QUALITY EDUCATION

ANGELITA R. LOPEZ

Quality education enables people to develop all of their attributes and skills to achieve their potential as human beings and members of so ci et y.

“Education is at the heart of both personal and community development; its mission is to enable each of us, without exception, to develop all our talents to the full and to realize our creative potential, including responsibility for our own lives and achievement of our personal aims,” says the Delors Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization:

Quality education is a human right and a public good. Governments and other public authorities should ensure that a quality education service is available freely to all citizens from early childhood into adulthood.

Quality education provides the foundation for equity in society. Quality education is one of the most basic public services. It not only enlightens but also empowers citizens and enables them to contribute to the maximum extent possible to the social and economic development of their communities.

An education system with characteristics that may be considered of poor quality, in terms of current thinking, can be a barrier to enrolment and completion. Families and students who live in difficult circumstances will not spend financial and time resources on an education that they do not consider to be of quality.

There is no single definition of educational quality. In addition, the understanding of what constitutes quality education is evolving. A conventional definition remains important in that it includes literacy, numeracy and life skills, and is directly linked to such critical components as teachers, content, methodologies, curriculum, examination systems, policy, planning, and management and administration. Basic academics remain essential.

There is a demand, however, for education to reflect upon its relevance to the modern world. While in the past much of the emphasis in education related to cognitive understanding and development, now there is a need to also address the social and other dimensions of learning. Education is expected to make a contribution to addressing sustainable human development, peace and security, universal values, informed decision-making, and the quality of life and individual, family, societal, and global levels.

Our concern is that children are able to learn through a quality education. One way to address quality is to consider the inputs, processes, environments and outputs that surround and foster, or hamper, learning.

We teachers, then as, frontliners, are essential avenues for the delivery of quality education. — oOo— The author is Teacher I at Tinajero Elementary School, Madapdap Resettlement, Mabalacat City, Pampanga