Issues in Philippine Education: In Retrospect Reform efforts have been relatively successful in places where a determined commi tment

from local communities, parents and teachers has been obtained, backed up b y continuing dialogue and various forms of outside financial, technical or profes sional assistance. Former Education Secretary Edilberto de Jesus, in a seminar co nducted in Ateneo de Manila University last July, 2009 which this reporter incid entally attended, commented that all initiatives to improve the quality of educa tion are laudable, but they have to be at a sufficient scale to make significant change. In this context, decentralization makes a lot of sense. Our collective experience with forming local education alliances shows that organizing communit iesincluding the teachers and school personnelfor school-level reform is a very vi able and cost-effective education quality initiative. 4. Learning begins with teachers, and empowered teachers and school heads are at the heart of genuine education reform. It is not enough that our teachers just go along for the ride in our drive toward quality education. They must lead the way in preparing our children and young people for lifelong learning. While doin g this, it is just common sense to say that they must be given enough opportunit y, tools, and motivation to achieve this. In summary, like any endeavor, to improve quality education, issues, concerns an d suggestions will always be raised. This is true with innovations, be it small or big. Just like when we want to change for the better there will always be obs tacles to overcome, or when we are removed from our comfort zones, we will alway s have some complaints. For every action, there will always be a corresponding r eaction. Each enumerated issue and concern gets a corresponding response. This i s natural law. Due to its vast and complicated nature, the following issues and trends in the c ountrys educational curriculum are enumerated for purpose of reflection: Bridge Program, Sex Education Curriculum and RH Bill, Random Drug Testing, CAT a nd ROTC retro, Use-English or Vernacular policy, Additional Year in Basic Educat ion, Understanding by Design (UBD) and Whole Brain Learning System (WBLS), Errat ic books and reference materials, Lack of facilities, Low and unreliable salary and benefit of teachers, Traditional politics in the DepEd and Ched world, Techn ical-vocational trend, Five years in college plan, Malnutrition and sanitation, Alleged DepEd Mafia, Time assignment of subjects, Teachers training, Cheating in assessment and aptitude tests, Unsupervised, unevaluated programs, Collaboration with community and business sector, and SEDP vs BEC (SEDP is said to be overcro wded, putting together too many competencies and topics. This results to the los s of mastery of basic skills, narrow opportunity to process and contextualize ma jor concepts and weak interconnections of competencies. On the other hand, BEC ( according to IBON Facts and Figures) caters to the needs of multinational corpor ations for highly skilled and technically proficient workers at the expense of n ationalism. To note, BEC aims to produce more functionally literate students by empowering them with life skills and promote more ideal teachers that will perfo rm collaborative teaching and transcending knowledge in a non-authoritative way of instructing. It has reduced the number of subjects from an average of eight t o five, focusing on Filipino, English, Science and Math, which according to form er Education Secretary Raul Roco, will prepare students for global competitivene ss. A fifth subject, Makabayan, also called as the laboratory of life, instructs c omplete learning to students. After understanding all these, what is to be done? In my own limited knowledge o f the state of curricular condition of the nation, I have learned the following: All reform efforts must be anchored on learning and improving student performan ce. The Philippines signed the UNESCO Education for All Jomtien Declaration in 1 990 and the Dakar Framework 10 years later. Through these landmark documents, th e Philippines affirmed that the focus of basic education must, therefore, be on a

ctual learning acquisition and outcome, rather than exclusively upon enrollment, continued participation in organized programs and completion of certification r equirements. And yet to this day, our best educators continue to decry that our e ducation system puts more emphasis on credentializing the learner. Quick fixes and a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. Education reform re quires a patient, concerted and negotiated strategy. Consider, for instance, the e xisting 10-year basic education cycle vis--vis the minimum learning competencies prescribed in the Revised Basic Education Curriculum (RBEC). The cycle is so com pressed that teachers barely have enough time to, well, teach. Meanwhile, the le arner is hard-pressed to absorb all the things the RBEC says he should be learni ng within the allotted time frame. On top of that, the learner needs to hurdle t he medium of instruction during the early years, which is either Filipino or Eng lish. The 10-year basic education cycle and the medium of instruction are educat ion policies crying out for reform, but these two issues are fraught with social , political and cultural ramifications. Simply asking for official promulgations will not be enough. There needs to be a continuing discourse on these issues; o therwise the reform initiative could very likely fizzle out. Lack of (or Poor) Regular Monitoring and Evaluation. After a new curriculum has been installed, it is left unattended. Inadequate monitoring activities to find out curricular strengths or weaknesses and problems are being encountered. Very little means is provided to find out if the implementation is running smoothly o r not. When the time of implementation ends, sometimes there is no evaluation as pect, thus the innovation cannot be judged as failure or success for it to be co ntinued or not. Teacher Burn Out. With so many new changes taking place in the curriculum, many teachers are getting burn out. They get tired so easily and motivation is very l ow. It is so becauseaside from receiving one of the lowest salaries and poorest p rivileges and conditions in the countrythey cannot cope with rapid changes that t ake place. They themselves cannot adjust to the changes that are being introduce d, physically, emotionally, and intellectually. They would prefer the good old day s and stick to what they had been doing which are not anymore compatible with th e times. Innovations are Not Communicated to All. Only the managers or the proponents und erstand the changes. Those who are directly involved merely follow hook line and sinker. This is called regimentation. Changes, when introduced this way, may fa lter along the way because the people involved are not empowered.