The learning crisis and K-drama

Having just moderated a forum on private education, I just had to “stop the press,” so to speak, on the content of this contribution, dump the original topic, and quickly put together this article instead. Phinma Education president and CEO Dr. Chito Salazar closed the forum with an impassioned call for an all-of-nation approach to addressing the country’s learning crisis, stressing that the response to the crisis cannot be left to the public and private education sectors alone and will need all sectors coming together with a sustained strategic response. He cited the forum as very timely, happening on the day before the recently legislated Philippine Edcom will first meet.

The policy forum organized by Phinma and its education business featured Kavita Rajagopalan, program director of Global Schools Forum, and Meekyung Shin, education specialist for higher education at the Asian Development Bank. Both speakers helped steer a conversation on the way private tertiary education institutions could complement public education in the Philippines and respond better to the current educational crisis. And this was the key point that the policy forum wanted to bring front and center: that we need to better understand the gravity of the crisis, bring together as many stakeholders as possible, and agree on coordinated initiatives that will build on the resources and networks of both state and nonstate providers of education, and harness their collective strengths.

Consider this: the Philippines is experiencing an all-time-high learning poverty rate of 91 percent and a learning deprivation rate of 90 percent. Because of prolonged school closures, 10-year-olds who cannot read simple text rose from 70 percent to 90 percent. Before the pandemic shut down our schools, the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment already showed that only 19 percent achieved the minimum proficiency level of overall reading literacy, 19 percent achieved the minimum proficiency level of overall math literacy, and only 22 percent of students attained level 2 or higher in science. This was before the pandemic. Imagine what they are now!

The first step is for all of us to acknowledge that there is an unprecedented crisis in learning today. While we should welcome the reopening of schools, a proper response to the crisis will require so much more leadership, collaboration, planning, monitoring, and assessment across all schools, all levels, and all subjects, especially in basic education. One way forward is to focus all available public sector resources on basic education, possibly on the early years including nutrition, and targeting those impacted by the pandemic gap years. Then leave to the private sector tertiary education and the need to link closely with industry. A key component of such focus on basic education, though, must include channeling some of the huge but limited public sector funds to maximizing and capacitating nonstate actors in basic education. These are the private schools as well as the foundation, and the NGO-driven learning institutions and centers.

Forum speakers Kavita and Meekyung stressed that there are enough models and experiences out there, like in Japan and Korea, where private education played a critical complementary role in improving access, quality, and relevance in higher education. They agreed that public and private education must work for more complementarity for innovation, and use of technology to better the learning outcomes of students, as well as capacitate our teachers.

At a welcome dinner the night before the forum, Meekyung shared how Korean drama came to be as popular globally as it is today. She said that for many years, they endured poor quality shows, but government, together with academe and the private sector and relevant industries, came together to produce better writers, directors, videographers, and all others needed to turn out better episodes. The success of today’s K-drama scene speaks volumes of what can be done when leaders and groups come together. We can do no less for Philippine education. Aside from going gaga over K-drama, we must take to heart the lessons of how it won the hearts and minds, not only of Koreans, not only of Filipinos, but of millions across the globe.

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Peter Angelo V. Perfecto is public affairs vice president of Phinma and chair of Oxfam Pilipinas. Email: [email protected]