Political Sayang and Teacher Shortage

Monday, 04 April 2011 08:18

Written by Louie C. Montemar

I wanted to shift to education. I was in second year college then in the country's most distinguished (or so they say) university. I was a Iskolar ng Bayan (scholar of the people). I was a full scholar whose hobby was to organize and attend rallies. I was taking up what my dearly beloved Nanay (Mother) would later refer to rather poignantly as “Political Sayang.” No, Nanay, I love you but I disagree. My balking at the idea of going into Law Studies does not make my field Political Sayang and my work less important. You have always supported me and up to today you continue to show your support for the choices I make in life. I am still a student of life, you are my first teacher, and you continue to teach and inspire me. But allow me to explain my “career choice”. Please bear with me, dear readers, as I run anecdotal.

“Teacher lang” (merely a teacher), I have heard many mentors say of themselves when asked what they do, especially those who teach at the basic education level. I wanted to be like them. I dreamed of teaching in my high school, my alma mater Manila Science High, or my elementary school, Rafael Palma in Sta. Ana, Manila.

In elementary and high school I was very interested in Science (I still am) and, later, in college, my interest in education grew. In high school I wanted to be a biologist or an “earth scientist” like a volcanologist, or a specialist in tsunamis, a seismologist (recent incidents would have affirmed my choice, if I took that path). College and that nude man in Diliman pointed me to possibilities in the social sciences. For some very trivial circuitous series of events after high school, I got hooked on Political Science. Thus, it came to pass. I ended up being “merely a teacher” in a University named after the Patron saint of teachers.

After four years in a NGO that specializes in education and 15 years in that green-and-white school along Taft Avenue that believes in “teaching minds, touching hearts and transforming lives,” I have only deepened my interest in teaching. Political science did not lead me to the halls of justice but to the classrooms and conference rooms in the academe.

In my Political Science studies, I further saw how truly important teaching and the education system were as means and mechanism for the maintenance and improvement of society. Political socialization, ideology, and hegemony are some concepts in political science that could lead one to the realization of how education and politics are intimately intertwined. Our American colonizers, if I may say, almost instinctively knew of the power of education. They taught us well — so well that many of us do not even know that there was something called a Philippine-American War, that many of our school children actually dream of being Americans, that our educators are still debating on the merits of using Filipino as a medium of instruction, and that most of our esteemed lawyers cannot seem to think about the law in Filipino. So well that I am writing this piece in English even when I can very well craft this in Filipino or my native tongue, Tagalog. [See some of you may even be asking, “What's the difference between Filipino and Tagalog?” Let's discuss that in another piece.]

As March ends, graduation ceremonies abound. And with June fast approaching, we will soon notice again the perennial lack of teachers for basic education; an extreme lack of good and excellent teachers for our young. This shortage is reflected in statements like this: “Countrywide, this year’s [2010] overall NAT score of 66.33 percent showed a 21-percent improvement over the 2006 result of 54.66.” Some of us may already be happy that of 100 questions in an elementary school exam, 66 can be answered correctly by our young citizens. Should we be happy that our youth cannot explain what EDSA was about nor name who “Gomburza” are as student contestants in one popular noontime show exemplified?

Tragically, teaching appears to be a second career choice for those who cannot make it somehow in other fields, affirming the line “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” Moreover, unlike in the past, as my Nanay confirms having come from the Philippine Normal University (PNU) herself, teaching — especially in the public basic education system — is not attracting the best and the brightest. What can we expect when public teacher training institutions like the PNU can hardly survive with the budget cuts they get, when new teachers can only expect at most a P10,000 monthly take home pay, and when teaching is threatened to be contractualized like being a Shoemart dispatsadora (sales lady)?

There was a time when the best students from high schools across the country would flock to the PNU for screening. They competed for admission into the PNU which offered full scholarships and diplomas that assured them a teaching post in the public school system, which then offered a potentially lifelong job with attractive rates. Later, PNU (read: Government) would impose tuition and raise them slowly — and teachers with licenses would prefer to be maids abroad as teachers’ salaries could not send a child to the best private schools. PNU and other teacher training institutions are not doing so well in training teachers. In one teacher licensure exam in 2010, only 19.58 percent passed in the elementary level while 25.86 percent passed in the secondary level.

This month, as thousands of political science graduates march towards schools of law or are hoping to land high-paying corporate jobs, I am reminded of how I actually, eventually, got into teaching (at college level however). How I became a “teacher lang” in “Political Sayang.” Care to join me, dear Graduates? Your country needs you. But, wait, yes, you need to take a licensure exam if you want to teach at the basic education level. Can't DepEd or government have that requirement waived at least for those with excellent academic records if we want to somehow lessen the shortage in good teachers?

Care to join me, dear Graduates and find a way to teach?

Whatever your answer is in your heart of hearts... Congratulations!