Assessing the Quality of Education in the Philippines

Cabochan, Mary Angeli

Dr. Cruz

Assessing the quality of education in the Philippines (as mandated by Art. 14)

Education has been one of the top priorities by our government. In the Article 14, Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) and Commission on Higher Education (CHED) were divided into independent groups to focus on the needs of their own respective level of education. Both departments were mandated to allocate resources for the improvement of education in all levels. Given that everything on this Article would be mandated accordingly, it will bring enormous effect on the level of education that Filipino could get. The allocated budgets to the education sectors are huge enough to compensate the needs across public and private education institutions. The policy in the circulation of the finances also protects the education sectors from unnecessary and illicit spending. Additionally, TESDA has been initiated to develop skilled workers. This initiative could greatly help Filipinos in achieving technical skills. The goal of this Article is to ensure that quality education will be available to Filipinos from all walks of life in four corners of our country.

Why powers and functions of CHED, TESDA and Dep- Ed does the 3 education bodies put into action their duties and powers for delivering of quality education and holistic development of Filipino students and graduates?

Dep-Ed, CHED and TESDA are working hand in hand independently from each other. These three education bodies report directly to the Office of the President. Like what was mentioned above, the three sectors are all mandated to ensure the quality of education in their own respective level. The separation of 3 bodies ensures that there would be the necessary attention, priorities and resources for all levels. Each sector also ensures the readiness of a student to the next level. For example, Dep-Ed needs to make sure that the graduating elementary students are all ready and prepared to handle the programs and curriculum of high school level until they finish high schools. A student who finished high school should be ready to the tasks and programs in college either a bachelor degree or vocational courses. Given that these three educational bodies work accordingly and will be given the mandated resources and budget, the quality of education in the Philippines would soon be competitive and be affordable to every Filipino child.

The education plan on the reform to be initiated by the new president of the Philippines.

Our new president, in his SONA, stated that he would be supporting the alignment of length of education to global standard which was from 10 years to 12 years. I have two stands on this initiative. First, the idea of aligning the length of education to the global standard would be an effective way of ensuring that our grade school and high school students have the enough time to get the necessary quality of education Time has evolved so fast and it has been said that the only constant in world is change. It could be just appropriate to align our education duration to global standard to ensure our students would be able to cope with the rapid- changing society. On the other hand, this initiative would only be effective to private schools whose students are fewer than the students in public schools. Also, I do not agree with this initiative as I do not see any problem with the length of education in the Philippines even if it doesn’t really follow the global standard. I believed that it is not the length of basic education that we need to focus on. Philippines was able to make good and topped student that has excel in many filel and in many countries with the education we have. What we need to focus on are the numbers of classrooms and facilities in public school, strengthening the research for all levels and increasing the numbers of public teachers. We need to focus on the materials and resources we are to give to our education sector and strengthen the existing policy for us all to be effective.

Give your stand regarding the criticism on sex education by the Dep- Ed and church?

Sex education has been one of the 3 most controversial topic across all corners in the Philippines. For the longest time, sex education has been the discrepancy of parents whether to discuss it with their children or not. I partially agree to the motion of sex education among our students. I guess it would be time for our students to end their curiosity. Sex, whether we like it or not, is a subject we all need to discuss with our kids. We got no choice but to discuss sex with them since this is something that has been abused by many young people. Sex has been abused and has been done because young people were not disciplined and educated to them. It is said in the bible that sex is a gift from God and should only be done by a married couple. It is also said in the bible that God asked us to promulgate. However, it is also mentioned in the bible that once we have promulgate across all over the world then it we need to take the measures to control it. Young people, at the right time and at the right way, needs to be educated with sex. A good curriculum is needed to ensure good education regarding sex to our young people.