We at Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) would like to respond to an article by Mr. Jojo Robles printed in the Manila Standard on 17 June 2010.

First and foremost, we would like to remind everyone that the crisis in Philippine Education is a decades old reality and there is NOTHING SIMPLE to how this came about nor to how we urgently need to address it. The sooner we all acknowledge this, the sooner will we arrive at real solutions.

Second, the decades-old crisis has already been PUNISHING OUR STUDENTS by making it impossible for our students to learn to learn and to learn to achieve. Mr. Robles has correctly pointed out why this is so referring to dearth of good teachers, lack of most basic necessities, low quality of instruction, availability of educational materials and other factors like nutrition and poverty. What PBEd and many other education stakeholders and experts have been saying is that all these plus the short basic education cycle have been working in confluence over the years to PUNISH OUR CHILDREN by giving them one of the poorest education opportunities (if one can still call it an opportunity) in the world. Failing to address these factors together has been one reason cited by the experts for the continuing crisis. There has been a tendency to “projectize” education reform.

Third, the advocates for the 12-year basic education cycle have never mistaken quantity for quality. It has always been clear in our minds that one reason why quality suffers is because we cram into 10 years what the rest of the world learns in 12. We have also never advocated for the additional 2 years in a vacuum. In fact, we have never pushed for any of our education policy recommendations separate from the others. We have consistently clamored for teacher quality, higher investment, school-community action and the 12 years for basic education as key levers to addressing the crisis. The missing 2 years is precisely a quality issue. It has only been the likes of the Arroyo administration and its PTFE that insist on turning this into a quantity issue by citing the lack of funds and the possible impact to private tertiary education of lower enrollment should years be added to basic education.

Fourth, Mr. Robles cites the interaction of poverty and education repeatedly. PBEd has said many times in the past that adding two years in basic education is actually pro-poor. The gap that exists is in basic education. Therefore, the state must invest in those missing years and add them to primary and secondary levels so that parents need not pay for them in the first 1-2 years of college when predominantly general education subjects are taken. Furthermore, we have noted that elite private schools in fact have a grade 7 and that their students all take up 3-4 years of pre-school education. This has been further widening the gap between the rich and the poor. The 2 years will serve to narrow that gap.

We invite Mr Robles to understand better the 10-point agenda for Philippine Education reform of Education Nation—a network of education stakeholder organizations of which PBEd is a part of—that is meant to be a framework for sustained reform. The agenda’s third bullet point under agenda point 7 clearly states that “we must plan and begin the move into the global standard of a 12 years basic education track to address a key obstacle to quality education.” It is just one bullet point of one agenda item out of 10 points. Similarly, the additional 2 years is just one of 10 points of the Aquino Administration’s list for basic education.

CHITO B. SALAZAR
President

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