Imperatives for education

That there is genuine urgency in the need for us to confront the lamentable education crisis we are in was palpable in the Philippine Business for Education and Management Association of the Philippines forum last April 7, “The Education Imperative.” It was a plea by the country’s top business leaders and stakeholders to address these imperatives: “keep schools fully open, bring back children to school, diagnose the learning losses, and address the support needed by students, teachers, and parents.” Our learning poverty, defined by Unicef in startling terms, showed that 85 percent of 10-year-old Filipino schoolchildren cannot read nor understand a simple story.

The forum’s keynoter was Prof. Kwame Akyeampong, cochair of the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel, an independent, cross-disciplinary body of leading education experts from around the world convened by the World Bank, UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, and Unicef Office of Research-Innocenti. Akyeampong presented the panel’s report, which showed evidence-based data on how education systems in low- and middle-income countries can address the setbacks in schools as a result of the pandemic. Akyeampong highlighted these staggering data for the Philippines: 27 million students have lost over a year of in-person learning and the country has had the longest academic break due to COVID-19. There was also the reminder that technology is not a panacea. Online education is not accessible to most, and providing devices without support is ineffective. It may improve teaching effectiveness, but communicating with students and parents via text messages has had positive results in countries like Botswana, Bangladesh, Nepal, considering that mobile phones are common in households.

The swift and cost-effective measures recommended were to identify the problem, structure the pedagogy, adjust instruction by grouping children by level, use parents as a resource, provide specific teacher support, especially as general skills training has not proven to be effective. Consider the observation that students are in classrooms, and yet are not learning. Is that so difficult to fathom, to remedy, to believe?

One of two reactors, lawyer Alexander Cabrera, chair emeritus, PwC Philippines, spoke on the learning gap that needs to be bridged, especially as our college students do not meet the requirements for language, math, science, having missed them in high school. He speaks for the teachers who are burdened with overlapping activities and teaching overload, leaving them with limited time on task.

As panel reactor, Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Curriculum and Instruction Alma Torio optimistically said that the face-to-face classes of 19,000 schools with 33,000 more waiting in the wings comprise a significant step in addressing the learning that has to continue. The best evidence of the learning recovery program and measures the DepEd has made will be the scores that the Philippines will make at this year’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) test of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Again, the mathematical, scientific, and reading competencies of our 15-year-olds will be tested. Would the lessons learned from our dismal Pisa results two years ago serve our students well this time around? We all wait with bated breath.

Clearly, there is no time to lose with this crisis in education. Thus the imperative for all sectors to be involved, as manifested by the business and management associations and many alarmed education advocates. We owe it to the youth to prepare and equip them adequately to develop their fullest potential toward leading our country, toward being engaged, productive citizens. Cabrera says, “We [the business community] are accountable and responsible. We have a moral and ethical obligation to educate our young the right way so that they grow as the best version of themselves.”

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Neni Sta. Romana Cruz (nenisrcruz@gmail.com) is founding director of the creative writing center, Write Things, and was former chair of the National Book Development Board.