy and Shaun Wesley Que, both from Grace Christian College; and Karl Joshua Reyes, from the Regional Science High School-Olongapo.

The silver medals were won by Christopher Banzon from Nemesio Yabut Elementary School; Andrea Jaba and Cary Albert Chan, both from St. Jude Catholic School; Lord Danly Mafe, Bon Leif Amalla and Emmanuel Paulo Santos, all from Colegio San Agustin-Biñan; Adam Christopher Chan, Stephen Laohoo and Jeremy Vance Yap, all from Grace Christian College; Jaymi Mae Ching and Kelsey Lim, both from Jubilee Christian Academy; Jan Joshua Cruz from Pasig Catholic College; Elijamin Wolfgang Claveria from Elizabeth Seton School; Albert Neil Dulay from Integrated Montessori Center; Luis Salvador Dy and Mark Christopher Uy, both from Xavier School; Xavier Jefferson Ray go from Zamboanga Chong Hua High School; Hans Markson Tan and Sterling Alvin Tiu, both from St. Stephen's High School; Alyssa Guevara from De La Salle Santiago Zobel School; Juan Mario Luis Esplana from Elizabeth Seton School-South; Vincent Jaime Benitez from Philippine Science High School-Western Visayas; Dave Laurence Juntilla from PSHS-Southern Mindanao; Himig Marcos from Philippine Cultural College; and Timothy James Tan from Trinity Christian School.

The bronze medalists included, among others, Wilford Jason Julio, Martin Lewis Koa and Kyle Justin Meguizo, all from St. Jude Catholic School; Caisa Subia and Casey Oliver Turingan, both from San Beda College-Alabang; Nathaniel Ryan Ang, Matthew Johann Uy, Brendan Coseto, Adrian Nathaniel Chua, Kyle Garret Lee Uy and Andrew Vince Lee, all from Xavier School; Dielle Tio from St. Stephen's High School; Jan Kendrick Ong from Chiang Kai Shek College; Hans Bryan Ong, Lu Christian Ong and John Cedric Laohoo, all from Grace Christian College; Mark Vincent Tan from Ateneo de Manila High School; Anchelle Grace Ho and Emmanuel Gerard Chiu, both from Silliman University; Charles Emerson Ngo from Leyte Progressive High School; Hannah Elyse Tee from Immaculate Conception Academy; Andrew Cua from Philippine Cultural College; and Anne Michelle Siao from Zamboanga Chong Hua High School.

A total of 92 elementary and 44 high school students represented the country in the SIMC.

Chua and other MTG officials commended the Filipino math wizards for "another job well done."

"They're among the world's best. No doubt about it," said Chua.

The annual contest's results were announced on Monday night at the Chevrons Auditorium in the Lion City. The SIMC was held the day before at the DBS International School.

This year, MTG wards have so far won 91 medals, including four golds, in four international math competitions - the 13th Hong Kong Primary Math World Contest, 2010 Korea International Math Competition, 51st Math Olympiad in Kazakhstan, and the 2010 Canadian Math Competition.

skywalker2008

August 10th, 2010, 11:04 PM

Senators back 12 years of basic education (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100811-286104/Senators-back-12-years-of-basic-education)

By Gil C. Cabacungan Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:03:00 08/11/2010

MANILA, Philippines—At least four senators have expressed support for the proposal by the Aquino administration to extend the current 10-year public education cycle to 12 years.

Sen. Edgardo Angara, chair of the Senate committee on education, said the move would make Filipino graduates more competitive in the global labor market.

“Our graduates, especially in the fields of engineering, nursing, architecture and science, are considered second-class professionals in the global workforce because of our 10-year basic education [cycle], which falls short of the world’s 12-year standard. We need to align our years of schooling with global standards so that we may keep up with other countries,” said Angara, former president of the University of the Philippines.

But he said the extension should only be implemented after the government had addressed the lack of classrooms, facilities and school buildings.

The Department of Education under Secretary Armin Luistro is holding discussions with stakeholders and preparing curriculum and transition plans for the shift to a 12-year basic education cycle.

“I think it is necessary in order to improve the quality of our educational system so that we can become competitive in the world market,” said Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

Sen. Joker Arroyo said extending the length of basic education should mean a shorter college stay for some high school graduates. Instead of four years, Arroyo said some courses could be shortened to two or three years.

Sen. Francis Escudero said that adding two years to basic education should only be done if it would mean that corporations would start hiring high school graduates.

“It’s a good plan because while it adds more years to elementary and high school education, it also allows graduates to get work at an earlier age,” he said.

MatudNilaBaby

August 10th, 2010, 11:19 PM

Manila-X

August 11th, 2010, 03:05 AM

:yes: I concur.
:yes: I concur.
:yes: I concur.

btw, main reason why I wrote ... @Wanch, I didn't know you're a Mod? perhaps a mod in HK? thats great :cheers:

I'm around Asia though HK is my home. And yes I'm moderate the HK and Macao forums, not this one.

BTW its not just Malay Filipinos but also Tsinoys. I often hear conversation where they mix Hokkien and Filipino.

Ady001

August 12th, 2010, 02:48 AM

there are a lot of progressive schools both public and private who can implement the k-12 curriculum right away. why wait until all the above mentioned problems can be solve which will probably have no solution even after p-noys administration. we'll always be lagging behind other countries. sad to say that the state of our education is now comparable to those countries in africa.

Sa totoo lang dapat na 'tong iimplement. Kawawa talaga ang mga susunod na henerasyon. At isa pa, I'm hoping to see more public schools in International Math Olympiads.

By increasing the number of years, we also eliminate other basic subjects in college and get down with the good stuff immediately.

MatudNilaBaby

August 13th, 2010, 04:08 AM

skywalker2008

August 13th, 2010, 09:10 AM

Sa totoo lang dapat na 'tong iimplement. Kawawa talaga ang mga susunod na henerasyon. At isa pa, I'm hoping to see more public schools in International Math Olympiads.

By increasing the number of years, we also eliminate other basic subjects in college and get down with the good stuff immediately.

I agree with the article below. I think we must first calibrate the level of education our students are receiving. We all know the existing gaps in terms of facilities and other resources between private schools and regular public schools. Adding 2 years in basic education across-the-board is like a "one-size fits all" solution. We must first upgrade our public school system to be at par with their private counterparts. Note that even in local math competitions we are categorizing most public schools in lower level.

Social costs of 12-year schooling
(http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100812-286465/Social-costs-of-12-year-schooling)
By Raul Pangalangan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:38:00 08/12/2010

THE GOVERNMENT plans to make children spend two more years in basic education. The plan is admirable in its boldness but worrisome in its impact on poor parents. Many poor children may thus be robbed of a credential, a high school diploma; however dubious or diluted, it may nonetheless spell the difference between hope and despair. Stated plainly, the 12-year plan might be a bright move from a management standpoint but is questionable from a human standpoint. It may be smart but it is not necessarily just.
The problem is not merely that it will cost the government more, as indeed it will. We don’t have enough classrooms to house our current student population, and here we are talking about hosting two entire grade levels more, plus the staff complement of teachers to man those classrooms.

But the real problem is that it entails social costs, some visible, some invisible, that will be borne mainly by poor parents and students. To start with, they need to invest in two more years in school. Basic public education is theoretically free, but parents still need to shell out real money for myriad school expenses, like school supplies, the daily food and transportation allowance. For the underpaid or unemployed, even baon money is already a big chunk of finite family funds.

The Department of Education, the proponent of the 12-year plan, can say that delaying graduation won’t really postpone the student’s capacity to earn on his own. It would be right. It is not graduation that transforms a dependent into a breadwinner. It’s getting a job or starting a small business. It is not as if, after graduation day, one mouth to feed morphs into two hands that earn. We have so many diploma-holders who are jobless. What matters is the economy’s capacity to absorb every graduate into the labor force.

One may say, therefore, that the diploma itself doesn’t hold much meaning job-wise. But having been a teacher for more than 25 years, I can confidently say that, for students and their parents, the diploma holds other meanings at a different level. It has an incalculable psychic value that the sheer prospect of graduating can embolden poor parents to keep on striving, and inspire bored kids to keep on plodding.

The DepEd plan may appear as “just another two years,” but for struggling parents barely able to meet the monthly grocery budget, that additional expense and wait will make it easier to let Junior’s school attendance slide in the meantime until he eventually drops out. It may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

That is why I’m not convinced by those worthy plans that aim to bring our high schools to the level of the European “gymnasium” schools. The ecology is entirely different. Both are secondary level and are taken after grade school and before college or university. But perhaps abroad, a high school diploma is enough for most garden-variety jobs and going on to college is merely an option for those who are more academically inclined or who wish to train for a profession. In other words, for regular jobs, high school can be a terminal course. Sophisticated education is needed only for the fancier specializations.

For us in the Philippines, we have credentials inflation, and we require a college degree for even the most rudimentary work. I can perfectly understand the DedEd if it says that it is precisely the European model we must emulate. That is to say, that we must upgrade basic studies precisely so that high school graduates can qualify for good jobs. But again, as I have argued above, that wouldn’t be a function of the schools. That would be decided only by the job market. If there are too many job-seekers and too few jobs, employers can basically demand that office receptionists first read phenomenology or do calculus.

On the other hand, for wealthier parents who voluntarily pay stiff tuition in private schools, the additional two years is actually a superfluity. Their kids already spend at least 12 years in school, if you count the nursery and kindergarten years, plus the additional 7th year in elementary school. By all accounts, the better of these schools do give fine education to their wards. Yet to thus exempt them from the 12-year policy smacks of preferential treatment for the rich over the poor, and allowing the affluent to buy their way out of a government regulation.

There is actually an alternative: Improve the teaching in public schools, and tighten their management. I don’t know if it will be cheaper. It will entail investing in better books, and making sure there are enough books for the students. We will have to pick and choose which schools get which kind of help. In some places, the problem is the lack of classroom or the lack of teachers. In others, it might be access to computers or the Internet or to laboratory equipment. Right now there is a pecking order with the national science high schools at the apex, the provincial high schools right below, and the barangay schools at the bottom of the pyramid.

The 12-year plan is a one-size-fits-all solution. It looks administratively simple and straightforward. Just go on doing the same thing, but spread it over 12 rather than 10 years. Apply the same formula all over the country.

The alternative will entail a nuanced calibration of each school’s market and its strengths. That will draw upon the strength of an education secretary who came from the private schools. Education Secretary Armin Luistro must guard against becoming a government bureaucrat and remain a leader who will bring to the public schools the same energy and dynamism with which he led one of the country’s largest private universities.

Ady001

August 14th, 2010, 02:44 AM

^^ I posted before the Red Fox items, especially yung mga eReaders nila. Not only does it save on paper but also makes books cheaper to produce.

MatudNilaBaby

August 15th, 2010, 12:10 AM

I agree with the article below. I think we must first calibrate the level of education our students are receiving. We all know the existing gaps in terms of facilities and other resources between private schools and regular public schools. Adding 2 years in basic education across-the-board is like a "one-size fits all" solution. We must first upgrade our public school system to be at par with their private counterparts. Note that even in local math competitions we are categorizing most public schools in lower level.

Social costs of 12-year schooling
(http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100812-286465/Social-costs-of-12-year-schooling)
By Raul Pangalangan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:38:00 08/12/2010

THE GOVERNMENT plans to make children spend two more years in basic education. The plan is admirable in its boldness but worrisome in its impact on poor parents. Many poor children may thus be robbed of a credential, a high school diploma; however dubious or diluted, it may nonetheless spell the difference between hope and despair. Stated plainly, the 12-year plan might be a bright move from a management standpoint but is questionable from a human standpoint. It may be smart but it is not necessarily just.
The problem is not merely that it will cost the government more, as indeed it will. We don’t have enough classrooms to house our current student population, and here we are talking about hosting two entire grade levels more, plus the staff complement of teachers to man those classrooms.

But the real problem is that it entails social costs, some visible, some invisible, that will be borne mainly by poor parents and students. To start with, they need to invest in two more years in school. Basic public education is theoretically free, but parents still need to shell out real money for myriad school expenses, like school supplies, the daily food and transportation allowance. For the underpaid or unemployed, even baon money is already a big chunk of finite family funds.

The Department of Education, the proponent of the 12-year plan, can say that delaying graduation won’t really postpone the student’s capacity to earn on his own. It would be right. It is not graduation that transforms a dependent into a breadwinner. It’s getting a job or starting a small business. It is not as if, after graduation day, one mouth to feed morphs into two hands that earn. We have so many diploma-holders who are jobless. What matters is the economy’s capacity to absorb every graduate into the labor force.

One may say, therefore, that the diploma itself doesn’t hold much meaning job-wise. But having been a teacher for more than 25 years, I can confidently say that, for students and their parents, the diploma holds other meanings at a different level. It has an incalculable psychic value that the sheer prospect of graduating can embolden poor parents to keep on striving, and inspire bored kids to keep on plodding.

The DepEd plan may appear as “just another two years,” but for struggling parents barely able to meet the monthly grocery budget, that additional expense and wait will make it easier to let Junior’s school attendance slide in the meantime until he eventually drops out. It may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

That is why I’m not convinced by those worthy plans that aim to bring our high schools to the level of the European “gymnasium” schools. The ecology is entirely different. Both are secondary level and are taken after grade school and before college or university. But perhaps abroad, a high school diploma is enough for most garden-variety jobs and going on to college is merely an option for those who are more academically inclined or who wish to train for a profession. In other words, for regular jobs, high school can be a terminal course. Sophisticated education is needed only for the fancier specializations.

For us in the Philippines, we have credentials inflation, and we require a college degree for even the most rudimentary work. I can perfectly understand the DedEd if it says that it is precisely the European model we must emulate. That is to say, that we must upgrade basic studies precisely so that high school graduates can qualify for good jobs. But again, as I have argued above, that wouldn’t be a function of the schools. That would be decided only by the job market. If there are too many job-seekers and too few jobs, employers can basically demand that office receptionists first read phenomenology or do calculus.

On the other hand, for wealthier parents who voluntarily pay stiff tuition in private schools, the additional two years is actually a superfluity. Their kids already spend at least 12 years in school, if you count the nursery and kindergarten years, plus the additional 7th year in elementary school. By all accounts, the better of these schools do give fine education to their wards. Yet to thus exempt them from the 12-year policy smacks of preferential treatment for the rich over the poor, and allowing the affluent to buy their way out of a government regulation.

There is actually an alternative: Improve the teaching in public schools, and tighten their management. I don’t know if it will be cheaper. It will entail investing in better books, and making sure there are enough books for the students. We will have to pick and choose which schools get which kind of help. In some places, the problem is the lack of classroom or the lack of teachers. In others, it might be access to computers or the Internet or to laboratory equipment. Right now there is a pecking order with the national science high schools at the apex, the provincial high schools right below, and the barangay schools at the bottom of the pyramid.

The 12-year plan is a one-size-fits-all solution. It looks administratively simple and straightforward. Just go on doing the same thing, but spread it over 12 rather than 10 years. Apply the same formula all over the country.

The alternative will entail a nuanced calibration of each school’s market and its strengths. That will draw upon the strength of an education secretary who came from the private schools. Education Secretary Armin Luistro must guard against becoming a government bureaucrat and remain a leader who will bring to the public schools the same energy and dynamism with which he led one of the country’s largest private universities.

solving the entire problem of the dept of education is possible if all government spending is channeled to our public school system, but that is just wishful thinking.

to implement the k-12 curriculum, it must be done on a staggered basis and not all at once 2 year addition to avoid the culture shock. it is true that many of our schools are ill-equiped to handle this drastic change. maybe next year an extended grade 7 will be added and a grade 8 in 2 years time so that when p-noy's term is over, our school system conforms with what advanced countries have and not compared to african countries anymore.

bakasaurus

August 15th, 2010, 03:22 AM

What is wonderful about shifting to a K12 curriculum is it will bring focus to reevaluating our current system. It will promote careful reexamination of the stuff there that has been swept under the rug all this time, it will stir the waters that have been stagnant for many, many years. And most especially, here's hoping that upon careful study and scholarly work on the transition, the powers that be would finally, finally substantially increase the budget alloted for education because they'd realize fully that it would take a lot of money to do it. They would need to hire more teachers for one. Books and educational materials would have to be restructured.

There is always the possibility of failure, but at this point I think we need a somewhat radical change in our system because as I have said, it has been like stagnant water. I hope that when we stir those waters again, and the foul stench starts to come out, then we'll just have to finish cleaning up. For better or for worse (i hope not), something has been done.

This inertia in our education is going to leave us behind in global competitiveness.
Birthing and growing pains are a given, but the sacrifice will be worth it.

okidok

August 15th, 2010, 01:46 PM

I agree with the article below...

Social costs of 12-year schooling
(http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100812-286465/Social-costs-of-12-year-schooling)
By Raul Pangalangan
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:38:00 08/12/2010

THE GOVERNMENT plans to make children spend two more years in basic education. The plan is admirable in its boldness but worrisome in its impact on poor parents. Many poor children may thus be robbed of a credential, a high school diploma; however dubious or diluted, it may nonetheless spell the difference between hope and despair. Stated plainly, the 12-year plan might be a bright move from a management standpoint but is questionable from a human standpoint. It may be smart but it is not necessarily just.
The problem is not merely that it will cost the government more, as indeed it will. We don’t have enough classrooms to house our current student population, and here we are talking about hosting two entire grade levels more, plus the staff complement of teachers to man those classrooms.

But the real problem is that it entails social costs, some visible, some invisible, that will be borne mainly by poor parents and students. To start with, they need to invest in two more years in school. Basic public education is theoretically free, but parents still need to shell out real money for myriad school expenses, like school supplies, the daily food and transportation allowance. For the underpaid or unemployed, even baon money is already a big chunk of finite family funds...

These social costs are short-run costs. Equally important are the long-run benefits of the additional 2-year schooling. Public policy makers owe it to the future generation to push this and make it work. For us in the present generation, we need to roll up our sleeves and help our fellow citizens bear the transition pains.

Shalom everyone! :)

skywalker2008

August 15th, 2010, 01:46 PM

COST/BENEFIT

Cost to parents of 2 more years in basic educ may be known in October (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/198603/cost-to-parents-of-2-more-years-in-basic-educ-may-be-known-in-october)
08/15/2010 | 12:17 PM

The extra expenses that parents may have to shoulder for a two-year extension of the basic education cycle may be known in October, Malacañang said over the weekend.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said in October, Education Secretary Armin Luistro will bare details of the plan to extend the basic education cycle to 12 years.

"Ilalahad ni Sec. Luistro sa Oct. 5 ang buong picture ng 12-year cycle para makita ng magulang ano ang expenses diyan (On the matter of expenses, parents will get an idea when Luistro bares the details of the 12-year cycle)," Lacierda said on government-run dzRB radio.

But he added the two-year extension will be “free" at least in public schools, adding it is more an investment because it will prepare students for employment even if they forgo college.

He asked parents not to pass judgment on the extension plan until October 5, during Secretary Luistro's presentation of the details of the extension proposal.

“It may look like an added burden in the short term but in the long term it will help all of us. We know many students cannot go to college. So with this extension, when they graduate, they will be employable," he said.

More harm than good

The plan to add two more years to the 10-year basic education cycle might do more harm than good, a Catholic Church official said.

Retired Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Oscar Cruz said the Department of Education (DepEd) might be focusing on a “wrong priority" and may cause more dropouts.

“It is not timely because people are hard up specially those who are in the lower class pyramid and because it will entail [additional] expenses," Cruz said in an article posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines news site.

He said an additional two years of schooling will definitely add to the burden of Filipino families, most of whom are poor, in terms of buying school supplies and giving “baon" (allowances).

Worse, he said the program could further exploit the teachers by subjecting them to more workload for less pay.

“It’s not timely for DepEd because it does not have the money to have all these payments for teachers," he added.

Earlier, Education Secretary Luistro said the program involves seven years for the elementary level and five years in the secondary (high school) level.

Under the program, irrelevant subjects would be removed while new subjects would be incorporated into the curriculum to develop the technical and vocational skills of the students.

Luistro also said the DepEd would try to address the perennial problems of increasing rate of student dropouts, backlogs, textbooks, and shortage of classrooms in two years. — LBG, GMANews.TV

skywalker2008

August 15th, 2010, 03:40 PM

okidok

August 15th, 2010, 05:22 PM

The illustrious club of educated men

By Patricia Evangelista
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:26:00 08/14/2010

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Education would like to reverse the decline in the quality of Philippine education. Within the next five years of the Aquino administration, the DepEd will replace the existing 10-year educational cycle—six years of elementary, four of high school—with a 12-year education plan that includes seven years of primary and five years of secondary education.

Education Secretary Armin Luistro says after K12, a high school diploma will be enough for employment, forgetting that employment decisions are not a function of presidential decrees. The DepEd believes too much is being taught in too little time. Former Education Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz, now education adviser to President Aquino, says the problem is one of quality. Because only 10 years are spent in primary and secondary education, he believes the system becomes a smorgasbord of “a little bit of this, a little bit of that.”

Butch Abad, campaign manager and now budget secretary to President Aquino, says one Japanese consultant noted that Filipino students end up being more tired than Japanese students “because we cram so many subjects in such a short period of time.”

Beyond the single argument of “too much cramming,” the gentlemen of the DepEd—and Abad—boil the issue down to a tautology of justifications: The current 10-year basic education cycle in the Philippines “is already obsolete since most nations already implement a 12-year education plan.” We must “catch up with the rest of the world,” and “if the rest of the world has gone 12 years or more, I don’t understand how we can think we’re smarter.”

The last is from Luz, and there is some truth in his statement—education has certainly not made educated men of our esteemed officials, if they believe “because everyone is doing it too” makes their solution the right solution. If this state were so interested in the opinion and standards of an imaginary international community, perhaps it would be more important to look at what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s 2010 Education For All Global Monitoring Report said about the state of Philippine education. The report cites the Philippines as a “particularly striking example of underperformance” with policies “failing to make a difference in improving the education of the poorest Filipinos.”

This is what the DepEd fails to understand: that the poorest Filipinos, the bulk of whom they are meant to service, are those who cannot afford to wait 12 years for a high school diploma. Many of them cannot even wait the necessary 10. The UN pointed to the rising numbers of out-of-school youths, over a hundred thousand more than in 2009. One quarter of those drop out before Grade 5. Poor Filipinos attend school an average of seven years—more than four years fewer than students in that country’s top 20 percent. Six percent of the poorest children have never attended school.

There is nothing to keep these students studying if they are starving, and it is a unique miscalculation to believe additional years (and big spending) will change it. Of 100 who enter first grade, only 66 graduate high school, and only 16 make it to college. The UN attributes one of the world’s lowest levels of school attendance to marginalization. Poverty and location make it impossible for many to study. According to the UN, in terms of education, the Philippines is now at par with Zambia. And still Luz says the issue of dropping out is a different problem.

more.. (http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100814-286833/The-illustrious-club-of-educated-men)

It certainly does not do anyone good putting sarcastic labels to those who pursue policy changes (e.g., "illustrious club of educated men"). It calls the attention of the readers away from the arguments and toward the personalities.

The Philippines is the only country in the world with 10 years of basic education. A columnist said Botswana is the only other country with 10 years of basic education but subsequently corrected himself by saying that Botswana in fact has 12 years of education, with the first 10 years paid for by the state. So that leaves the Philippines as the only country in the world with only 10 years of education. Why is this fact significant, or as some would ask, why is this suddenly a big deal now? It's not because we are having a sudden bout of inferiority complex, or we view acceding to international standards as a mark of colonial mentality. The argument is actually simple--it's all about productivity. Imagine that you're an average person, and you're assigned to finish in 5 hours a task that is usually done by an average person in 6 hours. Your natural reaction is to cram, and if you're an average person, the quality and/or quantity of your output will suffer, your productivity will decline. That is what has been happening given our short BASIC education--we cram 12 years into 10 years, average productivity declines, the quality of learning on the average declines. And this productivity decline is not imaginary. And international standards are also not imaginary.

Yes, the social cost of additional 2 years of schooling is equally important. Even though poor parents could send their children to free public schools, they still have to spend for school materials and "baon." It is equally frightening that the proposal could lead to higher dropouts given the social costs to poor families. But it can be shown that dropout rates are highly correlated with economic contraction, and as the economy contracts, the more vulnerable sectors suffer, poor families cut corners and spending on basic education usually suffers the cut. The same is true with spending on basic health. My take is that we should at the same time vigorously address poverty reduction and economic growth and development. And yes, the policy change proponents are right in saying that this is another issue, and may I add a broader one as well, and it would take a lot of space to discuss solutions to this.

For the meantime, let's be unafraid to do what it takes to upgrade the quality of learning in our schools--it will actually take a menu of solutions: build more classrooms, pay just wages to teachers, expand education support to poor families, un-cram the crammed basic education curricula. Why take out the latter from the menu?

For the meantime as well, let's prepare for the additional costs of the policy change. Additional resource funding could actually come through a menu of reforms: more intensive tax effort by the customs bureau and BIR, free up infrastructure funds by picking projects viable for private funding, reduce the pork barrel fund of senators and congressmen, and generally all reforms that weed out corruption. Why include constricting the education department's budget from the menu?

Shalom skywalker. :)

GodIsNotGreat

August 15th, 2010, 07:09 PM

It certainly does not do anyone good putting sarcastic labels to those who pursue policy changes (e.g., "illustrious club of educated men"). It calls the attention of the readers away from the arguments and toward the personalities.

:)

A perceptive observation. I agree that the author deviates from the matter of whether the proposed changes is for the better or not. Instead she harps on the inability of parents to send their children to school because of poverty. The alleviation of poverty is a totally different problem. Poverty, in itself, is a very important issue that is better seen through the prism of socio-political and economic strategies of the government. Ms. Evangelista is off-tangent.

epik ll ian

August 15th, 2010, 07:28 PM

Okidok is the best!!!!! Great analogies! :)

MatudNilaBaby

August 15th, 2010, 07:44 PM

A perceptive observation. I agree that the author deviates from the matter of whether the proposed changes is for the better or not. Instead she harps on the inability of parents to send their children to school because of poverty. The alleviation of poverty is a totally different problem. Poverty, in itself, is a very important issue that is better seen through the prism of socio-political and economic strategies of the government. Ms. Evangelista is off-tangent.

maybe the k-12 curriculum is a wake up call to wanna be parents that making more babies that you cant afford to raise is no longer the norm in this day and age. our country is againts the artificial birth control methods, then maybe an international standard of education can be a source of natural birth control:lol::lol::lol:

GodIsNotGreat

August 16th, 2010, 01:03 AM

maybe the k-12 curriculum is a wake up call to wanna be parents that making more babies that you cant afford to raise is no longer the norm in this day and age. our country is againts the artificial birth control methods, then maybe an international standard of education can be a source of natural birth control:lol::lol::lol:

You are right. Filipinos, knowing that sending kids to school is an expensive proposition, may think twice about having a lot of babies. I think they call this in management negative incentive or disincentive ( Wordnet n. a negative motivational influence).

Whether people think this way is another matter.

Ady001

August 16th, 2010, 01:21 AM

^^ We have to enforce this 2 year addition to our schooling years also because of the Bologna accord (which will be enforced and will also leave our countrymen jobless.) I have dedicated a page of that previously.

Seriously, Cruz doesn't even think what economic repercussions he was thinking when he blurted out that 2 years will not help us. There are many factors why students drop out and do not single the number of years only.

skywalker2008

August 16th, 2010, 04:35 AM

The argument is actually simple--it's all about productivity. Imagine that you're an average person, and you're assigned to finish in 5 hours a task that is usually done by an average person in 6 hours. Your natural reaction is to cram, and if you're an average person, the quality and/or quantity of your output will suffer, your productivity will decline. That is what has been happening given our short BASIC education--we cram 12 years into 10 years, average productivity declines, the quality of learning on the average declines. And this productivity decline is not imaginary. And international standards are also not imaginary.

Since you mentioned Productivity (and AFAIK it is not simple) let us put it in the real world, e.g. in a manufacturing plant where some of our future graduates will be working. The global trend today follows the philosophy of delivering the highest quality products, at the lowest cost, and on-time. Productivity and quality works hand-in-hand and most of the improvements in the shopfloors are leaning towards the reduction of cycle times because in a 24-hr continuous operation you cannot say to your boss "lets just make our day 26 hours since the 24 hours day is not enough." And in global arena, if your competitor can do it, you must learn how to exceed it. We cannot afford to teach our children to be lazy and be content with the average since what we are talking here are international standards which are not imaginary.

Also, let us cross-examine our tertiary level:

Can we also categorically say that the schools implementing trimestral/quarterm models (e.g. DLSU/Mapua (http://www.mapua.edu.ph/Admissions/QuarterSystem.aspx)) and accelerated studies (e.g. UP Intarmed - that shortens the usual period of medical education by two years) are deficient in form and substance because they offer shorter years of education?

I am not totally against adding 2 years in our basic education. We can use it as window for vocational and/or pre-high school/college Math and Science subjects. In fact, other private schools already have Grade 7 in their elementary. What I am pointing-out here is that we must first challenge our existing basic public curriculum. We must first identify the garbage and non-value-adding practices: sort-out all unnecessary subjects and repetitive teachings, upgrade the learning facilities and enhance our teaching methods, calibrate our public curriculum against its private counterpart. Adding 2 more years now in unproductive and poor quality education is a total waste of taxpayers money. It is like pouring water in a broken pitcher.

We cannot afford to be compulsive with our education. Most of our countrymen are viewing this as their way out of poverty. If our leader is suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as manifested by his controversial Executive Orders, please spare our children.

First things first... :)

april boy

August 23rd, 2010, 12:43 AM

With slump in demand for nurses, more Pinoys opt to become doctors

By Mayen Jaymalin
(The Philippine Star)
Updated August 23, 2010 12:00 AM Comments (8) View comments

MANILA, Philippines - More young Filipinos now opt to become doctors apparently due to the slump in the demand for nurses abroad.

The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) yesterday reported an increase in the number of Filipinos entering medical school.

Dr. Jose Cueto, a member of the PRC Board of Medicine (BOM), said the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has informed the PRC of the sudden reverse in the number of students entering medical and nursing schools nationwide.

“There is now a reverse pattern of education with more students now taking up the National Medical Admission Test (NMAT), a requirement for entrance to any medical school in the country,” Cueto disclosed.

Cueto said the evident rise in NMAT examinees came in the midst of the continuing decline in the number of students entering nursing school.

“There has been a drop in the number of nursing students so we thought the rise in NMAT examinees came from there,” Cueto said.

According to Cueto, they have also received reports that many nursing graduates who are now having difficulty finding employment are opting to take up medicine.

“Before it’s the doctors who are taking up nursing because they want to work abroad. Now it’s the reverse, our nurses are continuing their studies and are entering medical schools,” Cueto added.

The government previously reported about 10,000 doctors who have turned nurses and 99 percent of the figure passed the licensure examination. More than half of those doctors-turned nurses have left for abroad.

For the past years, however, there has been a slump in the demand for nurses in foreign countries that triggered a surplus of nurses in the Philippines.

But Cueto said the increasing trend in the number of medical students may still not bring about positive results unless the country would be able to address the exodus of health workers overseas.
:cheers::banana:

epik ll ian

August 23rd, 2010, 12:55 AM

Since you mentioned Productivity (and AFAIK it is not simple) let us put it in the real world, e.g. in a manufacturing plant where some of our future graduates will be working. The global trend today follows the philosophy of delivering the highest quality products, at the lowest cost, and on-time. Productivity and quality works hand-in-hand and most of the improvements in the shopfloors are leaning towards the reduction of cycle times because in a 24-hr continuous operation you cannot say to your boss "lets just make our day 26 hours since the 24 hours day is not enough." And in global arena, if your competitor can do it, you must learn how to exceed it. We cannot afford to teach our children to be lazy and be content with the average since what we are talking here are international standards which are not imaginary.

Also, let us cross-examine our tertiary level:

Can we also categorically say that the schools implementing trimestral/quarterm models (e.g. DLSU/Mapua (http://www.mapua.edu.ph/Admissions/QuarterSystem.aspx)) and accelerated studies (e.g. UP Intarmed - that shortens the usual period of medical education by two years) are deficient in form and substance because they offer shorter years of education?

I am not totally against adding 2 years in our basic education. We can use it as window for vocational and/or pre-high school/college Math and Science subjects. In fact, other private schools already have Grade 7 in their elementary. What I am pointing-out here is that we must first challenge our existing basic public curriculum. We must first identify the garbage and non-value-adding practices: sort-out all unnecessary subjects and repetitive teachings, upgrade the learning facilities and enhance our teaching methods, calibrate our public curriculum against its private counterpart. Adding 2 more years now in unproductive and poor quality education is a total waste of taxpayers money. It is like pouring water in a broken pitcher.

We cannot afford to be compulsive with our education. Most of our countrymen are viewing this as their way out of poverty. If our leader is suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as manifested by his controversial Executive Orders, please spare our children.

First things first... :)

With respect to education - industries operate in a different manner. Education is something that shouldn't have been shortened. If there's no great scientific study proving that the 10 year cycle is better than the 12 year cycle: kids should have an opportunity to have as much time developing their brains and filling it with knowledge like kids from other countries in the world. Graduating high school at 18 still felt kind of young for me. It was hard to imagine that some of my classmates chose not to further their education, and they had to go out into the world and support themselves with what they learned. Doing that at age 16 is kind of impossible to fathom.

It's good that kids are taught to not settle with what's average, but the problem lies in the fact that the time given to kids to mature and learn does not even meet the average. Maybe this kind of logic would be more relevant in a discussion of us lengthening the education cycle from 12 to 14 years. Your basic education system is something you receive ONCE in your life (a period when your brain is more apt to receiving and processing lots of information at once), and it shouldn't be taken so lightly. It should also most definitely not be rushed.

That being said, I do fully agree with the idea of taking out all of the unnecessary crap from the curriculum. It's already hard enough that there's not enough time, and then it's being filled with useless material? No, thank you! But wouldn't weeding out all of the unnecessary classes and incorporating all of the necessary classes also require the time change? Sometimes, those who believe we need to extend the time and those who believe we need to edit the curriculum don't realize that both of their ideologies go hand in hand with each other. I think a comparative study of other countries around the world with superior education systems should be made. And from that you can do a number of things like gathering a consensus as to which classes the majority of countries teach. We want our knowledge and capabilities to be on par with everybody elses' don't we? From that we can add in our own elements, formulate our own model, and provide Filipino students with a core curriculum that best suits their needs.

I think it would be good to administer all of the changes at once (extending the amount of time AND formulating the required courses). It would be a headache for schools and students having to change every other few years, wouldn't it? Wouldn't there also be a guinea pig group of students who would've received a varied education in that transition period? Through the years of going through gradual changes, wouldn't it be possible that there were things along the way that they haven't learned that they should've learned and vice versa? I believe it would be easier to keep track of things with just one single flip. When you remove your band-aid you can either sit there for an hour pulling it carefully while dealing with a lot of pain, or you can just rip it off and get it over with. Your call! :)

MatudNilaBaby

August 23rd, 2010, 12:58 AM

skywalker2008

August 23rd, 2010, 04:19 AM

skywalker2008

August 23rd, 2010, 04:33 AM

Fiction

By Grace D. Chong
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 18:04:00 08/21/2010

An Excerpt from
‘No Lipstick for Mother’
Grace D. Chong
1st Prize, Short Story for Children, Palanca Awards 2005

EVERY night after Tatay was buried, Nanay would clean his tricycle till it shone, as he did every day at dawn. “Haay, it took us years to save enough money to buy this,” she’d sigh, her thoughts far away. “You should have seen your Tatay’s face when we finally brought it home!”

“Nanay, my mid-term exam is next week,” I reminded her.

“Ah, oo,” she said.

“I need to pay my tuition.”

“Tuition?” she asked absently, and then, “Naku, the next installment!” she hissed, wringing her cleaning rag many times.

“My graduation fee is also due,” I added.

“Ha?! Oh, of course,” she remembered, wringing the rag a few more times.

Before the week was over, the change came. Like a sudden brownout on Christmas eve!

Nanay , have you gone crazy?! I wanted to ask but she was beaming widely while putting on Tatay’s helmet. “Anak, I’ll drive you to school from now on. Then I’ll pick you up after school, ha? In between, I will take in passengers.”

more... (http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/sim/sim/view/20100821-288064/Fiction)

MatudNilaBaby

August 23rd, 2010, 07:10 PM

Public school students barely passing Filipino

By Tarra Quismundo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:38:00 08/23/2010

MANILA, Philippines—Public school students received barely passing marks in achievement tests in Filipino over the last five years, with high school students doing more poorly than grade schoolers, according to results of the elementary and secondary National Achievement Test (NAT).

The Department of Education’s National Educational Testing and Research Center (NETRC) said that while scores had gradually improved annually, grades dropped from the mean score of 75.50 percent for elementary students to 58.18 percent for high school students in the last school year.

Scores have improved by almost 15 percentage points for elementary students from 60.68 percent in school year 2005-2006 to the latest at 75.50 percent, according to the NETRC. In comparison, scores in English ranged from 54.05 percent in 2005-2006 to last school year’s 68.51 percent.

In high school, Filipino scores were lower than grade schoolers as scores ranged from 46.66 percent from school year 2005-06 to 58.18 percent in 2009-10. Scores in English dropped from 51.2 percent five years ago to 46.86 percent in the last school year.

more... (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/nation/view/20100823-288304/Public-school-students-barely-passing-Filipino)

why is the dept. of education still insists on teaching filipino which is a pseudo language of the tagalogs to non speakers of this language? its not going to work and will create confusion to many filipinos whose mother tongue is not tagalog. its putting those students at a disadvantage resulting memorizing and translating just to pass the course.

how about we give the tagalog speakers a national test on cebuano/bisaya language and we'll see if you will do good in such a test. we better spend our precious school time in learning the universal language english to better understand math, science and social studies.

let us stop this social experiment of creating a language that never was and will never be accepted by filipinos with a real language and cultural heritage.

RonnieR

August 27th, 2010, 07:39 AM

SM Foundation allots P50-M annually for education
By Rose De La Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated August 23, 2010 12:00 AM Comments (0) View comments

http://a.imageshack.us/img825/487/usual1hires.jpg
A symbolic turn-over of keys of the newly constructed four-classroom, one-story schoolbuilding by SM executives to the Principal of Looc National High School and local government officials of Nasugbu and Batangas province was effected last August 12. The SM family was represented by SM Foundation Exec. Dir. For Education, Linda Atayde, Jesus Lucas, president, Costa del Hamilo Inc.and Cora Guidote, VP for Investor Relations, SMIC. School Principal Pastora Anila and DepEd District Supervisor Dr. Greg Meneses received the donation together with Board Member Lorenzo Bausas and Councilor Dennis Apacible of Nasugbu.

MANILA, Philippines - Each year, SM Foundation Inc., the corporate social responsibility arm of retail and mall leader SM, has been allotting P50 million for education, of which P10 million is spent on new schoolbuildings that it puts up in areas most deserving of its philanthropy. The bulk is spent on funding college sponsorships for bright and deserving but poor students.

Executive Director Carmen Linda Atayde told The STAR that SM Foundation has so far provided scholarships to 1,180 college graduates, many of them finishing with honors and had jobs awaiting them here and abroad.

“We don’t oblige our graduates to join the SM Group but let the graduates decide where to work,” Atayde said taking pride that this is their difference from the college scholarships offered by other companies.

Last Aug.10, the company inaugurated a one-story four-classroom schoolbuilding in Looc, Nasugbu, Batangas which came from a P1 million cash donation from businessman Stephen Cu-Unjieng (otherwise allotted for his birthday bash last year that he scrapped) and matched by SM Foundation for the cost of building plus additional funds for desks, electric fans, cabinets for books and instructional materials, books and toilets for each classroom. The well-ventilated new classrooms will enable the high school students, previously cramped in rooms with 80 to 90 students per section (of three sections) at each level, to enjoy a more conducive learning environment with a ratio of only 50 students per classroom.

The choice of Looc National High School for the schoolbuilding program came from the suggestion of an SM official, who was asked to speak at the commencement exercise in 2007 and saw the dismal condition of the school, Atayde said. But normally, SM Foundation makes its decision on schoolbuildings on the basis of a recommendation from the Department of Education (DepEd) on overpopulated schools, congested and dilapidated classrooms and other considerations, Atayde explained.

Atayde, in a speech before the grateful students, said she hopes some of them would apply for college scholarships with the foundation so they can pursue higher education even at the Batangas State College.

Jess Lucas, president of Costa del Hamilo Inc. (SM’s high-end membership resort in Nasugbu) told the students they were fortunate to have 7 to 8 national high schools while other districts and provinces had only one. The school caters to the residents of barangays Papaya, Looc, Bulingan and Calayo.

“And you have so many big companies locating and putting up tourism establishments in your province, which will provide jobs for your families. So make the best use of these opportunities,” Lucas said.

Hamilo Coast is located three to four kilometers away from the school and started construction two years ago. It offers beach club facilities and condominium (rentals or ownership) to members.

For August, SM Foundation will inaugurate two schoolbuildings in Naga City. For September, newly-built two-story four- classroom schoolbuildings for inauguration are one in Quezon City (the D. Tuazon Elementary School), one in Davao and one in Dasmarinas, Cavite.

The SM Foundation is planning an alumni homecoming by October to gather all its graduates and keep track of them to determine the success of the foundation. The scholars come from families with annual earnings of at least P100,000.

SM Foundation will soon be partnering with GMA Kapuso Foundation in the construction of new schoolbuildings.

epik ll ian

August 27th, 2010, 09:02 AM

^^ That's pretty noble. Good for SM.

okidok

August 27th, 2010, 04:42 PM

Since you mentioned Productivity (and AFAIK it is not simple) let us put it in the real world, e.g. in a manufacturing plant where some of our future graduates will be working. The global trend today follows the philosophy of delivering the highest quality products, at the lowest cost, and on-time. Productivity and quality works hand-in-hand and most of the improvements in the shopfloors are leaning towards the reduction of cycle times because in a 24-hr continuous operation you cannot say to your boss "lets just make our day 26 hours since the 24 hours day is not enough." And in global arena, if your competitor can do it, you must learn how to exceed it. We cannot afford to teach our children to be lazy and be content with the average since what we are talking here are international standards which are not imaginary.

What you call "our competitors in the global arena" are implementing sufficient 12-year basic education curricula, unlike ours which is crammed to 10 years. As I said before, international standards are not imaginary, and your repeating it means you agree with me. Well, a 12-year basic education is the international standard.

My point is not about teaching children to be lazy. My point is giving them enough time to learn what they need to learn. We are talking about something "basic", i.e., basic education. Is compromising "basic" needs the right way to go in proving that we can be above average? Let me illustrate the importance of filling basic needs: it has been scientifically proven that an infant would need breastmilk (or an alternative that closely resembles the nutrients of breastmilk) as "basic nutrition" for the first 6 months of her/his existence. After that, the baby's "basic nutrition" would consist of a combination of breastmilk and some solid foods until she/he is one year old, and then the mother can assess whether it's time to wean the baby and use other types of milk and introduce more varieties of solid food. Would shortening the recommended length of time for the baby's basic nutrition be of any good, on the average? (What I mean by "average" is we take out special cases like those who would need special medical attention, or those who just grow so fast, not the idiom "average" for being content with mediocre results.)

Also, let us cross-examine our tertiary level:
Can we also categorically say that the schools implementing trimestral/quarterm models (e.g. DLSU/Mapua (http://www.mapua.edu.ph/Admissions/QuarterSystem.aspx)) and accelerated studies (e.g. UP Intarmed - that shortens the usual period of medical education by two years) are deficient in form and substance because they offer shorter years of education?

Again, we're talking about "basic education," not tertiary.

I am not totally against adding 2 years in our basic education. We can use it as window for vocational and/or pre-high school/college Math and Science subjects. In fact, other private schools already have Grade 7 in their elementary.

Ah! As I suspected, despite the objections that confuse readers, you're agreeing with me. :)

What I am pointing-out here is that we must first challenge our existing basic public curriculum. We must first identify the garbage and non-value-adding practices: sort-out all unnecessary subjects and repetitive teachings, upgrade the learning facilities and enhance our teaching methods, calibrate our public curriculum against its private counterpart. Adding 2 more years now in unproductive and poor quality education is a total waste of taxpayers money. It is like pouring water in a broken pitcher.

As I said before, many reforms have to be implemented. And it's good that you repeated some of the reforms that I enumerated (another point where you agree with me). Now, why take this (12-year basic education) out from the set of needed reforms? To assume that the pitcher will remain broken contradicts somehow your desire to upgrade learning facilities, enhance teaching methods, etc.

We cannot afford to be compulsive with our education. Most of our countrymen are viewing this as their way out of poverty. If our leader is suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder as manifested by his controversial Executive Orders, please spare our children.

Again, putting labels and hurling insults don't accomplish anything but sidetrack a reader from the issue to personalities.

First things first... :)

Aha! So you're really agreeing with me. You're just confused about the timing. Shalom! :)

:)

skywalker2008

August 28th, 2010, 02:20 AM

I am not a Magsaysay awardee, at least not yet... :colgate:

Pinoy Magsaysay awardees oppose 12-year basic education cycle
PIA FAUSTINO, GMANews.TV
08/28/2010 | 12:06 AM

Filipino educators Christopher Bernido and Marivic Carpio-Bernido, the husband-and-wife team who received this year's Ramon Magsaysay Award for their work in providing quality education to poor high school students in Bohol, disagree with the Aquino administration's plan to extend the basic education cycle to 12 years.

"If you go from the 10-year to the 12-year cycle, it's like jumping from the frying pan to the fire. It will be a complete disaster," said Christopher Bernido. He said the debate over the additional two years in the Philippine school cycle just "distracts [Filipinos] from the core problems" that face basic education, such as the lack of quality teachers and resources.

The Bernidos, the only educators and the only Filipinos to be named among this year's seven recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Awards, spoke at a news conference Friday. Other 2010 awardees include a Japanese advocate for nuclear disarmament, three Chinese environmentalists, and a Bangladeshi advocate for the empowerment of differently-abled persons.

The annual awards, considered as Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, recognize individuals or organizations that have made extraordinary contributions to human development in the continent.

The Bernidos were honored this year for "their purposeful commitment to both science and nation, ensuring innovative, low-cost, and effective basic education even under Philippine conditions of great scarcity and daunting poverty."

Since 1999, the Bernidos have been running the Central Visayan Insitute Foundation (CVIF), a small private high school in Jagna, Bohol. The couple has developed a learning system in which students spend at least 70 percent of their time doing independent activities, and the rest interacting with teachers.

Christopher says the DepEd needs to focus on improving the quality of teaching before adding years to the cycle.

"It's better to have no teacher than [to have a] bad teacher. Let's repair what's wrong with the 10-year cycle, and then when we are good with it, then we can extend it or even reduce it to eight [years]," he said.

"With the lack of qualified teachers, lack of resources, then extending the cycle might compound the problem," added Marivic.

The Bernidos appealed to the DepEd to "give more time to study carefully the issues at stake ... before making any drastic decision, because that decision would entail millions or even billions of dollars. Now, if that doesn't work, then the future generations will be paying off the loans for a failed program."

more... (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/199615/pinoy-magsaysay-awardees-oppose-12-year-basic-education-cycle)

Please don't make our children hostages of incompetence...

Ady001

August 28th, 2010, 02:32 AM

^^ I'm sorry my Magsaysay awardee friends but your opinion will not be recognized.

skywalker2008

August 28th, 2010, 03:20 AM

^^
Dangerous naiveté (http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/editorial/view/20100825-288768/Dangerous-naivet)

MatudNilaBaby

August 29th, 2010, 12:55 AM

^^ I'm sorry my Magsaysay awardee friends but your opinion will not be recognized.

nag suggest pa to reduce the basic education to 8 years. oh my gulay!:ohno::ohno::ohno:

april boy

August 29th, 2010, 01:02 AM

MatudNilaBaby

August 29th, 2010, 01:18 AM

Twelve years is ok. Right now even if the school system here is 10 year alot of parents now are putting their kids to schools with good pre-school programs (nursery, kindergarden, prep) plus with advanced high school curriculum.:cheers::cheers:

nursery and preschool are not counted as part of the 12 year basic education. its k-12 including kindergarten that makes it more than 12 years of schooling to be at par with countries using that system. mostly theyre the g-7 and highly advanced countries. since we have 10years ang ka line up natin ay mga countries in africa.:bash::bash::bash:

april boy

August 29th, 2010, 01:23 AM

nursery and preschool are not counted as part of the 12 year basic education. its k-12 including kindergarten that makes it more than 12 years of schooling to be at par with countries using that system. mostly theyre the g-7 and highly advanced countries. since we have 10years ang ka line up natin ay mga countries in africa.:bash::bash::bash:

Is prep counted also in our school system?:)

april boy

August 29th, 2010, 01:24 AM

GSIS, DepEd sign accord on public teachers' concerns

By Iris C. Gonzales (The Philippine Star) Updated August 29, 2010 12:00 AM Comments (1) View comments

MANILA, Philippines - The Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), the state-run pension fund for public employees, and the Department of Education (DepEd) have agreed to address the concerns of public school teachers through a memorandum of understanding during the first wave of dialogue between the two agencies.

The GSIS, led by its new chairman Daniel Lacson, has initiated discussions with DepEd officials with the aim of addressing teachers’ concerns, particularly issues on their service records.

Lacson recently met with DepEd Undersecretary for finance and administration Francisco Varela and Assistant Secretary Reynaldo Laguda for a dialogue, where both agencies agreed to fully cooperate.

A panel, headed by Varela on the part of the DepEd and GSIS executive vice president for operations Consuelo Manansala, on the part of the pension fund, has also been formed to work on all issues raised by teachers.

Manansala is also the current OIC-president and general manager of the GSIS.

During the dialogue, the GSIS and DepEd agreed that the pension fund would provide information technology technical assistance to DepEd. This will include, but is not limited to, “the provision of computer hardware and software.”

In 2005, the GSIS and DepEd, which comprise 40 percent of the entire membership base of the pension fund, had previously entered into a memorandum of agreement (MOA) for the purpose of updating teachers’ service records.

skywalker2008

August 29th, 2010, 02:09 AM

Binay: Two more years in school not needed (http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/273214/binay-two-more-years-school-not-needed)
By MADEL R. SABATER
August 19, 2010, 5:09pm

Vice President Jejomar Binay said increasing the number of years in basic education may not be the solution to improve the country’s quality of education.

Speaking to students and faculty members of the University of Makati last Wednesday, where he was conferred Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, Binay said the reintroduction of quality instruction in schools, reforming the curriculum, and upgrading the textbooks are deemed better than adding more years to basic education.

“I would probably want to propose that we deliberate with greater care on certain proposals to increase the number of years of study for our students and that we shift to ‘English only’ to be spoken in our schools,” Binay said. “I believe that this may not be an appropriate way of addressing the decline of quality education in our schools.”

“I believe the problem could be remedied only by reintroducing quality instruction in our schools, reforming the curriculum to focus on the really important subjects, and upgrading all textbooks and instructional materials. All this should be supported, hand in hand, by a deliberate effort to improve the content of all media of social communication, many of which tend to specialize in inanities, profanities and vulgarities so destructive of the minds and morals of young and old alike,” he said.

The Department of Education (DepEd) is mulling to add two more years to basic education in public schools.

Binay meanwhile underscored the need to strengthen the country’s primary and secondary education as well as students’ proficiency in both English and Filipino to ensure that the country has a pool of competent human resources in the future.

Binay said that though the country is still not in a position to support students from primary to tertiary level, there must be an emphasis on strengthening students’ formative years.

“I believe that excellence must be implanted in the minds of our young people at the earliest stage. We should provide them with the best possible quality instruction from primary level all through high school, where they could simultaneously acquire basic vocational and technical skills. This should equip everyone with those skills in any number of occupational lines, even if they ultimately end up pursuing a college career. On the other hand, it should give those who are unable to move on to college a foretaste of whatever vocational or technical specialization they may want to pursue, possibly within the dual-tech training system,” he said.

He also said that in the future, free uniforms and school supplies should be given in other public schools, just like what he had done when he was still mayor of Makati City.

“I am hoping that what we have been able to do in Makati over the years for all its schoolchildren, the national government would now be able to do for all the schoolchildren all over the Philippines. This means free uniforms, school supplies, bags and books for all,” Binay said.

“Hopefully, if funds permit, the government could also provide modest allowances for these schoolchildren so that there would be less pressure on them to drop out in order to help their respective families earn their daily subsistence,” he added.

The Vice President has remained optimistic that the country’s education system will soon improve with proper reforms in the education system coupled with good governance, as he expressed his support to the initiatives of the Aquino administration in the area of education.

He said he will share Makati’s experience in improving the quality of education in the country and in providing students and teachers with the needed tools for learning and teaching.

http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/273214/binay-two-more-years-school-not-needed

MatudNilaBaby

August 29th, 2010, 02:18 AM

skywalker2008

August 29th, 2010, 03:01 AM

I want to understand (http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideBusiness.htm?f=2010/august/20/business7.isx&d=2010/august/20)

by Maya Baltazar Herrera (http://www.mayaherrera.com/profile_main.php)

On Oct. 5, World Teacher’s Day, the Department of Education is expected to formally announce its proposed one-year kindergarten (the K in K plus 12) and 12-year basic education plan. It is a plan that has drawn considerable and well-deserved attention. At stake is an estimated five-year implementation budget of P100 billion and the future of millions of Filipinos, especially the 20 million students currently in the public basic education system.

The proposal, based on Aquino’s campaign promise (Promise 21) is to “go from our current 10 years (six in elementary and four in high school) to a K-12 system in five years starting SY 2011-12.” Aquino’s word-for-word promise: “I will expand the basic education cycle in this country from a short 10-year cycle to a globally-comparable 12 years before the end of the next administration (2016).”

In order for us to understand whether this makes sense, we must answer at least four questions. What is the purpose of basic education? What are the most important areas of improvement in the current system? How does the proposed solution address these? Does the proposed solution prioritize properly given the time and resources available?

But before we go through the scientific process, let’s examine the rhetoric.

Rhetoric

Implicit in the wording of Promise 21, and much of the rhetoric around the national debate, is that achieving 12 years of education will make the local educational system “world-class.” In fact, Education Secretary Luistro has been reported as saying that this would make the “country’s education cycle ... at par with the world’s standard.”

This leads one to believe two things: first, that there is an internationally defined standard and that is 12 years of education, and second, that the length of the education cycle is the primary determinant of quality.

Mike Luz, former Undersecretary of Education and education adviser to Aquino is privately and publicly passionate about the topic. In a June interview with ANC’s Headstart, Luz waxes eloquent “If the rest of the world, which has done much better than the Philippines, has gone to 12 years or more, I don’t understand how we can think we’re smarter.” “We’re not proposing something different, we’re proposing to catch up with the rest of the world. It’s a quality thing.”

He says that the problem is really about quality and that the Philippines is only one of two nations in the world with a six-year primary and four-year secondary cycle.

For his part, Luistro has explained that the purpose of the reforms is to ensure that high school graduates are ready to be productively employed even without completing college. To his credit, Luistro has been extremely careful about explaining that any changes must be based on a review and simplification of the current curriculum.

Winnowing

Before we attempt to evaluate, we must first separate the relevant from the irrelevant, the logical from the merely rhetorical.

Is the Philippines one of only two countries in the world with a 10-year education cycle? Perhaps. Are we one of only two with a six-year grade school and a four-year high school? Possibly.

The Unesco data showed that over half of the over 200 countries with data have a primary plus secondary cycle of 12 years. Less than 10 countries had systems that allow students to enter tertiary education with only 10 years of schooling. Other countries had cycles from 11 to 14 years.

Does that mean 12 years means quality? If longer truly meant better, then the almost 200 countries that have more than 10 years of pre-tertiary education must be doing better than we are. Unfortunately, that’s not true. What that means is that merely increasing the number of years in the education cycle won’t lead to better quality education.

Gleaning

Now let’s examine the proposed solution. My personal alarm bells began to ring when I realized that the structure of seven years of grade school and five years of high school (7 plus 5) had been articulated before the curriculum review and the expected curriculum change. That this single 7 plus 5 system is expected to deliver both college-readiness as well as immediate employability (with vague references to vocations) only increased my discomfort.

Does information from international experience help us understand? While proponents are quick to point to statistics to support the prevalence of the 12-year duration, no one seems prepared to claim that 7 plus 5 is a standard structure in any of the major countries we would tend to use as a benchmark for education.

The US system has five years of elementary school, three years of middle school and four years of high school. The UK system has six years of primary school and four years of secondary school, with some secondary schools having two years of sixth form. The Singapore system has six years of primary school and four years of secondary school. The Hong Kong system used to have six years of primary school and seven years of secondary school. HK has recently decreased secondary school duration to six years, clearly indicating that longer is not always better.

Reality check

Expert evaluation of our ability to achieve MDG 3, universal primary education, by 2015 is low across all of the indicators. From 1990 to 2005, we had regressed on two of the four metrics (net enrolment and literacy), were flat on one (proportion of grade 1 starters reaching grade 6) and improved only on one (63 percent to 68 percent on primary completion rate). The Philippines ranked in the lowest 10 percent of participating countries for grades 4 and 8 in the 2003 TIMMS, a gauge of learning achievement in math and science. The mean percentage score on the National Achievement Test was 65 percent (75 percent passing) in 2008.

Clearly, there is a quality problem and it begins very early. Experts have called the public education system weakly governed, under-resourced and over-extended.

Of course, the full plan is yet to be unveiled. However, there are already some rather easy questions we can ask. If time is the true challenge, why can’t we begin by increasing the number of class hours per day? Public school students spend only between four to five hours a day in school, versus the seven to nine of private school students. How is Singapore able to deliver quality within the same six plus four system? If there are two goals, why can’t we articulate two systems? If we need to live with the current resource constraints, why can’t we offer flexibility within the four-year system? Even if we eventually move to a 12-year system, why do we have to keep the two-cycle structure? If we expect to simplify the curriculum, why do we expect to increase years? Shouldn’t purpose (curriculum) come before structure?

Secretary Luistro, please help me understand.

skywalker2008

August 29th, 2010, 03:25 AM

Fix major education problems first—Nebres (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20100731-284246/Fix-major-education-problems-firstNebres)

By Philip Tubeza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:03:00 07/31/2010

MANILA, Philippines—Ateneo de Manila University president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres has criticized the Aquino administration’s plan to add two more years to basic education, saying the government should focus first on cutting the number of “illiterates” the country produces annually.

Nebres, who headed the Presidential Task Force on Education (PTFE) in the Arroyo administration, said that with its meager resources, the government should first address the backlog in schools, textbooks, teachers and classrooms, and then cut by half the number of students (estimated to be around 700,000) who drop out of elementary school and are “illiterate.”

“Once you have achieved that, then let’s talk about the two years,” Nebres said in an interview in his office at the Ateneo.

President Aquino in his State of the Nation Address announced the plan to add two more years to basic education, which currently consists of six years of elementary and four years of high school.

The plan is aimed at aligning the Philippine education system with international standards.

But for Nebres, the plan would take away precious government resources from more pressing needs. Proponents of the plan say it would cost the government an additional P100 billion to implement it over a five-year period.

Nebres said records showed that 700,000 to 800,000 elementary school students—or around a third of the 2.4 million who enter the grades each school year—drop out before Grade 6.

“That means they’re illiterate. They’re unemployable. The estimate is that there are 12 million to 15 million illiterates in the country. So every year, you’re adding another 700,000 to 800,000,” Nebres said.

“That’s what should be addressed first because the country cannot move with so many poor unemployable people being added every year,” he said.

Instead of adding two years to basic education, Nebres recommended that the government instead add extra years to “select college courses” whose graduates would be required abroad to have 15 to 16 years of education.

Ady001

August 29th, 2010, 11:38 AM

^^ Oo nga... But then, what if some people would say "they lack 2 years, they're unemployable?"

epik ll ian

August 29th, 2010, 07:37 PM

I think as I said before ... doesn't editing the educational program also involve bringing in classes that are necessary - therefore the extra two years and curriculum editing go hand in hand. Just do it in one shot and get it over with. These decisions take so long to make.

skywalker2008

August 30th, 2010, 12:23 AM

Our Problem:

Woeful average class size is 65 pupils per teacher (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/192849/woeful-average-class-size-is-65-pupils-per-teacher)

http://blogs.gmanews.tv/kapuso-mo-jessica-soho/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/back-to-school-stat81.jpg

PNoy's Solution:

DepEd to phase in 12 years of basic education (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/198166/deped-to-phase-in-12-years-of-basic-education)

PNoy's Problem:

Biggest DepEd budget in a decade isn’t good enough for students (http://www.malaya.com.ph/08302010/news7.html)

STUDENTS and youth groups denounced President Aquino for his alleged low regard for the education sector as shown by the proposed P207.4 billion education budget for 2011.

Rain Sindayen, UP Diliman University Student Council chair, said the P207.4 billion budget leaves little room to resolve shortages of classrooms, teachers, textbooks, educational materials and facilities.

Sindayen, also deputy secretary general of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), said the amount is P100 billion short of what former Education Secretary Mona Valisno said is needed to address the gap in the basic education sector, especially with the annual influx of enrolees.

"It is impossible to meet the shortage if the proposed budget is P100 billion pesos short of what is needed. If the shortage doesn’t exact greater subsidy, then why is the President pushing for the addition of two years in basic education that according to his advisers would need a budget of P100 billion? It looks like he is more willing to fund castles in the air rather than the actual shortage in the education sector," Sindayen added.

The administration is pushing for two more years to add to the current 10-year education cycle. Experts said the program may cost some P100 billion spread out over five years.

The amount will go to the construction of more classrooms, purchase of more textbooks and the hiring and salaries for teachers.

The DepEd has a budget of P172 billion for 2010, two billion lower than the 2009 funding of P174 billion.

It originally requested P190 billion from Congress.

more... (http://www.malaya.com.ph/08302010/news7.html)

Our Solution:

Smile :D (you're in FB) and Pray :angel1:

Stepping down (http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100828-289316/Stepping-down)

By Fr. Jerry Orbos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:50:00 08/28/2010

Smile:

MANILA, Philippines—The story is told about two drivers who got out of their cars after colliding at a road junction. One of them got a hip flask from his pocket and offered this to the other: “Here, have some whisky to calm your nerves.”

“Thanks,” the other driver gratefully accepted, and after taking a big gulp gave back the flask: “Here, take some yourself.”

“No, I’d rather not. The police will be here soon,” said the first driver.

* * *

In today’s Gospel (Lk. 14, 1.7-14) Jesus points out our human tendency to put ourselves ahead of others, and to put our personal interests above those of others. Jesus reminds us to learn to step down. There are greater persons around us, so we should be humble, and there are lesser persons around us, so we should be more considerate and compassionate.

* * *

Pray:

A moment with the Lord:

Lord, help me to learn how to step down. Amen.

okidok

September 1st, 2010, 08:01 AM

Our Problem:

[/B]

Thanks for always sharing with us the opinions of others, skywalker--from Magsaysay awardees to university student council chair. But I think many in the forum will also be interested in what you think.

Now, about the basic education in other countries that was discussed by one of your esteemed authors. What she wrote is deceiving, and I hope you're not entirely deceived by it. In Singapore, the normal length of secondary education is 6 years and students go to university usually when they're 18. The 4-year high school education she talked about refer only to the "express" or "special" class, where students are deemed smarter and can take on the pressure of an accelerated program. She also cited the UK, but again she's wrong. (And which part of the UK is it?) In England and Wales, they have Primary 1 to 6, then Middle School (Years 7 to 9) and Upper School (Years 10 to 13). In Scotland, they have Primary 1 to 7 and Secondary School-First Year to Sixth Year. In Northern Ireland, they have Primary 1 to 7, and High School-First Form to Fourth Form and High School-Lower Sixth to Upper Sixth. She also talked about Hongkong decreasing the secondary education from 7 years to 6 years to illustrate the point that we're going the wrong way in trying to increase the years of basic education. But think again: Hongkong's 6 years vs our 4 years of high school? Are you still deceived?

The people you cited all think that addressing the problem of having short basic education means abandoning the other problems that plague the education sector. Why should this be so? Should a doctor's medical advice that a patient stay longer in a hospital imply that the patient should skimp on good nutrition and adequate medicine so that he could use what he could save to pay for the longer hospital stay? Or shouldn't he (or his family) find a way to have the resources for the additional hospital stay, without sacrificing good nutrition and medicine? What is stopping us from doing the same? Since we've already admitted that cramming 12 years into 10 years is one of the problems of our basic education system, why don't we do something about it? And when we start doing something about it, why would we abandon the solutions to the other problems? Why should we get the resources for fixing the crammed curricula from the budget for classroom-building, textbook improvement, teachers' pay and training, etc? Why don't we demand that congressmen's pork going to basketball courts (with bloated costs) be redirected to the education budget? Why don't we demand that borrowed money being wasted on ill-advised infrastructure projects be redirected to the education sector? Why don't we demand additional taxes on so-called sin products (alcohol, tobacco, and the like) and the revenues be used for the education sector's needs? Why don't we think up of a universal levy that charges a "very small amount" on some users to fund a developmental program (e.g., the universal levy for missionary electrification appearing on our electric bills)? Rather than spend our energy complaining about hurdles and mocking our leaders, why don't we spend it on analyzing the problems well and thinking of solutions? :)

Peace to all! :)

bakasaurus

September 1st, 2010, 08:25 AM

^^

I also wanted to clarify that deception there but thanks for posting and more.
Very well put Dok. Oki talaga Dok!:)

skywalker2008

September 1st, 2010, 09:01 PM

Thanks for always sharing with us the opinions of others, skywalker--from Magsaysay awardees to university student council chair. But I think many in the forum will also be interested in what you think.

I think I have already posted my personal opinion regarding this matter, so just kindly backread. I am merely citing some related literature. :)

Should a doctor's medical advice that a patient stay longer in a hospital imply that the patient should skimp on good nutrition and adequate medicine so that he could use what he could save to pay for the longer hospital stay? Or shouldn't he (or his family) find a way to have the resources for the additional hospital stay, without sacrificing good nutrition and medicine?

Again, we're talking about "basic education," not tertiary.

Again, we're talking about "basic education," ... :)

Why should we get the resources for fixing the crammed curricula from the budget for classroom-building, textbook improvement, teachers' pay and training, etc? Why don't we demand that congressmen's pork going to basketball courts (with bloated costs) be redirected to the education budget? Why don't we demand that borrowed money being wasted on ill-advised infrastructure projects be redirected to the education sector? Why don't we demand additional taxes on so-called sin products (alcohol, tobacco, and the like) and the revenues be used for the education sector's needs? Why don't we think up of a universal levy that charges a "very small amount" on some users to fund a developmental program (e.g., the universal levy for missionary electrification appearing on our electric bills)?

Hehehe... What are you waiting? GO!

Rather than spend our energy complaining about hurdles and mocking our leaders, why don't we spend it on analyzing the problems well and thinking of solutions?

Analyze:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4948471597_860ac97fea_b.jpg
Reference: http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/rp-philippines/edu-education&b_cite=1&b_define=1

Peace to all!

I did not declare war to anyone. :)

If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking - Benjamin Franklin

Ady001

September 2nd, 2010, 02:29 AM

^^ The simple question is, may natututuhan ba?

Parchie

September 2nd, 2010, 03:31 PM

^^ The simple question is, may natututuhan ba?

Mahirap pong sagutin yan sa isang setting. Kung pwede lang sana't maikumpara kung anu-ano ang mga subjects sa bawat baitang (Philippine setting versus other countries), seguro mas maigi po iyon!
Ang experience ko bilang mag-aaral ay merong mga pagkakamali noon. Isipin mo ang ilang oras na ginugugol sa pagbubungkal ng lupa at gardening; konting oras ang naitabi para sa pag-aaral ng mga bagay na dapat pag-aralan! Kahit nakalagay duon sa table on instruction hours na pinakamataas ang 'pinas, duda ako kung ilang porsinto lang ang naibigay para sa tutoong "pag-aaral"!
Yon lang po ang masasabi ko.

le Reine

September 2nd, 2010, 03:36 PM

Mahirap pong sagutin yan sa isang setting. Kung pwede lang sana't maikumpara kung anu-ano ang mga subjects sa bawat baitang (Philippine setting versus other countries), seguro mas maigi po iyon!
Ang experience ko bilang mag-aaral ay merong mga pagkakamali noon. Isipin mo ang ilang oras na ginugugol sa pagbubungkal ng lupa at gardening; konting oras ang naitabi para sa pag-aaral ng mga bagay na dapat pag-aralan! Kahit nakalagay duon sa table on instruction hours na pinakamataas ang 'pinas, duda ako kung ilang porsinto lang ang naibigay para sa tutoong "pag-aaral"!
Yon lang po ang masasabi ko.Mahaba nga yung oras pero isisiksik lang sa 10 taon. Ang talino naman natin kung ganun. :lol:

Ady001

September 3rd, 2010, 11:48 AM

Linguine

September 3rd, 2010, 01:56 PM

Yuchengco-led firm hikes net to P554M

YUCHENGCO-led House of Investments, Inc. posted a 16% increase in profits for the first half of the year.

The holding and management company reported a net income of P554.21 million for the six months ending June 30, higher than the P478 million recorded last year, unaudited financial statements showed.

Total comprehensive income reached P523.73 million, sans the net unrealized loss on available-for-sale securities which amounted to P30.49 million, the publicly listed firm said.

The company attributed growth to the 12% increase in tuition revenues of Malayan Colleges, Inc., which had more enrollees this year.

The firm also reported a 20% increase in interest earnings from First Malayan Leasing, whose loan portfolio grew over last year.
|

source (http://www.bworldonline.com/main/content.php?id=17102)

MatudNilaBaby

September 3rd, 2010, 02:30 PM

^^ Yeah... the main point to summarize why we need additional 2 years is echoed by my friend abroad:

"Diri man god sa atoa, pero memorize-memorize. Apan sa ilaha simple lang kaayo, naa man po'y application." (Here in our country, we are all memorization. While their subjects can be considered easy, they have application.)

duna pud memorization diri para sa mga below average kids nga dili gusto mo adto ug college pero para sa college bound kids ang appropriate approach is honing their problem solving or computational, communication, analytical and critical thinking skills

Ady001

September 4th, 2010, 02:43 AM

^^ Actually, memorization is giving the kids the tools. The others you mentioned is how they use the tools. Another thing lacking is how to find other tools (the right equipment and so on...)

Ephesus29

September 5th, 2010, 08:41 AM

MatudNilaBaby

September 5th, 2010, 10:39 PM

I am definitely in favor for K-12 in the Education System. Look, a two year college in the Philippines is equivalent to Hi-School grad here in Canada. I thought it is worth considering. Go for it, I'd say.

tinuod gyud na bai (thats totally true)!
what 's ironic nga proud kaayo atong mga nurses nga nakatrabaho diri mora gyud siya ang hawak ug muoli sa pinas social na kaayo. mainit na kuno!:lol::lol::lol:

but to tell you honestly RN ra gyud ang ma plastada nila sa ilang dughan kay equivalent raman intawon ug two year college degree ang ilang bsn sa pilipinas. not unless youre a graduate of the few international schools in the country with a k-12 curriculum, they will take years worth of college credits sa imong tor.

jpdm

September 6th, 2010, 04:19 AM

More licensed Pinoy nurses ending up jobless

By Mayen Jaymalin
(The Philippine Star)
Updated September 06, 2010 12:00 AM Comments (8) View comments

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Nurses Association (PNA) reported that there are now close to 200,000 jobless nurses in the country and the number is expected to rise further with the measly budget allocated for public hospitals next year.

“There are 37,679 nurses who passed the licensure examination last July and these board passers will compete for jobs with an estimated 160,000 unemployed nurses in the country,” PNA executive director Maristela Abenojar said.

Due to the continuing rise in the number of jobless nurses, Abenojar said many nurses are forced to work and receive only “certificate of volunteerism” and “training experience” as payment.

While the number of unemployed nurses on the rise, Abenojar said an average of 8,000 to 10,000 health professionals leave the country to work overseas.

“What aggravates this situation is that the proposed health budget for 2011 has allotted a decreased budget for public hospitals and subsidy for indigents,” Abenojar said.

To avert further growth in the number of jobless nurses and improve the dismal working conditions of those employed in local hospitals, the PNA is now closely working with British parliamentarian David Amess.

Amess went to the country for a 10-day visit during which he met with concerned government officials and discussed plans to provide more and better employment for licensed Filipino nurses.

In his meeting with Health Secretary Enrique Ona, Amess recommended the allocation of additional budget for primary and secondary hospitals and create more positions in public health services, particularly in rural areas.

Amess also suggested the enactment of legislative measures prohibiting the hiring of “volunteer” nurses for a fee and just continue the government program deploying nurses in poor communities.

The British parliamentarian was also able to convince the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to look into the working conditions of Filipino nurses employed in Japan as well as provide sufficient protection for all those who are working overseas.

Ephesus29

September 6th, 2010, 05:07 AM

tinuod gyud na bai (thats totally true)!
what 's ironic nga proud kaayo atong mga nurses nga nakatrabaho diri mora gyud siya ang hawak ug muoli sa pinas social na kaayo. mainit na kuno!:lol::lol::lol:

but to tell you honestly RN ra gyud ang ma plastada nila sa ilang dughan kay equivalent raman intawon ug two year college degree ang ilang bsn sa pilipinas. not unless youre a graduate of the few international schools in the country with a k-12 curriculum, they will take years worth of college credits sa imong tor.

I definitely agree with you, you couldn't have said it any better.

Here in Canada, there are some profesionals that just couldn't get the appropriate job they were trained for. Although it has changed considerably and hopefully it's going to get even better. I understand where they're coming from though, considering the education system we have in the Philippines. 10 years for basic education. Meaning, Philippines is laggig behind . "Pinoys" are mostly University graduates, but the very basic foundation of our education in the Philippines is not just there. So...we need K-12 positively and definitely. Go for it.

RonnieR

September 13th, 2010, 05:39 AM

FUNCTIONAL LITERACY IN RP IMPROVES

Monday, 13 September 2010 00:00

BY DARWIN G AMOJELAR SENIOR REPORTER

THE number of functionally literate Filipinos rose in 2008, particularly with higher level of education, the government said.

According to the National Statistics Office (NSO) survey, 58 million of the estimated 67 million Filipinos 10 to 64 years old are functionally literate. A functionally literate person is one who can read, write and compute, or one who can read, write, compute and comprehend.
Persons who completed high school or a higher level of education are also considered functionally literate.

The NSO said the country’s functional literacy rate rose to 86.4 percent in 2008 compared to the 84.1 percent in 2003.

Among the regions, the National Capital Region (NCR) has the highest functional literacy rate at 94 percent, followed by the Calabarzon or Region IV-A (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) with 93.5 percent and Central Luzon, 92.1 percent.

The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao has the lowest functional literacy rate of 71.6 percent.

The functional literacy rate among females is higher than among males with 88.7 percent vs. 84.2 percent.

”As expected, functional literacy rate is higher among persons with higher level of education,” the NSO said.

Among those who had reached but did not finish high school, the NSO said 89.8 percent were functionally literate.

For those who had finished elementary, 80.8 percent were functionally literate.

By comparison, the NSO said 67 percent of those with some elementary education were functionally literate, while only 5 percent among those with no formal education were functionally literate.

The 2008 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey is the fourth in a series of functional literacy surveys conducted by the NSO. The previous rounds were conducted in 1989, 1994, and 2003.

In the 2008 survey, a self-administered questionnaire was accomplished by 69,482 individuals aged 10 to 64 years in 25,505 households sampled for the survey.
http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/top-stories/25758-functional-literacy-in-rp-improves

Linguine

September 13th, 2010, 05:59 AM

Finally, a school rises in Kabasaran

Logged-over village gets chairs, too
By Nash Maulana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 22:36:00 09/11/2010

Filed Under: Schools, Education

BARIRA, Maguindanao, Philippines—Young children have been ostensibly deprived of their right to quality education in the logged-over village of Kabasaran in Barira, Maguindanao.

The residents could barely recall the last time they had a school in Kabasaran, which was covered by the old Economic Development Corp. (Edcor) settlement granted by then President Ramon Magsaysay in 1954.

Both schoolchildren and teachers were visibly cheerful at having a two-classroom school building donated by a group of environmentalists.

Classes started two weeks ago, with a tree-planting activity by pupils aged 6-9 years old, volunteer teachers, local officials, environmentalists and soldiers.

Mariam Manabilang, 46, one of three volunteer teachers, said enrollment rose to over a hundred from 65 last year.

Memory of slain leader

Brig. Gen. Ernesto Aradanas, chief of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the school was named after Sultan Tiba Gampong, the slain community leader “who worked hard for his people, especially in having this school to help shape the future for the community’s children.”

It was donated by Balik-Kalikasan Advocacy Group (BKAG).

Zenon Chua, BKAG president, said the group fabricated the wooden dual-purpose armchairs, which residents and visitors may also use in small community gatherings.

Kahal Kedtag, district community environment and natural resources officer, said that other private organizations, such as ABS-CBN’s local TV station in Cotabato City, sent schoolbags containing notebooks and pencils for the pupils.

Minrico Industries, which is based in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao, supplied books imported by a Cotabato City chapter of the Rotary Club and materials used in the school construction and in making the armchairs, Kedtag said.

Elementary Arabic

But Manabilang said the volunteer mentors were only capable of teaching iftida (elementary Arabic). “There is no one to handle Science and other conventional subjects,” she said in Iranun.

Albert Chua, Minrico chief executive officer, said the company also provided the seedlings for the tree-replanting activities in Kabasaran, once a thickly forested area that had been massively logged-over the past 60 years.

The Edcor settlement built the first schools in Barangay Kamis, 15 kilometers from Kabasaran, in 1955 and in Buldon, according to old-timers. When it was briefly governed under a Moro separatist rule, a madaris (Arabic for school) operated 5 km away at the heart of Camp Abubakar, main bastion of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

In July 2000, then President Joseph Estrada led a ceremonial Philippine flag-raising on that school ground to signal government control over the fallen Camp Abubakar.

To delineate an ancestral ground for the native Iranun, the Marcos regime carved Buldon and Barira out of the settlement, which hosted a confluence of settlers from Luzon and the Visayas, and of massive logging operations by giant timber companies.

Having had no school for decades, Kabasaran residents blamed government neglect, saying the community hardly gained from its forest resources.

Education thrusts

But all is not lost. The education department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao is increasing the number of teaching positions in all its five provinces—Basilan, Lanao del Sur and Marawi City, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, the regional education secretary, Baratucal Caudang, said.

ARMM Executive Secretary Naguib Sinarimbo said the convergence of support from different sectors into the region’s remote areas hinted a state of development sustainability.

Maguindanao Rep. Bai Sandra Sema also committed to improving the state of education in the province’s first legislative district.

Sinarimbo said the local and regional government levels were working with their national counterparts on a development collaboration with the US Agency for International Development for the pavement of access roads in Barira and in the nearby Matanog and Parang towns.

bitoy

September 17th, 2010, 07:00 AM

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_pnUu6u8YNMk/THfdTxHPLsI/AAAAAAAAY9A/OnWBdKaw3Xg/s512/The%20road%20to%20education.jpg

"Democracy is... accessible and quality education for all. It is education as a right."

Pinay student wins intl photo ‘democracy challenge’ (http://www.gmanews.tv/story/201238/pinay-student-wins-intl-photo-democracy-challenge)

A young boy, carrying a parol, walks to school along a dirt road pockmarked with puddles.

What’s wrong — or rather, what’s right — with this picture? Everything, if we go by the US Department of State’s choice of winning photo.

Filipina student Mikas Matsuzawa was chosen as one of 12 winners of an international photography competition, with a photograph depicting democracy based on what she describes as the “dismal state" of education in the Philippines today.
The Democracy Photo Challenge 2010, organized by the State Department, asked contestants to “Take a photo that completes the phrase ‘Democracy is…’ and share it with the world."

Matsuzawa, who is taking up journalism at the University of the Philippines Diliman, submitted a photograph of a young boy in school uniform, carrying a Christmas lantern, walking to school along a narrow dirt road lined with dense foliage and riddled with puddles.

The photo’s caption reads, “"Democracy is... accessible and quality education for all. It is education as a right."

Matsuzawa said she took the photo during an immersion program with the Dumagat tribe in the mountains of Eastern Rizal.

“The children there had to walk for about two hours, some of them barefooted, just to get to the nearest school," said Matsuzawa.

“This young boy captured my attention because despite the muddy road and wearing only slippers, he still takes care to protect his parol (Christmas lantern) project to school," she added.

“For me, accessible and quality education is a right of every person, of every child, who societies proclaim to be the hope of the generation, the young movers and shakers of the world. And for me, in a genuine democracy education should be treated as a right," she said.

Matsuzawa cited her own school, UP, as an example of how democracy in the Philippines, based on the state of the education sector, seemed to be "merely illusory."

The budget for UP, the country’s premier state institution for tertiary education, has been slashed by P1.39 billion for 2011, with the current allocation of P6.9 billion further reduced by the government to P5.25 billion for next year.

UP had requested P18.2 billion and P18.5 billion for its operations for 2010 and 2011, respectively.

“I think that the accessibility is an important element of education but with continuous budget cuts, many cannot access this basic right," Matsuzawa said.

Matsuzawa’s photograph won over 3,000 other entries from 131 countries. The winners were chosen based on online public voting by over 500,000 people, after a jury narrowed the field of submissions to 36 finalists, representing each region of the world.

The other winners are Mustafa Kia, Afghanistan; Mohamed Kaouche, Algeria; Venkatesh Hamyanaik, Australia; Mehman Huseynov, Azerbaijan; Mike Mitchell, Benin; Dino Perić, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Wladia Drummond, Brazil; Kaveh Baghdadchi, Iran; Jun Krishna Joshi, Nepal; Kaylene George, South Africa; and Ian M. Cunningham, United States.

The photos taken by Matsuzawa and the other 11 finalists will be exhibited at the United Nations and at galleries in New York and Los Angeles. Other winning photographs include images depicting democracy as linked to press freedom, elections, protest actions, and other such themes.

The Democracy Photo Challenge aims to use “social networks and creative challenges to allow global publics to share, consider, debate, and learn from diverse perspectives on democracy," said the US Department of State in a press release.—JV, GMANews.TV

RonnieR

September 17th, 2010, 08:48 AM

DOST Secretary is doing the right job...
http://techcentral.my/news/story.aspx?file=/2010/9/17/it_news/20100917105609&sec=it_news

Philippines developing Tablet PC for students

MANILA: The Filipino Government is working on a low-cost Tablet computer that could bring an end to the days of children dragging heavy schoolbooks around.

The computer will cost about US$70 (RM220), according to science and technology secretary Mario Montejo.

"This is education in the future: No more heavy textbooks for our hapless school kids. Basically, we really should replace the books," he told reporters.

He also said the move would make Filipinos more competitive in science and technology.

However Montejo said the planned Tablet PC would lack many features common to other such devices in order to make it cheaper.

"Every additional feature will add to the cost," he warned. He did not say when the proposed machine would be launched. - Relaxnews

-SNPKLSDMBLDR-

September 17th, 2010, 08:54 AM

sana naman hindi lang yan PR. :|

RonnieR

September 17th, 2010, 09:22 AM

^^ Sa tingin ko gagawin nya to. Magaling ang ating DOST Secretary:

"The computer will cost about US$70 (RM220), according to science and technology secretary Mario Montejo."

Siya ang gumawa nito:

Philippine-made hi-tech parking

By Aida Sevilla-Mendoza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:41:00 09/14/2010
http://images.inquirer.net/media/business/money/features/images/pic-09141043100590.jpg
INVENTOR Mario Montejo, a.k.a. the DOST Secretary

http://images.inquirer.net/media/business/money/features/images/pic-09141043590177.jpg

http://images.inquirer.net/media/business/money/features/images/pic-09141042200709.jpg

MatudNilaBaby

September 17th, 2010, 09:49 PM

Parchie

September 17th, 2010, 09:54 PM

A COPIED INVENTION?

Nope, it's an "innovation" to be precise!

MatudNilaBaby

September 17th, 2010, 10:00 PM

Nope, it's an "innovation" to be precise!

SEARCH THE YOUTUBE ABOUT THIS TYPE OF PARKING. I'VE SEEN THIS A LONG TIME AGO SA TOKYO, NEW ZEALAND AND GREECE.

Parchie

September 17th, 2010, 10:55 PM

SEARCH THE YOUTUBE ABOUT THIS TYPE OF PARKING. I'VE SEEN THIS A LONG TIME AGO SA TOKYO, NEW ZEALAND AND GREECE.

Yep, I guess so!

Parchie

September 17th, 2010, 11:02 PM

SEARCH THE YOUTUBE ABOUT THIS TYPE OF PARKING. I'VE SEEN THIS A LONG TIME AGO SA TOKYO, NEW ZEALAND AND GREECE.

This looks more advanced than the one presented earlier!
link (http://www.skyline-parking.ch/)

Ady001

September 18th, 2010, 12:48 AM

SEARCH THE YOUTUBE ABOUT THIS TYPE OF PARKING. I'VE SEEN THIS A LONG TIME AGO SA TOKYO, NEW ZEALAND AND GREECE.

Actually it's already in other countries (revolving car-park) The last time I saw it was Jeremy Clarkson's "Tokyo's Attitude to Cars" video in BBC's Top Gear (you can use Youtube to find it.) And I think these kinds of things are more apt in very constricted urban areas (for condo units and such.)

But it's a good invention. OT na...

april boy

September 18th, 2010, 02:15 AM

Actually it's already in other countries (revolving car-park) The last time I saw it was Jeremy Clarkson's "Tokyo's Attitude to Cars" video in BBC's Top Gear (you can use Youtube to find it.) And I think these kinds of things are more apt in very constricted urban areas (for condo units and such.)

But it's a good invention. OT na...

Agree. Good work for our inventors!

A positive note for our educ system despite its flaws.

Linguine

September 18th, 2010, 05:08 AM

Techtutor seminar to show role of ICT in Education

INQUIRER.net
First Posted 11:16:00 09/16/2010

Filed Under: Computing & Information Technology, Technology (general), Education, Children, Internet

MANILA, Philippines – Every child deserves quality education. Technology gives teachers new resources for engaging an effective education. It sparks the joy of discovery, provides students with a wider world, and develops skills that build the future. Technology has entered all aspects of the workplace, including education. As our schools evolve and continually embrace educational technologies into the classroom, it only makes sense that information technology be incorporated into teaching and learning. The tools are there, how to maximize it is the challenge.

TechTutor 2, an annual seminar conducted by the country's premier I.T. personality, Jerry Liao, is dedicated to explore the role of technology in enhancing all facets of education and personal and professional development.

Last 2009, more than 5,000 people attended the first TechTutor seminar. This coming September 28 and 29, 2010, people are again expected to troop to SM Megatrade Hall 3 to witness the annual TechTutor seminar which aims to provide the opportunity for educators, school leaders, and policy makers to interact with and learn from education researchers, thought leaders and expert practitioners from around the country.

The objective of the seminar is to equip students, educators and future entrepreneurs with the skills for turning their ideas and ambition into action and to generate new ideas, and practices for integrating technical tools to improve education. Thus making technology use more effective in instruction, encourage an open dialogue between experts and parents on how these technological advancements be utilized for the betterment of the community.

The seminar will focus on collaborative web environments focused on wikis, microblogging, and other social media applications. The cloud computing solutions like the new Microsoft Office 2010 has evolved to a point where traditional IT processes & job duties are no longer required and less time is needed to support our learners and educators.

Moreover, the web 2.0 environment has evolved to make it easier for non-tech savvy users to integrate technology with little tech support. Threats and dangers that surround the web and the entry of Web 3.0 will also be discussed during the seminar.

The latest products and solutions will be showcased by companies like Acer, Blackberry, Canon, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, Samsung, Powermac, RedFox, Western Digital and WSI. Other partners include Apple, ASI, Asiantech, Belkin, BenQ, Lacie, NEO Computers, PC Gilmore, Philips Go Gear, STI, Suzuki and Viewsonic will also show their wares during the event.

Education Managers/Directors, Technology specialists, Teachers, Academic Advisors, Education researchers, ICT experts, IT Managers and parents are all encourage to attend this once a year seminar by Jerry Liao.

Attendees will also get the chance to win raffle prizes like laptop computers, printers, mobile phones, and a lot more. Tickets are available at Ticketnet outlets and SM Cinemas. For more information, visit www.infochat.com.ph/powertips.