|
Philippines Education in the Modern Period
The expansion in the availability of education was not always
accompanied by qualitative improvements. Therefore, quality
became a major concern in the 1970s and early 1980s. Data for the
1970s show significant differences in literacy for different
regions of the country and between rural and urban areas. Western
Mindanao Region, for example, had a literacy rate of 65 percent
as compared with 90 percent for Central Luzon and 95 percent for
Metro Manila. A survey of elementary-school graduates taken in
the mid-1970s indicated that many of the respondents had failed
to absorb much of the required course work and revealed major
deficiencies in reading, mathematics, and language. Performance
was poorest among respondents from Mindanao and only somewhat
better for those from the Visayan Islands, whereas the best
performance was in the Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog
regions.
Other data revealed a direct relationship between literacy
levels, educational attainment, and incidence of poverty. As a
rule, families with incomes below the poverty line could not
afford to educate their children beyond elementary school.
Programs aimed at improving work productivity and family income
could alleviate some of the problems in education, such as the
high dropout rates that reflected, at least in part, family and
work needs. Other problems, such as poor teacher performance,
reflected overcrowded classrooms, lack of particular language
skills, and low wages. These problems, in turn, resulted in poor
student performance and high repeater rates and required direct
action.
Vocational education in the late 1980s was receiving greater
emphasis then in the past. Traditionally, Filipinos have tended
to equate the attainment of education directly with escape from
manual labor. Thus it has not been easy to win general popular
support for vocational training.
Catholic and Protestant churches sponsored schools, and there
were also proprietary (privately owned, nonsectarian) schools.
Neither the proprietary nor the religious schools received state
aid except for occasional subsidies for special programs. Only
about 6 percent of elementary students were in private schools,
but the proportion rose sharply to about 63 percent at the
secondary level and approximately 85 percent at the tertiary
level. About a third of the private school tertiary-level
enrollment was in religiously affiliated schools.
In 1990 over 10,000 foreign students studied in the
Philippines, mostly in the regular system, although there were
three schools for international students--Brent in Baguio and
Faith Academy and the International School in Manila. These
schools had some Filipino students and faculty, but the majority
of the students and faculty were foreign, mostly American. Faith
Academy served primarily the children of missionaries, although
others were admitted as space was available.
Chinese in the Philippines have established their own system
of elementary and secondary schools. Classes in the morning
covered the usual Filipino curriculum and were taught by Filipino
teachers. In the afternoon, classes taught by Chinese teachers
offered instruction in Chinese language and literature.
In 1990 the education system offered six years of elementary
instruction followed by four years of high school. Children
entered primary school at the age of seven. Instruction was
bilingual in Pilipino and English, although it was often claimed
that English was being slighted. Before independence in 1946, all
instruction was in English; since then, the national language,
Pilipino, has been increasingly emphasized. Until the compulsory
study of Spanish was abolished in 1987, secondary and highereducation students had to contend with three languages--Pilipino,
English, and Spanish.
In 1991 all education was governed by the Department of
Education, Culture, and Sports, which had direct supervision over
public schools and set mandatory policies for private schools as
well. Bureaus of elementary, secondary, and higher education
supervised functional and regional offices. District supervisors
exercised direct administrative oversight of principals and
teachers in their district. There was a separate office for
nonformal education, which served students not working for a
graduation certificate from a conventional school. Financing for
public schools came from the national treasury, although
localities could supplement national appropriations.
Education policies fluctuated constantly and were likely to
be changed before teachers became accustomed to them. Areas of
disagreement among Filipinos produced educational change as one
faction or another gained control of a highly centralized public
education administration. One example was the community school
program that sought to involve schools in agricultural
improvement. It was pushed vigorously in the 1950s, but little
has been heard about it since. Another policy issue was the
choice of a language of instruction. Until independence, English
was, at least in theory, the language of instruction from first
grade through college. The emphasis on English was followed by a
shift toward local languages (of which there were eighty-seven),
with simultaneous instruction in English and Pilipino in later
grades. Then, at least in official directives, in 1974 schools
were told to drop the local language, and a bilingual--English
and Pilipino--program was adopted.
One of the most serious problems in the Philippines in the
1980s and early 1990s concerned the large number of students who
completed college but then could not find a job commensurate with
their educational skills. If properly utilized, these trained
personnel could facilitate economic development, but when left
idle or forced to take jobs beneath their qualifications, this
group could be a major source of discontent.
Data as of June 1991
|
