Philippines' revamped education program under pressure
Updated
A Filipino campaign to get more children to attend kindergarten has resulted in a flood of new enrollments and a system struggling to keep up.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino's administration has revamped the country's education system, with one of the biggest changes being the K+12 program commencing this year. The program adds a free, compulsory kindergarten year and two years of secondary schooling to the basic education cycle bringing the country in line with schooling length standards throughout much of the world.
But with a boom in enrolment numbers and shortages in teachers and facilities, some people are not convinced.
Presenter: Chito Santos
Speaker: Antonio Tinio, Philippine Congressman; Yolanda Quijano, undersecretary for programs and projects at the Department of Education
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SANTOS: As students across the Philippines begin the new school year, some teachers are worried.
Compulsory kindergarten classes have begun this year, with further changes to the curriculum to gradually roll out within the next few years.
QUIJANO: We are delivering a ten-year curriculum which should be delivered in 12 years. So we owe to take a look at the standards and the competancies that ought to be delivered in different learning areas per grade level.
SANTOS: Yolanda Quijano is undersecretary for programs and projects at the Department of Education.
She says the changes are set to enhance the quality of basic education, better preparing students for university and employment.
QUIJANO: We have a commitment with the Bologna Accord and Washington Accord that our basic education should be 12 [years]. And it is really putting a disadvantage to our professionals; our engineers and nurses who are really working abroad are not getting the salaries that the other professionals have, it's because of those 12 years of basic education.
SANTOS: Congressman Antonio Tinio, a member of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers Party welcomes the kindergarten changes, but says that shortcomings remain.
TINIO: These are necessary reforms - it's important to implement a universal kindergarten program. However our problem is it is doing so with inadequate funding and poor preparation, so it will severely compromise the quality of the kindergarten education that will be provided to children.
SANTOS: Growing pains have marred the beginning of the school year.
TINIO: There's the huge shortage of classrooms for kindergarten. So, the Department of Education campaigned aggressively in the past six months for parents to enrol their five-year-old children, and as a result we expect up to one million more five-year-old children being enrolled in kindergarten classes in the public schools. However the goverment did not construct enough classrooms to accommodate these additional enrolees. So according to the Department's own figures, there's a shortage of around 26,500 classrooms.
SANTOS: Teachers are also in high demand, but in short supply.
TINIO: The Department of Education will resort to hiring what they call "volunteer teachers" - so these are unlicensed teachers, they don't have to have a teaching license even though according to our own law a teacher must have a license before they can teach in our schools. So the Deparment waived that requirement and they will be paid a ridiculously low monthly honourarium of 3000 pesos per month, compared to the minimum monthly salary which is around that of 9000 pesos, so it's three times less than the minimum rate.
SANTOS: But the Department of Education is looking to remedy these problems by proposing a bill that would provide more funding for supplies and wages.
QUIJANO: We are looking at a law that should really be passed in order that the salaries of the teachers or items of the teachers could be given, but now in Congress it will soon be passed because it has been going through the second reading. They are only waiting on the preliminary deliberations on the bill and we hope that this year it would really be passed into law.
SANTOS: But for now, teachers and students will have to make do with what they have.
TINIO: It's a general problem of the public education system. Overall there's a gross lack of teachers, classrooms, textbooks and so on, which is why the very important debate and discussion on the curriculum itself kind of you know, fades into the background.
