Day: January 6, 2022

Addressing Fundamental Education problems by Listening to the Ground, Trageted Interventions and Working with LGUs

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FR. BIENVENIDO NEBRES, SJ

FOUNDING CHAIR, SYNERGEIA FOUNDATION

We have to learn from the past. All previous educational reforms in the Philippines were led by foreign international experts. New Math by Peace Corps volunteers in the 1960s. PRODED, SEDP were funded by the World Bank and ADB and they brought in international experts. That’s not a problem in itself. The problem was they all had ready-made solutions even before they had clearly understood the problem.

In my experience, you spend time on the ground, talking to the teachers and understanding the problem. I am a mathematician and I worked in science and the first and foremost step to solve a problem is to spend time understanding and defining the problem. To say students are failing, that is an undefined problem. There are very many reasons and very many different solutions.

 All previous reforms centered on revising the intended curriculum—syllabus, scope and sequence, topics to be covered, etc. And they always come out with a new intended curriculum, all of it. There is a new Math, back to basics, K to 12 revised. I thought they would only revise 11 and 12 but they revised everything. And then, of course, you measure by PISA and the National Achievement Test, and you find out nothing much has changed. Why? Because learning does not happen with the intended curriculum. It does not happen with a piece of paper. It happens in the classroom, in the implemented curriculum. And that has never been my experience at all. And so I have been pushing that we have now to focus on what happens in the classroom.

The situation of Philippine schools is so diverse, from city schools where a big problem is congestion, classes of 70 to 80 in high school, to rural schools where children have to walk three to five kilometers to get to school. You cannot have one solution for all. And it is only when you get down to the ground that you can identify targeted interventions that will make a difference and that will find a solution to the concrete situation. And this depends on the leadership of the principal and community support. That is why this effort must get down to the level of the division, the district, and the LGU, as we have emphasized so much earlier.

One of the things that we have learned from this kind work is in order to attend to problems surrounding education–that is good health, and nutrition–is we have to bring together different government departments. Poverty intervention belongs to DSWD, not to DepEd; health belongs to DOH. The experience of Synergeia Foundation is that it is the LGU working with the Local School Board and the Synergeia family that can bring together these needed interventions for the children.

The work of Synergeia Foundation which has centered on LGUs and Local School Boards has been effective in improving schooling. Gawad Kalinga and the Ateneo Center for Education Development have also been working with LGUs, DepEd, and DSWD on feeding programs. This shows that the appropriate level of intervention to improve education should not be at the national level but at the level of the LGU-School Division-School District. The National Level has to be there like a good CEO. It has to be an enabler. For example, the School Feeding Law is an enabler because it provides the budget. There is now a national budget for feeding. I have been a CEO many times in my life. Your job as CEO is not to do things directly but to create an enabling environment so that leaders closer to the ground can get the work done. The DepEd National should not be getting down to the details. Its job should be to make it possible for divisions and principals to develop a good curriculum.

Challenges of PH Basic Education: Current and Pre-Pandemic

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Prof. Ernesto Garilao (Chairperson and President, Zuellig Family Foundation)

Two days ago, there was an article in the Inquirer regarding a study from the Philippine Institute for Development studies, our think tank. And it said that if we were to bring back the quality of our students to that level, we have to quadruple our budget.

During the pandemic, hindi na maganda. It really got disrupted. Four million did not enroll, education went online, and when online, we all know that not all the schools have Internet access and they had to do modular. There’s economic disruption. 4.3 M jobs lost last year, so you really see when incomes start to reduce, the spillover is on education.

What is the local government response? Ano ang puwede nating gawin? I think we have to put this in the context. We need to respond in the context of equity, retention, quality. Ibig sabihin, nakakapasok ba ang learner? Hindi siya nagda-drop out? What will be the parameters? Education is really a complex problem. It is a complex issue. You need to identify the educational ecosystem. Who are the stakeholders and what is long term strategy? And that we begin to see in the presentation of Rex Gatchalian. Iba yung presentation. Mas malawak.

Let’s take a look at what he did. He made investments. He was a mayor for eight years, he did all these. May lumalabas ba in terms of improvements? By Year Eight, cohort survival rate was 100% for Grade 6. Very good. It took him eight years to be able to get everybody to graduate Grade 6, 100%. It took him three years to reduce the percentage of non- and frustrated readers—97%. Nakakabasa na and it will be worthwhile seeing that they can trace this cohort; that they should be able to be faster in learning three years from now.

So what seems to be happening here? I think this is what Rex is showing. Unang una, may pag-aako ang mayor, that he is committed to provide good education to his constituents. Legacy niya yan. Ikalawa, dapat mahusay siya. I always hear Mayor Robredo saying, “Yung mayor, dapat mahusay.” That’s why I always say, yung alam ng superintendent, dapat alam din ng mayor. You have your own vision and capacity. And, thirdly, you have to think long-term. You cannot improve the scores overnight. It takes a lot of time to do that and mayors normally have nine years and, after nine years, maybe his wife or his brother comes in. So, you have a long term to be able to address that.

The next one: listen, listen, listen. Which means you need to have your stakeholders talk.

Lastly, you draw up your community-owned plan.

What does it mean to have this education? I just want to point this out. At the end of the day, you really want to see your constituent graduate from college so that he can be productively and gainfully employed and be a good citizen. Normally, we just look at it as six years, pagpasok niya sa education. Pero yung pre-education requirement. I think we need to be aware of it primarily because you want to be sure that once the student enters Grade 1, he is healthy and with cognitive skills. And healthy begins with a pregnant mother who was healthy during pregnancy and he has normal birth weight. At Year 2, he is not stunted, he is provided early education, which is the example of Cong. Garcia yesterday, so that he enters Grade 1 healthy and cognitive.

The reforms are there, but it takes time for them to take root. But while waiting for those reforms to come in, mayors can really be game changers. Because kung binabantayan mo naman: Is he in school? Is he dropping out? Is he learning? And learning has data base. May scores yan. At kung hind nagle-learn, the question to ask is: Bakit ang scores, ang baba? Ano ang magagawa natin at ano ang gagawin natin? Bantayan yung scores.