by Alex Roldan
There is no doubting the fact that that the quality of the country’s human resources is declining. The country produces more than 1.2 million college graduates a year, yet everyone seems to be in unison in agreeing that the quality of our graduates leaves much to be desired. Meaning, a considerable number of the graduates can hardly compete to survive in the real world.
Naturally, the obvious sector that takes the brunt is the country’s education system. Worse, the public education system is being blamed because of its seeming inability to raise their quality compared to the private sector, a very depressing development which should not have happened. The private education system has also its own lapses and is equally blamed for the dismal performance of many of their graduates.
We should understand that until now, most of us cannot seem to agree what we really mean by “quality education.” Everyone simply wants to see graduates who are already equipped to be on their own. Thus, their apparent weaknesses are blamed squarely on the education system, which is not absolutely correct. Even the K+12 strategy is certainly facing the impossible task of reversing the trend unless the main cause of the failure of the education system is addressed.
When I say system, it is not only the content of the school curriculum but in its entirety, how it is managed, and most importantly how we as a nation view education.
First to blame is the continued failure of the Philippine governments to set the development direction for this country. The development agenda of the country is the basic framework that should dictate what type of education system we should have. It’s that simple. All we need to do is to find an anchor to all the efforts, and since this is absent, then what standards or quality are we talking about? Every administration promises change for the better, but their failure to define what they intend to achieve leaves everyone, including those in the education sector, guessing.
Second, we tolerate the notion that quality education is only for the privileged which only leads to commercialization. Though the right to education is recognized, the private sector is left to themselves to take advantage of the opportunity to define their own concept of quality, thus creating the presumed gap against the public system.
Schools offer courses that are based on business interest rather than the country’s development agenda. When the demand for nurses abroad swelled, almost all schools offered nursing courses until the glut occurred. Schools don’t show remorse for the fate of the students. They simply ignore their liability and look again for other lucrative courses to offer. Even the glamour of working in a media company is used to lure students to take mass communication courses despite its very narrow opportunities.
Now, we are again focusing our attention on basic education, however, what it intends to achieve still remains a puzzle. The quest for quality education without any direction leaves private schools in a frenzy to lure client students. Many schools claim to offer quality education to the extent of teaching students as early as grade two or three in advance mathematics and algebra, or to make their course offering more palatable to parents while grade one students are offered ridiculous lessons on identifying the parts of a cell phone! They make it hard for the child to pass the subjects designed to impress the general public the school’s own perception of quality education, thereby causing additional financial burden on parents to get the services of tutors for their children.
We seem to forget, that quality education must be linked to the nation’s agenda, particularly human resources development. We need an education system that effectively responds to that requirement by effectively managing and strengthening the cognitive growth of our children. Though we are in a technological age, our children are still human beings that grow according to their biological sequence of growth and mental development. There are no shortcuts. Our ignorance erodes our children’s will to learn instead.
The development direction of this country cones first; its goals and strategies, which will guide all efforts in nation building including the human resources before recommending interventions to change the educational system. In sum, an effective education system is a system that should be responsive to the goals in the nation’s agenda and with a clear and established role in the overall effort. Without it, with great certainty, after the K+12 is implemented, fingers will again point in different directions to put the blame.
For comments, e-mail to rolanalex@yahoo.com
