Professor Isagani Cruz of De La Salle University has written much on the shortcomings of basic and higher education in the country. He believes that the country has no choice but to add a year or more to the years we have to spend in school if we are to meet international obligations. (I recall that the Philippines is just one of two countries in the world that has only a 10 year basic education program. The rest have 12 years or more.)
DepEd and CHED knows that we have to add a year. The question posed by Prof Cruz is where to add the year. Should we add it in primary school (by having a 7th grade) or in high school (by having a 5 year program) or in college of university (where we add another year).
This problem is serious enough that everytime there is a curriculum revision or new proposal presented before the University of the Philippines University Council, an inordinate amount of time is spent discussing on how the UP can remedy the problem. The most recent council meeting where I sat reviewed the journalism program of Mass Comm. The journ department has noticed the decline in English and Filipino language competency among freshies to its programs. The journ profs proposed a remedial program in English and/or Filipino to remedy the problem.
The question is who will pay for the remedial programs? Obviously these would fall on the laps of the Filipino and English Studies departments of the College of Arts and Letters (CAL). But these departments also are oversubscribed as providers of service courses for their majors and other undergraduates. The UP as the national university has held the position that it isn’t in the business of remedial courses. Basic education should have dealt with that. So the blame game is passed onto DepEd. Now UP isn’t under CHED’s ambit but CHED also plays that game!
The problem is money and an overwhelming increase in school-age population. DepEd can’t afford it. CHED can’t afford it. Isagani Cruz who was once opposed to these proposals is forced to accept it. In his column in the Star, he opines that higher education institutions (HEI) are likely the ones to take on the additional year. He writes that if the added year is put into the basic education curriculum, private schools will have a year without freshies and this means financial doom.
Private HEIs can probably find students to fork out fees for this extra year which would likely be a pre-baccaulaurate year. But state colleges and universities may not be able to afford to subsidize this extra year. Some of these state HEIs have low standards, poor facilities and poorly paid or trained professors. Offering the pre-baccaulaureate year in these institutions may be a disaster.
If we can find the resources, this pre-baccaulareate year may be a good idea. We have been remediating students in the general education program. Imagine having freshies who can’t transpose algebraic expressions or have a poor English and Filipino vocabulary! Thus in the last meeting of the university council, there was a suggestion that UP revisits its revised general education program (RGEP). While the RGEP is a good idea, its effectiveness is hampered by students having poor backgrounds for university study. The pre-baccaularate year may really weed out those not cut out for university much better than college entrance exams do.
But we have to provide alternate pathways to university aside from the college entrance exam route. Even in Australia, universities provide ” a taste of uni” programs that allow high school graduates who didn’t make the uni cutoffs a chance to get into university. In a sense this program is a pre-baccaulareate semester and at the end of the term, academic advisors assess if the student is prepared enough to continue on to a bachelor’s program. I was told that the ”a taste of uni” programs have been quite successful in identifying who can attend university.
The pre-baccalaureate year may also be the right time to introduce general education subjects that shouldn’t be in the bachelor’s program. This includes courses in language and communication skills. If the student wishes not to continue on to a bachelor’s program or isn’t qualified these skills are much needed in technical school. Technical school alums are paid heaps overseas.
But of course Filipino society places a stigma on those who fail to make the college cut. But there are many young people who couldn’t make the cut not because they can’t but just because they can’t afford the fees.
This stigma is something that years of American colonization failed to erase. And it is instutionalized. Why do we keep on calling technical education “vocational” when all career paths are vocations? The Roman Catholic Church has it right. We all have our vocations!
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hey, got a question… isagani cruz says that there is a deadline involved, hence his support of adding one year at the tertiary level.
he wrote: “It is also clear that we cannot add the missing year to elementary school, because we would have to wait 7 years for a Grade 1 student to finish Grade 7, 4 more years to finish high school, and 4 more years to finish college. By that time, it would be 2010 plus 15 or 2025, too late for the international deadline of 2020.”
what is this deadline? why do we have to cooperate with this deadline?
It is a UNESCO deadline if I recall right.
Your colonial mentality :evil: really shows, you always looking to Australia for solutions. Don’t you know there are other school systems out there? Check out France’s approach, or South Africa’s or Hongkong’s approach to the problem.
Brownshama:
You are off your bean mate the Philippines was never an Australian colony so the colonial mentality tag doesn’t stick. Filipinos have no colonial cringe when it comes to Australia. LOL! Colonial mentality tags are the crudest form of pretended and bankrupt nationalism anyone can make. Shamas are either black or white? Now which one are you? Also I can only speak or write on systems that I am familiar with. If you wish to inform us of those school systems, then write about it. I believe you are aware that the school system here is American in foundation. Thus if there are reforms and modifications, then it is logical to look at what has been done in the US states. Now IS THAT COLONIAL MENTALITY?
We have trouble meeting international requirements? I thought our college is already more difficult and cover more ground compared to other SEA colleges. Maybe that’s the problem, we demand too much.
Real comprehensive studies, including comparative ones, should be made, shouldn’t it? Maybe the curricula aren’t the problem or maybe they are. Nobody knows enough yet. All these theorizing and acting on mere opinion sounds very unscientific to me.
And what are the PhD students doing for their dissertations?
I am not aware of any deadline for what? for basic education?
Sorry for my ignorance but is UNESCo trying to standardize the world’s curricular programme.
if they are, which educational system is going to made as a model, US, British, French or Japan.
What’s the purpose of the standardization? Again, sorry because it’s been a long time i have not sat in a university council meeting and when i sat in one about curriculum revision i almost fell asleep listening to the doctorates editing the grammar and the typo errors in the submitted suggested revised curricula before we can proceed to the main agenda.
Our educators should decide. Will it be a ladderized type of curriculum which was the given reason why Dr. Carlito Puno former CHED Chairman was replaced by Neri for the alleged failure to implement this kind of program which will provide students more employment opportunities since the skills are already introduced in the first two semesters of the college work or will it be the old program of state universities where Associate in Arts are given in the first two years to cover the General Education subjects?
I agree with BrianB. The present system is sufficient enough, if not too difficult already to the average students, not to mention affordability.
This proposal for an additional year could just be a ploy by the private institutions to maximize profit.
Let those who can afford pursue their desired educational quality at their own discretion, but imposing it on the general public by legislation or government policy is against the interest of the Filipino people.
It is practical to add one more year to college and not to high school or elementary school. I’ll join cvj should he cry ‘ELITISM!!!!” against BrianB and blackshama with their point of view that it is INEFFICIENT to put resources into elementary school when a H-U-G-E percentage of them won’t even finish high school.
ONE MORE YEAR OF COLLEGE? So what? Our children graduate high-school at 15/16 years-old. American children graduate high-school at 18/19 years of age.
Our students graduate collages at 20/21 years of age. American children graduate collages 25/30 years of age.
If you compare knowledge of our high-school studes against American WHO’D BE THE GREATEST!!!!!!
aMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE BETTER THN OUR COLLEGE GRADS!!!!!
As usually totally useless halatang walang experience magturo si Renato PAcifico sa US of A. Hay naku, yung mga freshmen sa science doon, marami sa kanila hindi pa nakakagamit ng microscope. Hindi lahat ng state high schools ay may totoong science programs. May mga estudyante na di makaintindi ng Mendelian ratios sa freshman biology since di sila marunong gumamit ng ratio and proportion. Kailangan mo pa ng jellybeans para maituro ang concept na ito.
American high school grads better than our college grads!?! Don’t make me laugh. You better teach freshmen first in America before you make such stupid statements!
Jeez. We all talk about supporting FV and all that and are all praises for its “New Look” and yet we can’t follow the following simple instructions:
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i’m not sure how important this UNESCO deadline is.
@Brian/Bert
i think the problem is as you suggest, alot of stuff packed into the same time frame as other countries. unless filipinos are average smarter/study smarter, then we are gonna lose out here.
i assume you guys went to school in RP as i did. i understand when u say that it shouldnt be a problem, WE graduated in less time, but we are as smart as anyone in the US or elsewhere, diba?
the problem really lies with relatively poor pinoys, in public school…
but i’d like to argue against putting an extra year in college. i think a conclusive case can be made for putting it in grade school. If alot of public school kids are being left behind later, it makes sense to introduce the intervention earlier.
in terms of affordability, i’m not convinced that govt cant afford an extra year. are we sure that governments at the local level shouldn’t be held accountable for the college entrance rate of its people?
local govt accountability is a big issue. but i think this is where the reform ought to be introduced.
having said that,i fully support your call for more tech schools instruction (that finishes in 2-3 years). and a way to allocate Uni-kids and non-Uni-kids.
i have a practical suggestion to address the concern that adding a year before college would eliminate the entire year of a freshie batch…
lets say, instead of 6 years of primary, we have 7.
at grade 6, we separate the class, via a weeding system. call it the regular batch and the “Advanced batch.
the regular batch is the experimental group, those who are placed in year 7. the advanced group advance directly to HS1.
same is true for grade 5, the advanced, move on to grade 7 (augmenting the regular batch), while the regular move to grade 6…
etc, etc…
this has a beneficial side effect of smoothing out huge class sizes…
adding a year to primary public educ will require an influx of cash to build rooms and teachers, and will need to be rolled out over time because it takes a while to add an extra room and a few extra teachers per school. it worth the investment…
Actually Congress plans to look into further reforms in basic ed AFTER the elections. Even Isagani Cruz agrees that we should add the extra year in basic education.
However, private schools have been adding that extra year as added units (think of Ateneo which has bridging courses in English for instance) as bridging programs. And parents have been forking out cash for that. In many cases students would have to add a summer or a sem in their stay in university.
Thus Isagani Cruz’ proposal is practical for private schools (who educate a significant chunk of Pinoys). As I have pointed out, state HEIs will have a problem since they have even limited resources, facilities and sometimes poorly trained teachers.
oh sure, private schools can do what they want… i wonder what sort of curricular supervision the CHED has on these things… like i remember that UA&P has an extra year of college too (i think), but they can end with an MA (i think)…