Adding 2 years MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated November 05, 2009 12:00 AM

I have a modest proposal to add two years to our inadequate basic education cycle.

To appreciate my proposal, however, you have to understand how the Department of Education (DepEd) works.

One anecdote illustrates the subculture that exists in DepEd. When he was Secretary of Education, Raul Roco once spoke to several principals in a meeting. He told them that he wanted to empower them, because principal empowerment was on their wish list.

“From now on,” Roco told them, “you can make your own decisions about matters concerning your schools, such as textbooks, teaching strategies, budget, repairs, and so on. You do not have to consult me or anyone else. You accept the responsibility, so you now have the authority. You do not have to wait for a memo from the Central Office to start any project that will benefit your school.”

One principal raised his hand immediately. Expressing what was obviously on the mind of all the other principals, he said, “Mister Secretary, can you please put that in a memo?”

DepEd is highly centralized, with nothing of any significance being undertaken without the explicit or implicit approval of the Secretary. Along the same vein, everything said or written down by the Secretary is considered as having the force of law. The Secretary’s issuances (as memos and orders are called) form the jurisprudence upon which all DepEd activities are based.

This is both a bad thing and a good thing.

It is a bad thing because a Secretary can easily abuse his or her power. To their credit, all Education Secretaries have refrained from abusing the awesome powers of the office. Just tick off the names of Education Secretaries and you will see that the position has gone only to extraordinarily principled individuals – Florencio Abad, Ramon Bacani (OIC), Onofre D. Corpuz, Edilberto de Jesus, Armand Fabella, Ricardo Gloria, Andrew Gonzalez, Fe Hidalgo (Acting), Jaime Laya, Erlinda Pefianco, Lourdes Quisumbing, Alejandro Roces, Raul Roco, and the current one, Jesli Lapuz.

It is also a good thing, because a Secretary can easily change the policy of the Department with one stroke of the pen. The DepEd Secretary is almost like the President of the Republic, in that a single department order or memo is like an Executive Order, to be followed to the letter until or unless expressly countermanded by Malacañang (in the case of the President, by the Supreme Court).

Another characteristic of DepEd, aside from its hierarchical structure, is its consistency and adherence to tradition. A DepEd policy tends to last through several Secretaries. Because DepEd is so big (bigger than any Philippine corporation and even bigger than some countries, such as Iceland), it changes very slowly, if at all. On the other hand, paradoxically, it is possible for one Secretary to institute a dramatic change which is then almost impossible to reverse.

Page 1 of 17

My modest proposal is this. The next DepEd Secretary should simply sign an order saying that all Grade 6 students with grades averaging 84 or below will take Grade 7 and that all Fourth Year students with grades averaging 84 or below will take Fifth Year High School. That means that, as far as the system is concerned, we will have 12 years of basic education, but as far as individuals are concerned, bright students can still go to college after 10 years.

What will happen once this order is signed (aside from the Secretary being fired immediately by the next President because of the inevitable public uproar)?

Grade 6 students that would normally drop out of school because they cannot cope with the academic load will no longer drop out; instead, they will take another year in elementary school. Brighter students will just follow the status quo: they will go to high school immediately.

Fourth Year students that would normally not be admitted to college because of their poor grades will now have another year of high school to prepare for college entrance exams. Brighter students will go immediately to college as in the present system.

The biggest objection to adding one or two years to basic education is that colleges and universities will not have incoming students for one or two years (and no sophomores the next year, and so on). Because more than 60% of tertiary schools are in private hands and depend on tuition, many colleges and universities will go bankrupt.

My proposal solves this problem confronting private colleges and universities. They will still have incoming students, though not as many as before. Since the students will be brighter, however, the intellectual level in freshman courses will rise, something all schools want.

Since no one in his or her right mind would want to face the uncontrollable public wrath for being so high-handed and arbitrary, this proposal will never be adopted by any DepEd Secretary.

That is why, instead, we are implementing the more realistic order of the Cabinet to put in place, starting June 2010, a system that will force high school graduates to take pre-university, except for bright students that can go straight to college. We will still add one or two years to basic education, but this time, the students will be handled by CHED (and, therefore, colleges and universities) and not DepEd.

Page 2 of 17

No to 5-year college MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated January 29, 2009 12:00 AM

It has become common wisdom to say that our basic education cycle is too short. Only Botswana and the Philippines have 10-year basic education cycles; every other country has more. There is no question that we have to add years to the cycle.

Since the problem is basic education, the solution should also be in basic education. It is irrelevant and even ridiculous to suggest, as otherwise intelligent people have suggested, that we should add years to college education.

Look at the University of Oxford, consistently ranked among the top four universities in the world. To get a BA at Oxford, you need only three years (except for a few four-year courses). Do not tell me that we can do better than the British when it comes to higher education.

Closer to home, there is Singapore. The National University of Singapore is ranked among the top 30 universities in the world. You can get an undergraduate degree there in only three years. In fact, in general, if a tertiary level system follows the British model, students stay in college for only three years.

Our problem is not college education. Many Filipinos with four-year college degrees easily get into American graduate schools, where they routinely outshine their American counterparts. It is clear that we have enough, maybe even too many years of tertiary education.

I was mainly responsible for crafting in 1996 what is now the General Education Curriculum of CHED. At that time, I had not yet worked in DepEd. When I got into DepEd in 2001, I realized that many of the subjects in the college curriculum should actually be in the Basic Education Curriculum, but we do not have enough years for them.

What we do not have are enough years of public basic education. Some private schools already have a 12-year cycle. They require at least one year of formal education before enrolment in Grade 1. They have a Grade 7. Those two extra years give private school graduates 12 years of basic education.

After having ordered preparations to be done, Gloria Arroyo lost her nerve in 2004 when she was about to order the establishment of a seventh grade in elementary school. DepEd was all set to implement the extra grade, but she stopped it from continuing with the reform. As she always unfortunately does, she chose her political survival over the welfare of our citizens.

In 2010, the next President should immediately order DepEd to establish the extra elementary school year. He or she should also immediately order the implementation of the pre-baccalaureate year, a project of both DepEd and CHED for which the necessary groundwork has already been done. If the pre-baccalaureate year is handled by DepEd and not by CHED, it will be the fifth year of high school for those continuing on to college. With those two extra

Page 3 of 17

years, we will have a 12-year basic public education cycle.

All we need to solve the lack of years of basic public education is a President more interested in the public good than in staying in power for life.

GREGORIAN CHANT CONCERT: Tomorrow, Friday, at 6 p.m., Benedictine monks will sing Gregorian chants in a concert called “Gaudete in Domino!” (Rejoice in the Lord) to be held in the chapel of San Beda College in Manila. The concert forms part of the annual celebration of the feast of the Sto. Niño de Praga. It is also a tribute to Our Lady of Montserrat, after whom the first Benedictine abbey in the Philippines was named.

Producing the event are the 2009 Golden Jubilarians (San Beda high school class of 1959), chaired by Paul Aquino. Choirmaster is Bernardo Ma. Perez, OSB. Playing the organ is Benildus Ma. Maramba, OSB. Performing with the Benedictines are the UST Liturgikon Ensemble (conducted by Eugene de los Santos) and the UST Brass Ensemble (conducted by Michael Jacinto).

FLORSHEIM SHOES: Two weeks ago, Rafael Dominguez, SVP of Retail Specialist, Inc., which handles Florsheim shoes in the Philippines, wrote me about a complaint I had raised about one of their sales staff. Here is his letter:

“We are writing you with reference to your column on Florsheim Glorietta last December 4, 2008, in the Philippine STAR.

“The Board of Directors and the Management of Retail Specialist, Inc., would very much like to express to you our gratitude at pointing out to us an area in customer service wherein we have room for much correction and improvement. Admittedly, your experience in our Florsheim store was most regrettable and learning about this glitch was quite distressing for our group. Your article was a reminder to us to be constantly vigilant about the levels of courtesy, professionalism, and high quality customer service that we expect from our associates.

“Again, thank you very much for bringing this incident to our attention. Rest assured that we have already began taking the necessary steps towards improvement across all the boutiques in our retailing chain of stores.”

I accept the apology and will visit Florsheim stores again.

Page 4 of 17

Not Grade 7 MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated March 19, 2009 12:00 AM

Since what we learn in school is just as important as how long we take to learn it, then lengthening the education cycle means changing the curriculum.

To make this clearer, let us take an example. Let us take the standard 120 units (hours, credits, or modular credits) that a student needs to finish a college degree. In the American system which we inherited, the student takes four years to finish the units. Roughly, that translates to 30 units per year (divided by semesters, terms, or quarters). At 3 units per subject, the student takes 10 subjects (courses or modules) per year. (In reality, a college student takes many more than 10 subjects per year, because of various other courses each school or government requires, but let us make our example simple.)

Since students in Singapore take only 3 years to finish the 120 units, each subject or module cannot have only 3 units; otherwise, each student will be taking 13 or 14 subjects per year. This is one reason Singapore gives 4 units per subject, making each student take only 10 subjects or modules per year, the same number as in the American model.

Some people have suggested that, in order to add the extra year to the education cycle, we should just let our students take the 120 units over 5, rather than 4 years. We can see from the example that this is not as simple a solution as it looks. Instead of taking 10 subjects per year, a student would now take only 24 units or 8 subjects per year. That would be an awful waste of time, since some students even now take as many as 21 units in a half-year or semester.

On the other hand, some people have suggested that, in order to approximate the British model, we should have only 3 and not 4 years of college. This means that we have to follow the Singapore model and give 4 units per subject, lessening the number of subjects students take. For administrators, that is a nightmare, because teachers will teach fewer subjects and therefore earn less than they are earning now. This will most likely lead to labor unrest in our schools.

Clearly, the solution cannot be mechanical. We cannot just extend 4-year college into 5-year college or compress 4-year college into 3-year college, without doing many other things first.

Fortunately, we have a Philippine best practice to guide us in this matter of length versus content. When De La Salle University shifted from a semestral to a trimestral system in 1981, teachers had to rethink their syllabi. It was not just a matter of teaching 18 weeks’ worth of material in 14 weeks. That would have been not just impossible, but pedagogically unsound. The expected learning competencies per subject, and therefore the entire curriculum, had to be

Page 5 of 17

revised.

Let us take a fairly simple example. In a course on the novel, a typical literature major can be reasonably expected to read a novel and to write a short paper on it every two weeks. (Some teachers require more, but let us take the average.) In a semester, that means 9 novels in 18 weeks. In a trimestral system, that means only 7 novels in 14 weeks. That is a major change. The missing two novels have to be taken up in another subject in the curriculum.

In short, changing the time it takes to teach a subject changes the content of the subject. If the same principle is now extended to the whole education cycle, changing the length of the education cycle changes what can be taught during that cycle.

It is, therefore, not just a matter of saying that there should be a Grade 7 or a Fifth or Sixth Year High School or a Pre-University Year in college. Just as important as the decision on when to add the missing year or years is the decision on how to change the entire curriculum to make it rational and effective.

If we add a Grade 7, we have to revise the curriculum for Grade 1. If we add a Fifth or Sixth Year in high school, we have to revise the curriculum for First Year. If we add or subtract a year or two in college, we have to revise the entire college curriculum.

Moreover, a totally new 15-year curriculum, if implemented in June 2010, will produce students graduating not earlier than 2025 (2026 if we want 16 years). Since the Philippines will join the APEC Trade Regime in 2020, we cannot start curriculum change with Grade 1. Let us forget, therefore, about adding a Grade 7. It will be useless in terms of meeting the deadline for international accreditation. It will take too much time, effort, and money to revise the entire elementary school curriculum just to have a Grade 7.

In order for our graduates to have the internationally-required 9 or 10 years of post-elementary education by 2020, where should we add the extra year or years – in high school or in college? (To be continued)

To add or subtract? MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated March 26, 2009 12:00 AM

The burning issue of the day for tertiary-level educators and government officials is, of course, whether or not to add or subtract years from college education.

It may make us feel better to know that this is a problem not only for us, but also for educators in other countries.

I mentioned in an earlier column the proposal by a former Tennessee education secretary to the American Council on Education to reduce the number of undergraduate years in American universities from four to three. Americans want to copy the British model.

Page 6 of 17

Here, on the other hand, is one of our neighbors going the other way. Right now, college takes only three years in Hong Kong, which uses the British model. By 2012, Hong Kong will add one year of general education to extend college by one year. The British, at least in Hong Kong, want to copy the American model.

The British themselves in Britain do not always follow the British model. The University of Oxford, for example, offers the standard three-year undergraduate course for Classics and English. If the student is not yet ready for college, however, a preliminary year (what we would call Pre-Baccalaureate or Pre-University) is required, making the course in effect a four-year course. The extra year, however, is not for general education, but for languages (Latin or Greek, needless to say).

In the Philippines, we follow, though not strictly, the American model. We should know, therefore, the American justification for general education. The worst thing we can do is to have general education just because the Americans have it.

Why do Americans have general education in college when the rest of the world does not?

A good explanation was given in 2004 by Yale University president Richard Levin to incoming freshmen. “Why,” he asked, “is the undergraduate curriculum, at Yale as at other leading American universities, structured as it is – with two years of broad, general education followed by two years focused largely on one subject?”

He answered his own question: “During your first two years here, you will have the opportunity to explore a broad range of subjects, choosing among literally hundreds of courses throughout the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences that have no or few prerequisites. Indeed, you will be required to distribute your courses such that you cannot specialize prematurely. Only when you choose a major field of study, at the end of your second year, will you be required to concentrate a significant portion of your courses in one area, and only then will you be required to take certain specific courses, rather than choose among electives.”

“This distinctively American approach to undergraduate education,” he admitted, “is not the prevailing pattern in most other countries with strong universities. In most of Europe and in China, students choose their major field of study when they apply for admission. Once admitted, they do not have the freedom that you have to test your interest in a wide variety of subjects; they specialize immediately. Similarly, in much of the world, students choose a profession in their final year of secondary school; they begin the study of law and medicine as first year undergraduates.”

He stressed that the concept of general education has changed: “The freedom to explore in the first two years hasn’t always been a feature of undergraduate education in America. Until the middle of the 19th century, there were very few elective courses at Yale and other leading American colleges. Everyone in Yale College took a common set of courses focused on classical Greek and Latin, science, mathematics and philosophy, and the vast majority of students in law and medical schools entered directly from secondary school. The expansion of the number of elective courses, the requirement that students choose a major after two years of general study,

Page 7 of 17

and the definition of professional schools as postgraduate institutions evolved gradually during the 50 years following the Civil War.

“The most eloquent justification for a broad, unspecialized and non-vocational undergraduate curriculum is found in a report written by Yale’s President Jeremiah Day in 1828. At the core of Day’s argument was the belief, which we at Yale share today, that your education should equip you to think independently and critically, and to respond flexibly to new information, altering your view of the world as appropriate.”

What we have in the Philippines, then, is a mongrel: students choose their majors when they apply for admission to college (the British model), but we still have general education in college (the American model).

Here is the key to the issue of general education: the first two years of college, if we are going to have them at all, should not have any required subjects, should not have any skills courses, and should not include any major courses.

Although I helped craft the General Education Curriculum (GEC) for CHED, I now have very serious reservations about it. I think that the GEC as it now stands properly belongs to high school, not to college. (To be continued)

High school in college? MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated April 02, 2009 12:00 AM

It is clear that we have no choice but to add at least one more year to our 14-year education cycle.

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.

If we added the missing year to high school, we would have to wait only 9 years (5 years for a first year high school student to finish Fifth Year plus 4 years of college). That would be 2010 plus 9, just making the international deadline.

Unfortunately, we cannot add the missing year to high school.

There are two main reasons for this. One is that the government cannot afford another year of free education. Fifth Year will have fewer students than Grade 7, but there will still be plenty of schoolrooms to build, teachers to hire, and desks and textbooks to purchase.

The other reason is that the private sector cannot afford an extra year in high school. If we added a year to high school, there would be a year when there will be no students entering college,

Page 8 of 17

because they will all still be in Fifth Year. (This would actually happen even if the extra year were Grade 7.) For many, if not most, private colleges and universities, that would mean financial doom, since first year students traditionally contribute the most to tuition income.

Since tertiary education is mostly in private hands, despite the proliferation of state and local colleges and universities, adding a year to high school will be an economic disaster of unforeseen proportions. Some will say that we have too many tertiary-level schools anyway and will sing hallelujahs if a few admittedly substandard private colleges disappear. Unless the government suddenly has a windfall from yet undiscovered sources of diamonds, however, the country cannot afford the withdrawal of the private sector from tertiary education.

If we cannot add the extra year to elementary school nor to high school, where then should we add it? There is no other choice but to add an extra year to college.

This is the root of the misunderstanding about CHED’s proposal to increase the number of years needed to obtain an undergraduate degree.

CHED wants to solve a problem (the lack of years) of basic education through higher education. That, of course, seems inappropriate, because CHED is not supposed to worry about basic education.

Somebody, however, has to worry about it. DepEd cannot worry about it because it does not have the money to solve it, even if it wants to. The state and local universities and colleges should not worry about it because they have a lot more issues to worry about (starting with their, in general, very little money and low standards). Who are left to worry about it? The private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Since it is CHED that monitors private HEIs, then CHED has to worry about it, even if it has no mandate to do so.

(Actually, this situation will be legalized or rationalized once EDCOM 2 convenes. Already, the two key movers of EDCOM 1 – Senator Edgardo J. Angara and Congressman Salvador H. Escudero III – are agreed that it is time to revisit the original EDCOM. Expect serious work on EDCOM 2 to start once the elections are over.)

If we added the missing year to college, we would have to wait only 5 or 6 years before our graduates will have finished a 15 or 16-year education cycle, enough time to make the international deadline of 2020.

We must remember, however, that it is not just quantity but also quality that is at issue here. We better make sure that the extra year is not wasted.

The first thing to do is to revamp the General Education Curriculum (GEC). Many of the subjects are not college-level and should be integrated into high school anyway. Although CHED is the main proponent of the added year, DepEd has to get into the picture, because the Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) also has to be revised to include some of the GEC courses. (The BEC is, in fact, being revised right now.)

Page 9 of 17

The second thing is to understand that the extra year should focus on subjects that will prepare the student for college work (“college” as defined by Harvard and Oxford). We can call the extra year Pre-University, Pre-Baccalaureate, Junior College, Community College, College Zero, Associate Year, or whatever; the name should not matter.

What matters is that private HEIs can and should now offer a year when high school graduates who intend to obtain an undergraduate degree can take the tool subjects most useful for high-level academic work.

This proposal answers the main objection of private HEIs to the plan to extend basic education. Because it will be the HEIs that will take care of the extra year, they will not experience one year with no incoming freshmen. (To be continued)

Noynoy on adding years MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated January 28, 2010 12:00 AM

Responding to my column of Jan. 7, the Liberal Party wrote me a long letter clarifying its stand on the addition of two years to our education cycle. Instead of reprinting the entire letter (which will take several columns), I will quote what I consider the most important parts of the letter and comment on them. If I misinterpret the LP stand, I am open to being corrected. Because what I wrote was meant to differentiate the presidential candidates from each other, I will refer to the LP stand as the stand of Noynoy Aquino.

Noynoy says: “The Philippines has the shortest education cycle preparatory to university. Ours is 10 years; the rest of the world is 12. In short, we have a curriculum that, on paper, covers the same subject matter as the rest of the world but which we cram into 10, instead of 12, years. This means that our teachers take all kinds of short cuts to try to cover the material or just simply do not attempt to cover the entire syllabus in a given year for lack of material time. This shortchanges our children’s education.”

I agree completely. In fact, the whole world agrees. Our engineers, for example, have been rejected again and again by the Washington Accord because of our short basic education cycle. Our high school students consistently fail international tests in math and science.

Noynoy clarifies that “our Liberal Party position (not just mine nor Senator Mar Roxas’, but our collective position) is to add two more years to basic education to bridge this glaring gap.”

I am glad that, finally, we have a party stand, not just one person’s stand. One problem I have with Villar is that his senatorial candidates represent diametrically opposed worldviews. (Bongbong and Satur as NP bedfellows? C’mon!) Is it safe to assume that, if the LP senatorial candidates get into the Senate, they will all advocate the extension of our basic education cycle? I certainly hope so.

Noynoy adds: “The manner by which we will add the two years is to do so incrementally and to have the entire cycle in place by the end of the next Administration (i.e. 2016).” Basically, his

Page 10 of 17

idea appears to be to add and eventually to rename the two missing years, while allowing some students to skip the added levels.

This strategy answers the main objection raised by private high schools and colleges, based on the dire possibility of their not having incoming students.

Remember that I mentioned in my Jan. 7 column the main problem brought about by adding years to the basic education cycle. If we added a Grade 7, there would be a year without First Year high school students. If we added a Fifth Year, there would be a year without freshman college students (and the next year without sophomores and so on). Noynoy’s plan neatly sidesteps that objection by allowing half the Grade 6 class graduating in March 2011 to go on to First Year high school. That half will continue through the 10-year cycle (as all students do now) and eventually form the batch of incoming college students in June 2015.

The objection can be raised that private colleges and universities will still see their freshman enrolment cut in half in 2015. In Noynoy’s plan, this objection is met by instituting a second educational reform.

Noynoy says: “Starting year 1 of the new Administration, we intend to start building up towards a universal pre-school in every public elementary school (to be called kindergarten). This will target all 6 year olds who are not enrolled in Grade 1 (about 60+% to date).”

He adds: “If DepEd were even moderately successful in terms of reducing dropouts at every grade level such that the per year/grade size (e.g. enrolment) were increased even by 10%, this would add about one million more students in the entire system as a function of retention in school.”

In other words, the idea is to increase the number of children starting and finishing basic education. This will mean, therefore, that the number of high school graduates going to college will still be roughly the same as the number now. (Although exact calculations are impossible in real life, the idea is sound.)

If you remember, I proposed a similar scheme in this column last October. I called it then a “modest proposal,” because it stood no chance of being accepted by the public. Not being in any position to make any change, I had no illusion that applying the expanded educational cycle to only part of a class (called a “cohort” in DepEd terms) would ever be seriously entertained by the powers-that-be. Since Noynoy (at least at this moment) is fairly sure to be elected and will be in a position to effect the change, it looks like the idea might actually be implemented.

There is another problem with the scheme, however, aside from the objection raised by private school owners. How can the government fund the teachers, schoolrooms, and textbooks for the added years, when it does not even have enough money for the grade levels now existing? Noynoy answers this in his letter. (To be continued)

Page 11 of 17

Noynoy on education MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated February 04, 2010 12:00 AM

Nobody really wants our basic education cycle to be the shortest and most inadequate in the world. Although we put on the defense mechanism that we compensate in quality what we lack in quantity, we all know deep inside that our high school graduates are clearly shortchanged by the government. Our 4th year high school students are too young and too undereducated to enter the job market immediately after graduation.

In the LP letter to me reacting to my column of Jan. 7, Noynoy mentions one of the main reasons we have to follow the international norm of a 12-year basic education cycle. “With a 12-year cycle,” Noynoy says, “even those who do not have the ambition or interest to go on to university

should have enough basic education to prepare them for the world of work. At 18 years of age, high school graduates should have the tools and the emotional and mental maturity that would make them better prepared for work than 16-year olds graduating under a 10-year cycle.” (He could have added money to ambition and interest.)

Even under previous administrations, the Department of Education consistently asked that two more years be added to the free education offered by the government. Every Philippine president so far, however, has refused to add the two years because of the enormous strain they will put on the national budget. After all, there are about 2 million students entering basic education, and even if only about 860,000 reach 4th year at the current retention rate of 43 percent, that is still a lot of students going into two more years of high school. At the current ratio of one teacher per 60 students, that translates into 28,000 new teachers for the two years, in addition to new classrooms and textbooks. (I computed the figures for 5th and 6th year high school, but if we used Grade 7 instead of 6th year, the figures would even be worse, because there would be 1.32 million students reaching Grade 6 at the retention rate of 66 percent.)

Can a Noynoy administration solve the problem of financing? Noynoy thinks so. He says: “Since the majority of our children attend public schools, the cost for tuition and direct schooling is borne by the State under our policy and not by the family (though the family will have to answer for the incidental costs which are much lower than tuition). These additional costs are affordable

Page 12 of 17

(given how this Administration has used or rather, misused, funds) and absolutely necessary to make.” In other words, the government would have the money if not for mismanagement and corruption.

Noynoy does not give how much money the government will save if it seriously tried to stop corruption, but we have the figures from other sources. The Ombudsman estimates that corruption cases have reached more than P1 trillion since the office was formed. Non-government sources estimate losses of at least P100 billion per year. While he was president, Joseph Estrada admitted that P24 billion was lost to corruption every year (that figure does not include the millions he was later convicted of plundering).

Whether losses due to corruption add up to P24 billion or hundreds of billions per year, there is no doubt that there is money available to government if it would just curb corruption. Noynoy is running on a platform of integrity. He is counting on his personal example shaming corrupt government officials to “moderate their greed.” Even if he succeeded only half the time, he would have enough money to fund the two extra years of basic education.

That, of course, is a big if. Jesus and Muhammad were models of integrity, but not all their followers are moderating their greed; the only religious dogma with indisputable empirical evidence is original sin. Closer to home, no one can accuse Cory Aquino of stealing, but the corruption of her Kamag-anak Inc. (in Louie Beltran’s immortal phrase) was legendary.

Nevertheless, on paper, the Noynoy proposal makes a lot of sense. Ideally, the government should indeed fund the extra two years. Noynoy says: “This is a problem of basic education (too little); therefore it should be fixed at the basic education level. It covers subject matter that the rest of the world covers at the elementary and secondary levels. Therefore, the solution has to be dealt with at the elementary and high school levels. Hence, the 12-year cycle. Further, by making this investment at the basic education level, the costs (e.g. both public education spending and private sector education contracting) is rightly in the hands of government as its constitutional responsibility to provide basic education for all Filipinos.”

I agree, but only in theory. In practice, however, I am not sure that the theory will work. I know, from my personal experience in government, that it is not that easy to moderate greed. Corrupt government officials do not all steal for the love of stealing nor even to lead the life of the rich and famous. Many of them have mortgages, children to feed and send to school, and staff members to help out. Since even the President earns only about P60,000 a month, you can see where the real problem lies. (To be continued)

More on Noynoy MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated February 11, 2010 12:00 AM

In his letter to me, Noynoy Aquino relates education to poverty.

His plan, says Noynoy, “gives all Filipinos access to more education because it is focused on basic schooling starting at kindergarten. From world historical experience, more basic education – particularly, high school – is a major poverty-reduction strategy. In this country, we will never beat poverty with such a short basic education cycle. Let’s put aside our misplaced national pride and learn from the rest of the world what it has done to grow and develop their people.”

Page 13 of 17

I agree completely. In fact, the Asian Development Bank describes the correlation between poverty and education this way: “The relationship between education and poverty reduction is very clear: educated people have higher income earning potential, and are better able to improve the quality of their lives. Persons with at least a basic education are more likely to avail of a range of social services, and to participate more actively in local and national government through voting and community involvement. They are less likely to be marginalized within the larger society. Education empowers; it helps people become more proactive, gain control over their lives, and widen the range of available choices. The combination of increased earning ability, political and social empowerment, and enhanced capacity to participate in community governance is a powerful instrument for helping break the poverty cycle.”

All the candidates say that education will be their highest priority if they get elected. None of them, however, except for Noynoy and Gibo, has given us specific actions they will take. Everyone, except for Noynoy and Gibo, has merely mouthed motherhood statements about education being a problem, but has not put forward any solutions.

Gibo has proposed that at least one year be added to tertiary education, making all college courses at least five years long. Noynoy argues that Gibo’s solution does not solve the problem of inadequate education. Says Noynoy, “Gibo Teodoro thinks that the answer is to increase university schooling by an additional year. That extra year is nothing more than remediation and makes university an extension of high school which is not the solution. It also brings down the quality of our universities and mixes up their objectives. Further, this also shifts the responsibility for paying for the additional year on to private households because university education, even in state colleges, is not paid for by the government and therefore is not free. Lastly, this strategy also excludes those who have not finished a full basic education cycle. Hence, those that drop out before completing high school have no chance at this additional year of education.”

Neither Gibo nor Noynoy has got it completely right, as far as the additional undergraduate year is concerned.

The Bologna Accord demands that we have three full years of major undergraduate subjects. Right now, we do not have three full years (except for engineering and other five-year courses), because the first two years of the usual four-year course is taken up by General Education (GE). That is one reason that there is an urgent need to revisit GE and to limit it to one academic year. Otherwise, every student will have to take five years (two for GE, three for majors), an unnecessary burden for students and parents.

Gibo is wrong in thinking that we should add another year of GE to college. That does not satisfy the Bologna Accord.

Noynoy is wrong in assuming that adding two years to basic education also solves the problem of the missing year of tertiary education. More precisely, his silence about tertiary education means that he has not thought through the whole problem.

In fact, there are a number of education issues that still have not been addressed by any candidate. Here is a random list.

Page 14 of 17

Until what level should the mother tongue be used as medium of instruction? DepEd has already ordered that it be used, one year at a time, starting with Grade 1. Until what grade or year?

How can our schools comply with the Bologna Accord? The Washington Accord? The Dublin Accord? The Sydney Accord? There are a number of these international agreements that the country has signed or wants to sign.

How do we solve the mismatch between undergraduate studies and industry needs?

How can we address the warning by UNESCO that we will fail to meet our Education For All (EFA) commitments?

How will we help our students fare better in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)?

Is it time to return to a monolithic system of education (one agency, rather than the three agencies at present)? Have the goals of EDCOM (that divided the Department of Education into three) been fulfilled?

Is it time to put all basic education under DepEd (right now, DSWD, DOST, SUCs, and even CCP have control over some schools)?

How should government deal with accreditation, which is by definition a non-government process? How can our schools be internationally accredited?

What do we do with the huge number of Filipinos that have not finished formal schooling?

What do we do with illiterates?

What is the balance between legislation and academic freedom, when it comes to curricula and mandated subjects?

The next administration will have to answer these questions.

Page 15 of 17

Villar on education MINI CRITIQUE By Isagani Cruz (The Philippine Star) Updated February 18, 2010 12:00 AM

If democracy works on the principle that every voter votes according to his or her self-interest, with the majority of the voters having their will (“the greatest good for the greatest number”), then I should vote for Manny Villar. After all, since I lived for a long time in Parañaque and now live in Alabang, Villar is the only one among the presidential candidates who has done anything personally beneficial to me.

He has given the Parañaque-Alabang-Las Piñas area something truly useful – a road. Of course, he made money, legitimately or (if the Senate is to be believed) illegitimately, but the road nevertheless exists, making travel easy and pleasant for me and my neighbors.

There is something about Villar, however, that bothers me, and it is not just the doubts raised about his integrity. It is his lack of a clear education agenda.

In his speech to the Makati Business Club on Feb. 10, he said this about education: “I will work hard to raise education standards, build more schools, and reward deserving teachers. I intend to accomplish this by spending more for education. I will also try to create a more competitive environment among schools, among teachers, so that those that perform well are rewarded, and those that don’t are held accountable.”

Nobody can disagree with these motherhood statements, precisely because they are motherhood statements. The devil (or the angel) is in the details.

What, exactly, is Villar going to do to “raise education standards”? What is the score we will aim for in the 2011 TIMSS? In 2003, we were way below the international average, scoring higher only than Botswana, Saudi Arabia, Ghana, and South Africa. We were the worst country in Asia. Are we going to try to overtake Indonesia (also below average but still way above us) or do we aim to be at par with the five best school systems in the world (Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Japan)?

How many more schools do we have to build? No matter how much we try, even if we had lots of money (which we don’t), we will never catch up with our growing population. Do not forget that we do not even educate all Filipino children, since most of them drop out long before they finish schooling.

Page 16 of 17

How much is “more” as far as education is concerned? A couple of billions is nothing when it comes to education.

What is a “deserving teacher”? What is a “more competitive environment” when it comes to teachers “performing well”? Do we measure performance by the number of students who pass a class? Is a teacher who passes everybody better than one who refuses to pass students who cannot read? Do we measure a high school’s performance by the percentage of students who graduate, or do we measure it by the percentage of graduates who pass the UPCAT? Without details, the statement is meaningless.

One thing going for Villar, however, is his track record in helping education. I do not mean the bills he sponsored (he holds the record for most bills filed), since these bills tend to be cooperative ventures rather than individual efforts. I mean his work outside Congress (documented on various websites).

He nationalized the Las Piñas High School. He launched the “Sagip Bukas” Drug Preventions Program in all the schools in Las Piñas. He organized the “Manpower on Wheels” Program, “a livelihood training school housed in a van to accommodate poor students who could not go to schools without fare money”; the program has produced more than 5,000 graduates. He sponsors the “Sipag at Tiyaga Caravan Kaalaman,” a “livelihood training program for those who want to venture into business. It travels all over the country conducting livelihood seminars.”

One thing definitely not going for Villar is his insistence that English should be the sole medium of instruction on all levels of education. Not only does he violate the Constitution with this stand of his (and he will be expected, as President, to uphold our fundamental law), but he reveals his ignorance of educational research and international agreements, as well as of what really goes on in the classroom.

For someone running on a platform of helping the poor, he should first find out for himself what our poor public school teachers face every day of their lives – equally poor students that are forced to learn a foreign language even before they master their own. And that is one of the main reasons these students, most of whom drop out of school anyway and will never go abroad, remain poor all their lives.

To get my vote, Villar has to change his view about the medium of instruction. Unfortunately for him, his wife Cynthia is an advocate of the unconstitutional and ridiculous English-only bill. His loyalty to his wife’s advocacy should end where his loyalty to the Constitution begins.

Still on the issue of medium of instruction, Villar at least is better than Gibo. Cynthia’s bill specifies that the first three elementary years may be taught in English, Filipino, or the mother tongue. Gibo wants to use only English from pre-school. Although better educated than Villar, Gibo knows less about education.

Page 17 of 17