Quality Education?

Wednesday, 26 October 2011 02:14

Written by Louie C. Montemar

What is quality education? Is it just a matter of having a higher budget and faculty with excellent credentials? It seems not, as one school in Bicol has demonstrated. The Sorsogon State College (SSC) didn’t have PhD holders in their engineering faculty but extremely experienced ones. They certainly weren’t collecting exorbitant fees — their students are typically the children of poor rural folk. Some of these students, however, topped the most recent Mechanical Engineering licensure examinations.

It was SSC’s Joseph Ramirez Gredoña, the son of a tricycle driver, who got the highest score among 1,546 examinees. His classmate, Daniel Espinar Forteza, a fisherman’s son, was second highest scorer. With 17 others from that Bicol state college, their aggregate passing quotient was 79%. This is higher than the national average of 64% and shows how local colleges can actually provide education service at par with or even better than the established private institutions and the bigger state supported universities.

It’s about time we look more closely at education quality.

Perceptual policy blindness? When one engages protesting students on the issue of education, especially those in the state colleges and universities like UP, PNU and PUP, many of them often simply raise the issue of access to education given the admissions mechanisms in these institutions which ultimately leads to the lynchpin issue of the education budget. This is a basic issue indeed as it directly addresses the question of “Who gets education?” Consider, however, that the question may, in fact, be asked this way: “Who gets quality education?”

There appears to be something like inattentional blindness on the matter of quality education in our country. Scientists use the term “inattentional blindness” or “perceptual blindness” to refer to a person’s inability to see things which are just in plain sight simply because that person or observer is too focused on certain matters.

We have what I propose to call perceptual policy blindness on the matter of education quality as even some in government seem to give more importance to access over quality in education decision making. Some of our leaders and bureaucrats may need to be strongly reminded of the importance of attending to education quality concerns.

Certain education statistics should unhinged us from an undue focus on access to education issues and could make us realize the dire implications of a reality such as this: we have three hundred (300) higher education institutions with zero passing rates for some disciplines from some of the most recent professional licensure examinations. Moreover, in 2008, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has noted a big drop in passing rates even among the top three Philippine universities.

But what is quality education? In 2007, after almost a decade of study and consultations, the Department of Education (DEPED) introduced the National Competency-Based Teacher Standards (NCBTS). This framework sets the ideals for quality education and is meant as a guide to nurture effective teaching. The NCBTS sees “effective teaching” as something that involves seven broad concerns or “domains” and these are: Social Regard for Learning; Learning Environment; Diversity of Learners; Curriculum; Planning, Assessing, Reporting; Community Linkages; and, Personal Growth and Professionalism.

In 2000, before the NCBTS, a paper of the UNICEF identified the dimensions of “education quality” (and this most probably influenced the crafting of the NCBTS). These dimensions are: healthy, community-supported learners; safe, protective diversity-sensitive environments; relevant curricula and materials; processes involving trained teachers and student-centered approaches; and, outcomes (knowledge, skills and attitudes) relevant to community goals.

Adapting this UNICEF framework (see schema below), one can look at available information and better make sense therefore of the quality of education in the country, especially with concern for the quality of our teachers.

The UNICEF framework can clearly subsume all the concerns under the NCBTS and thus be used to explore the state of education and teaching in the Philippines. Much indeed has to be done and we continuously need to monitor the education situation in the country. Let me therefore highlight here some unsettling points informed by the key dimensions of UNICEF’s framework on quality education.

Learners: Filipino Children are Hungry and Malnourished. The 2008 National Nutrition Survey shows that there has been an increase in the number of undernourished and stunted children since 2005. The National Statistics Coordinating Board’s 2011 data show that the proportion of food poor families is especially high in Mindanao, basically in the same areas that need educational improvements as identified by DEPED.

Environment: Clogged Classrooms and Violence in Schools. In the 2005 National Achievement Test (NAT), elementary classes with 91-100 students had mean ratings 8 points lower than classes with only 60 students or below (these smaller classes’ mean ratings were around 58%). High school classes with 31-50 students had mean ratings of 48%, while those with over 50 students had lower ratings, from 43.1% to 47.1%. Clearly, clogged classrooms lead to ineffective teaching and learning.

But how can classrooms not be clogged with severe shortages on infrastructure inputs? For SY 2011-12 classroom shortage is estimated at 143,281 units.

And then there is the matter of increasing reports of violence inside schools. A baseline study on violence against children in public schools in Cebu (Plan Philippines, 2009) has shown that t least 5 of 10 children in Grades 1 to 3, 7 of 10 children in Grades 4 to 6, and 6 of 10 in high school have experienced some for of violence within their schools. Verbal abuse is the most prevalent form of violence and, more often, it is the children’s peers, more than the adults, who are the perpetrators.

Content and curricula: Makabayan? Curriculum content, topics, and desired competencies are determined by DEPED and interpreted by teachers and implemented “with variations” at the level of the schools. What is interesting is that, in recent years, there has been, at least officially, a promotion of “local cultures” — an indigenization. In DEPED documents there is has been a conscious attempt at having “an open and consultative process… adopted to ensure the successful development and implementation of the programme” with regard to curricular reforms. The key question here is, how empowered and able are our teachers in setting a learning agenda relevant to the lives of their students, and of their communities?

One short anecdotal note on the formal science education content in the country today: it is noticeable how science has been removed as a separate subject for Grade 1 in public schools. I became acutely concerned about this when my very intelligent and curious niece, Loren Ysabel, asked me a few years back, when she was already a second grader in a leading public school here in Manila, about what causes “night” and “day”. I realized we are starting the young on a weak footing, as it were. My sisters and I could recall how the public school system sparked our interest in science even when we were just in Grade 1. For this reason, among others, my sister eventually decided to transfer her to a private school.

Outcomes: Achievement and Competency in Science and Math. In the 2009-‘10 National Achievement Test (NAT), Grade 6 pupils were rated as having an average of 69.2% while 4th year secondary students, 46.4%.

The 2008 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study), with only science high schools participating, shows that the Philippines is the lowest scorer in the Advanced Math Category.

These statistics need no further elaboration.

Teachers: The Heart of the Education Process. Teachers are the heart of the education process. Studies show that effective learning, outside the learner’s characteristics (80%), is largely attributable to teacher competency, effectiveness or “quality” (13%).

On top of the severe shortages in 2010 — 54,060 teachers, 4,538 principals, and 6,473 head teachers — one study has shown that the country has many teachers in higher elementary grades and high school who merely have the competency to teach Grade 4 subjects.

What could be possible reasons for such a situation? LET results could be indicative of the low quality of teacher training programs. Latest LET results show an unsettling pattern. In 2008, 30% passed the LET. In 2009, 19%. In 2010, it was down to 15% (see table below).

We need only the best for our children. Last October 19 (2011), the non-profit group Philippine Business for Education (PBED) sponsored a roundtable discussion (RTD) on education quality and I presented the points that I raised herein to spark the discussion. Let me share here what, to my mind, were the most relevant learning points and insights from that discussion.

First, there clearly is a need to be concerned about the whole system of education for no single dimension of the formal learning process determines education quality. There is an urgent need to promote the four-year old NCBTS as a comprehensive framework for understanding education quality or, at the least, effective teaching.

The NCBTS can only be promoted with a concern for “relevant education” and the real plight of our teachers. This could mean, among others, involving more stakeholders especially the local governments in helping assist their schools and teachers.

We need to attract better students to go into teaching, especially in the fields of science and mathematics. Parental and broad community support for promoting teaching as a career choice among the better students has to be nurtured.

Admission into the teaching field and certification of teachers has to be made more restrictive as we find ways to attract the more able learners to go into the teaching profession. Public school teachers’ salaries are becoming more competitive (because of the Salary Standardization Law) and teachers are now reportedly transferring from the private to the public learning institutions. Next year, it has been pointed out that the entry-level salary rate of a public schoolteacher should be at 18,000 pesos. This is even higher than what BPO firms in Makati and Ortigas are offering for new entrants into their field.

To attract more experienced professionals into teaching at the basic education level, we may also consider opening the teaching field to highly competent professionals and trained individuals with non-education degrees.

Language, or the medium of instruction, is an important concern in improving education quality. Studies invariably suggest that the use of the home language needs to be promoted even as our teachers are trained to be better communicators in both Filipino and English.

Last but certainly not the least concern involves educational leadership and school system governance. One participant in the discussion shared how the CHED has in the past actually turned around on its decisions and pronouncements to a close a certain private higher learning institution for failing to produce even a single licensure exam passer simply because of unscrupulous political backers.

Government must find the political will to close extremely underperforming schools and support the needed programs based on real national development priorities. For instance, as one discussant in the PBED RTD said, there could simply be too many teacher education institutions if we benchmark using the experience of better-performing countries like Australia.

In closing, let me pose this question especially for our government officials, education bureaucrats, and public school teachers, if you had a child of school-going age, would you enroll her in a Philippine public school from pre-school to college? If your answer is a clear NO, then clearly there is a problem in the quality of Philippine education. Hence, the questions now should be: What have you done about it? What are you doing about it? What do you plan to do about it?