Occupational skills dominate basic education in progressive countries

The “K” in K-12 stands for Kindergarten, while 12 signifies twelve years from first to twelfth grade of elementary and secondary schooling. This is the new framework of the educational ladder in the Philippines to match it to international standards so that the Filipino youth could be immediately employable.

By the time America bequeathed independence to the Philippines in 1946, the Department of Education and Sports (DECS) had been acquainted and influenced by the US educational system during 70 years of American governance. It did not include preschool but started with Grade I to VI under the Bureau of Elementary Education (BEE) while four years of high school was supervised by the Bureau of Secondary Education. Equivalence to the international requirement of 12 years of Basic Education took place only now. Our public school system was developed first with the help of 800 American school teachers, the Thomasites, who were assigned all over the Philippines. Many of them even gave their lives as they succumbed to tropical diseases. American missionaries, too, reinforced public schooling as far as the remote Mountain Province.

How other school systems work out in advanced countries

As early as 1964 when I received three Italian study grants (borsa di studio) to master the Montessori system from preschool to professional high school, I was privileged to observe other school systems in Italy, England and Denmark. Then from 1966 to 1986, while I was establishing the Operation Brotherhood Montessori schools in all levels, my husband newspaper publisher Max V. Soliven and I would travel together on invitation of various governments to Spain, France, Germany, Australia and Japan. Usually I would request to observe their basic educational systems of 12 years up to their vocational high schools.

In Italy, England, France and Germany preschooling for ages of three to five years is followed by five years of elementary schooling. High schools last six to seven years, starting with lower secondary (junior high school), higher secondary (senior high school), and one final year to get a professional diploma eligible for well paid technical job. For any immigrant to any European country the local language must first be learned.

In Germany, the 10 to 15 year olds go to high school,

Haupstschule or Realschule. Between 16 to 19 years, students may take up vocational course in a Berufsfachschule. Most students opt to attend technical secondary schools. The more intellectual minority spend their last year in an academic high school (Gymnasium), where the student must pass the abitur test to get to a university.

In Italy, 11 to 14 year olds are in the scuola media (junior); the 14 to 18 year olds are in the scuola superiore (senior). To get licensed as a professional technician, a special course to acquire a diploma is taken between 18 to 19 years. The French senior high school or Lycee for 15 to 18 years-old is also known as

baccalaureate professional. It has four streams: scientifique, economique, litteraire and technological.

The partnership of tech-voc schools and business corporations

At the Royal Denmark Zoo Restaurant, Ana, a 16-year-old Filipina whose mother re-married a Danish airline personnel, dons her red apron everyday after school to serve as a waitress at one of the restaurants of the famous Tivoli Gardens of Copenhagen. She is one of the many apprentice high school students of Copenhagen. Her 15-yearold brother chose to work at a furniture store. Both of them earn enough to buy their basic needs as students.

Ricardo, a Filipino-French student of the well known state-supported Ecole Hotelier of Paris has chosen the short basic two-year course of bartending in this technical school whose graduates are readily employed as bakers, chefs and bartenders in the bistros and restaurants of Paris. The school welcomes them back after two- to three-year experience to do the advanced course of management.

Tino is a Filipino high school student in Den Hague, Netherlands. While visiting his school, I saw the carpentry workroom filled neatly with different kinds of saws, pliers, hammers, and lathes, which later would be the same tools he would use as a highly paid professional carpenter in Holland. European secondary schools have a total of six years within which students have a choice of specialization in the last two years in several technical training programs like food technology, butchery, bakery, agronomy, electronics, plumbing, welding, etc. In Germany and Denmark, state laws provide apprenticeship experiences in business establishments for these manual trades.

The first settlers in Australia were made to clear up the numerous forests of the newly discovered continent to set up the first towns and villages. The British crown sent brides for the British convicts they sent here as the first settlers. Rural schools which taught agronomy still exists like the Royal High School Academy of Melbourne, the Rural Agricultural High School of Adelaide and Saul’s Farm school in Sydney which I toured on a Culture Grant. High school boys and girls learn the poultry business and animal husbandry, winning awards in sheep fleecing competition. At a rural school by the World’s Fair at Tsukuba, senior high school boys and girls in workers’ uniform attend to the shitake mushroom farm in the conifer forest where hundreds of shiny shitake are growing on the fallen pine tree trunks. In another section of the huge estate, I watched the horticulture teacher show the students how he would only keep one flower out of a dozen growing on a vine to produce the priceless Japanese melon.

A challenge to our corporate businessmen to increase employment rate of young adults

Would our taipans like John Gokongwei, Ramon Ang, Tessie Sy-Coson and big corporations like Meralco San Miguel, Unilever etc. to help revolutionize the workforce of the country? They have all the tools and equipment coupled with experience for training but do they have the heart to care for the people on whom they depend for business? Del Monte preferred them to college graduates for they learned fast and were persistent Thus we can - truly alleviate our poverty.