Education

Education:
Analyzing the status of math & science education

By Angelica Katheryn G. Carballo

The lines on her forehead and the gray hairs on her head show me how many students she has taught, how many classrooms she has entered, how many years she has served. Meet Mrs. Jane Reodica, a Grace IV Science teacher in one of the public schools in Quezon City. She has been teaching for 27 years, in the same school, teaching the same subject, and, pitifully, almost the same curriculum. “Teaching is one of the noblest professions, partly because of the wisdom and knowledge you impart to the next generation and partly because of the sacrifices you make for the next generation,” she quips. Like many public school teachers, she has withstood the low salary grade, overcrowded classrooms, undisciplined, and uninterested students. But the most painful ordeal is the seemingly lack of concern by the government for public school teachers like her. Seeing through the pain on her voice, one can conclude that only sheer love for teaching and the commitment to stay true, to her oath are the only motivation that keeps her from transferring to another industry. It is her persistence to teach every student that comes her way that wakes her up before sunrise, even if her body is still aching from the previous day’s work. “Science is specially difficult to teach. Some children are simply not interested in the subject, and those who are interested have to make do with the backdated and improvised equipment in our rooms. Even our Science room hasn’t changed a bit for, like, 10 years.” This story is not exclusive to Mrs. Reodica, or the school where she works. It’s the same scenario almost every Science teacher in a public school face every day. Setting the Classroom Setting Needless to say, education is a key to national progress and should be a top priority of every state. The 42,430 public schools where a big chunk of the student population is enrolled, should be given more attention. A Department of Education (DepEd) website showed that in School Year (SY) 2006-2007, out of the 6.36 million students enrolled in the secondary level, 5.07 million or 80 % are enrolled in public schools. Only one-fifth can afford private education. A bigger percentage of grade-schoolers attend public school, 12.096 million out of 13.145 million. For 2009, DepEd’s budget allotment is P167.94 billion, the biggest among government agencies. Yet, not enough, according to DepEd Secretary Jesli Lapus. This rate falls below certain standards showed by the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). DepEd budget from 2001 to 2007 was at 2.07 - 2.53 % of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), “The norm, the international standard, is at six percent of GDP,” Lapus said. In a separate interview, Dr. Reynaldo B. Vea, Mapua Institute of Technology president and Congressional Commission on Science and technology and Engineering (COMSTE) Education Committee chairman agreed that “Education gets the biggest slice, but not enough to match (how much) our neighbors are spending,” he said. A Senate Economic Planning Office paper released in 2006 indicated that the Philippines has the second largest pupil-teacher ratio among ASEAN countries, next to Cambodia. Government spending for secondary education dropped from 1999 to 2004. In 2004, it allotted only 3.2% of GDP for education while Malaysia spent more than double. Achiles’ Heel Ask a student what is his least favorite subject.Chances are you’ll get Math or Science for an answer. DepEd data show that achievement rate of fourth year students in Math dropped from 50.70% in SY 2005-2006 to 47.82% in SY 2006-2007. The decline also happened in Science, from 39.49% to 37.98% in the same period. A Science and Education Institute study on Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) in 2003 showed that Philippines’ 8th grade (2nd year high school) students’ skills and competencies in Math ranked a pitiful 42nd out of 46 participating countries while the Philippine 4th grade students placed 23rd out of 25 participating countries. The 2004 executive report on Philippine TIMSS showed that in four years since the Third International Mathematics and Science Study Repeat (TIMSS-R) in 1999, only seven regions showed improvements in Math competencies among the 8th grade students. Results of the student achievement test indicate very poor performance in each content domain at this early education stage. The problem seems to be double-edged, with the students’ lack of interest to the lack of professionals who can teach Math and Science. Those who teach Math and Science in public schools are not Math and Science majors, but Education majors that may lack expertise in the subjects. There have been calls to revamp the teaching system and upgrade teachers’ skills. COMSTE sought to answer that problem by formulating a program for Education students who seek to teach Math and Science. “(We should) give a Science focus to laboratory schools to colleges of education of SUCs (state universities and colleges),” said Vea. “Colleges of Education have laboratory schools where student teachers practice teaching. What we want to do is just to give them a bent toward the sciences.” COMSTE is also pushing for the revival of the scholarship program for teachers who want to pursue further studies. This was first introduced under a Department of Science and Technology (DOST) program several years back. He is convinced of the program’s success, stating the increase in number of Ph.Ds in local colleges and universities, including University of the Philippines, Mapua, and De La Salle University. Another COMSTE recommendation is to attract non-education students to teach. This targets graduates of BS Biology, BS Chemistry, BS Physics to enter the academe. As of now, there are no proactive ways to attract them to a teaching career. The Philippine education industry is in a tug of war with other countries that offer higher salaries to Filipino teachers. Countries like US and China value Filipino teachers highly and may pay them up to 10 times more their monthly salaries in the Philippines. In the process, many of the better Science and Math teachers are lost in the roster. In Maryland, a Filipino teacher is offered an annual salary of $43, 481 (roughly P1.8 million). A public school teacher here with a Salary Grade 10 receives a gross pay of only P9,939 a month. There have been moves to upscale the salaries of public school teachers. House Bill 800 or the “Act Upgrading the Minimum Salary Grade Level of Public School Teachers in the Elementary And Secondary Levels from Grade 10 to 15” is geared towards providing public school teachers a much-needed wage hike. Similarly, Senate Bill No. 2408 or the “Educators in Basic Education Compensation Act, “ already passed for the second reading last year, will provide an additional P9,000 increase in the monthly salaries of public school teachers as well as non-teaching personnel. A medical allowance support of at least P1,000 will be given for check-ups and other medical expenses and an annual Magna Carta bonus to answer for the unpaid benefits due to teachers under the Magna Carta for Public School Teacher’s Act. Locally, there are other industries that give better compensation than what teaching in a public school can give. An engineering graduate, who can earn as much as P50,000 a month working in a firm would less likely opt for a teaching job. “Compared to the salaries they might receive in non-education fields, its a far cry,” Vea admits. As another puts it, “We can only bank on the person’s love and passion to teach, but we cannot always go to that reason alone.” Feeding the Machine Another problem that needs further attention is how to feed the scholarship programs with scholars. Seemingly less and less students are bent on getting a Science-related degree. According to COMSTE, in the basic level, there is a decreasing trend in interest in science-oriented education despite the establishment of science high schools. In the tertiary level, less than half of the enrollees in the country are in science & technology (S&T)-related courses, with the number of graduates remaining at the minimum. Analyzing the facts presented by DepEd, elementary achievement rate in Grade 6 Math is 60.29% in SY 2006-2007, up by 6.63% compared to 53.66% posted in SY 2005-2006. Also, Science achievement rate in the same grade level rose from 46.77% in SY 2005-2006 to 51.58% in SY 2006-2007. That boasts an increase of 4.81% in their scores. But in the same report, high school achievement rate in Science and Math declined in the same period. This is an alarming manifestation of children’s loss of interest in Science and Math as they move further in the academic ladder. To answer this issue, COMSTE recommends reviving government’s Engineering and Science Education Project in the 1990s where 110 public non-science high schools identified for their better performance offered extra Science subjects specially for students interested in Science and Math. “But the program has not been sustained,” said Vea. He suggests institutionalizing this program or legislating its enactment is seen to keep the project going for a long time, even transcending changes in the administration. “The program should be immune from the changes of administration,” he said. “If you have bright students, you just have to give them more material, without necessarily having to change the curriculum. It’s like an honors’ section. “Make the subjects more intensive. It may not include more hours. It may just mean your giving them higher level material.” These schools do not have to be turned into Science schools. This move doesn’t have to be legislated, though, although legislation may make implementation more permanent. “We’re just picking up from where the former World Bank-financed $85 million program of the 90s has left off.” Science high schools, particularly the Philippine Science High School (PSHS), have their own way of giving back to the society the Math and Science experts it needs. PSHS graduates are required to take Science or Math-related courses in college, or they should pay for their PSHS education. Other science high schools, though not as restrictive as PSHS, encourage their students to enter into Science and Math related courses. Winning awards, but lagging behind The golden harvest the Philippines has enjoyed over the last few years in Math provides a ray of light in the seemingly bleak landscape. In the 2008 Philippine-Australian Mathematics Competition (PAMC), four of the medalist came from the Philippines. The PAMC is the biggest international competition in the world, with more than 500,000 students from at least 30 competing countries and territories. The contest was conducted through correspondence in testing centers around the world. It is only awarded to approximately one out of 10,000 PAMC participants. Last year is the first time that the Philippines had four PAMC medalists. Ironically, the Philippines ranked third and fourth—to the last—among the countries which participated in the 1999 and 2003 TIMMS, respectively. The study was topped by Singapore. Despite this dismal performance, Prof. Peter Taylor, executive director of the Australian Mathematics Trust, lauded the Filipino students’ skills in Mathematics, which he said is comparable with those of students from the Asia-Pacific region, and is even “close to Singapore.” COMSTE, however, begs to disagrree, stating that the main reason why we rank low in international tests in the secondary level is because many Math and Science teachers in public high schools are not Math and Science majors. There are more teachers with baccalaureate degrees in Education than in Math and Science. Even in the competitiveness level, the Philippines slid down from 47 in 2001 to 77 in 2007 out of 117 countries that were evaluated, which COMSTE attributed to the many problems of the country’s basic education system, particularly lacking in specialization in Math and Science. Aside from reviving the World Bank (WB) program on intensified Science and Math education in 110 public high schools, Vea said it is obvious intensive Math and Science education in grade school is a must too, being the foundations of all levels of learning. He laments the country’s lag in education now. “Koreans learned the Philippine Science High School system. Then they went back to Korea, put more resources and did it in a better way. They got the germ of the idea here. Even the National University of Singapore recruits students from here.” Money makes the world go round. Unfortunately, education is not an exception. The rising cost of public education has been one of the many problems that need to be addressed. Basic education, to be able to operate on its mammoth scale, needs the same size of money to be poured in. Though it can benefit from private funds, it is the government that should look towards having a sustainable and developed basic education system. “It’s the only body probably that can do this on such a scale,” Vea said. Twenty years ago, secondary education is mostly ran by private money. Mainly because 80% of the students are enrolled in private schools, leaving only 20% to public schools. But because of the population growth and the economic crisis, the figures have shifted a full 360-degree turn. “You have to provide a certain level of financial support because families can hardly afford the kind of education they want for their children. “Even in tertiary level, the best school in this country spends so little compared to other countries. In 2000, for example, Thailand’s best school was spending two times more per student. The University of Malaya, three times more. India Institute of Technology, five times more. And of course, the National University of Singapore spends 24 times more. Not that if you throw in money, you solve a lot of problems, but it helps.” Vea sees it as a tribute to our people, that despite the lack of resources, “we’re still able to produce good people which are able to work as professionals abroad and be recognized.” But he still believes something should be done. “That state of things cannot be made to linger, our schools will have to spend more per student in terms of everything. In terms of facilities, in terms of getting good faculty, books and other media as educational resources.” Herding through the Grapevine The pitiful plight of education in the country is a reflection of how we do as a country in general. Education, being one of the basic right of a child, should be given to him in its fullest and in its most complete form. The country, being a signatory to the Millenium Development Goal, which states that “by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling,” has the responsibility to give each Filipino child the kind of education he deserves. Education is ubiquitous in a developed society. In our aim to become an economic power, we envision the Philippines to be solving the problems of . Reodica which is the first step in achieving such dream. end
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