THE GROWING GLOBAL MARKET FOR PROFESsional talent has kept education ministries focused on the comparability of educational degrees. Unfortunately, our education system handicaps overseas Filipino workers competing in this market.
In general, for instance, Thailand does not consider Philippine degrees, even those from the best-known universities, as equal to those awarded by its own institutions. Those who hold them, therefore, get their compensation downgraded. As a Thai colleague has repeated to me for many years, their problem is the system that allows students completing only 10 years of basic education to go for university diplomas. Other countries share Thailand?s reservations.
Our own CHEd and the Philippine Task Force on Education conceded that the 10-year basic education cycle poses problems for our tertiary institutions and their graduates. Last year, the Education Committee of Unesco?s Philippine National Commission drafted a resolution urging the government to provide a K-12 basic education system. It noted that, among 155 Unesco member countries, only Djoubuti, Angola and the Philippines still fall below what has become the international norm.
In December, the commission unanimously endorsed the resolution. The discussions inevitably addressed regional benchmarking. Was it accurate to cite the Philippines as the lone Southeast Asian country with a 10-year basic education cycle? Singapore also has only six years of elementary and four years of high school. Should the Philippine problem be described as a deficiency, not in basic, but in pre-university, education?
These are valid questions. The issue is not the number of years of the elementary and high school cycles, but the adequacy of pre-university preparation. No one complains about Singapore?s 10-year basic education cycle, because its graduates must do an additional two to four years of schooling to qualify for university degree programs.
In the Philippine case, the basic education cycle serves as the pre-university preparation in the Philippines. The questions thus appear to focus harmlessly on a distinction without a difference. But replacing ?basic? with ?pre-university? education involves more than a factual correction or a stylistic change.
Governments generally fund the K-12 basic education system. Singapore does support the additional pre-university years beyond basic education. Our Constitution guarantees state provision of basic education up to the high school level. If the additional years of pre-university preparation are added after high school, the government has no obligation to bear the supplemental costs. The state can shift the education burden to the students and their parents.
Until the 1930s, the Philippines actually had 11 years of basic education: seven years of primary and four years of secondary schooling. The Commonwealth government, even then, did not feel that 11 years provided adequate preparation for tertiary education or the work place. It decided to reduce the primary cycle to six years, which was duly done, and add two years to high school, which did not happen. President Macapagal-Arroyo had the chance to rectify a 75-year-old oversight. She insisted instead that she would rather add a year of pre-school than extend the basic education cycle.
Her advisers, who all support universal access to pre-school, have also told her that pre-school is already assumed as the ?K? in the K-12 system; its addition, would not improve our brand in the global market. Her push for a K-10 system, announced in 2004, has failed to produce a quality pre-school system, and coverage, after six years, barely exceeds 50 percent of the target group. What it did was to sabotage the restoration of the pre-war public 11-year basic education cycle.
Insistence on K-10 is now hopelessly outdated. Our Asean neighbors have been introducing pre-school, on top of the 12-14 year pre-university cycle. Last year, Thailand committed funding support for three years of pre-school education, giving it a 3K-12 system.
How to rationalize curricula, as students move from pre-school years to post-graduate degrees, has become an issue for educators. But, with global competition, the trend toward more years of formal schooling is beyond dispute. My Thai friend insists that universities whose freshman class had 12 years of pre-university schooling must be demanding higher performance levels than those accepting students with only 10 years of schooling under their belt.
Ironically, those who question the need for going beyond K-10 do not question why their elite private schools maintain an 11-year basic education system. It is also ironic that colonial bureaucrats gave the Philippines a stronger educational foundation than post-independence leaders have thus far provided. The President, compared to her predecessors, enjoyed the benefit of the longest formal schooling experience. That she has been the most adamant against investing more years of education for the Filipino youth is the further, painful irony.
Philippine Business for Education, with support from the Coordinating Council of Philippine Educational Associations, has formulated an education agenda that includes the K-12 system and the other reforms to make it effective. Only the Liberal Party of Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas has adopted this agenda. In this lies our hope in this new year for the reform of Philippine education.
Edilberto C. de Jesus is president of the Asian Institute of Management.
