The Never-Ending Chapter of Struggles for the Filipino Children

EDWIN TUAZON TURLA

The reality of the education system in the Philippines is it was never been prioritized. There are certain issues that were never been focused on right from the beginning. Education should be something that can be easily grasped by a child as he grows and as he builds his dreams. But sadly, it cannot be reached by a mere ordinary child as we refuse to listen to their voices and to see what the problem is.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, there are numerous documentaries showing the struggles of a child going to school seeking education; countless stories that we choose to be blinded by. And now, all it takes is a pandemic crisis to have a sight of what’s the current dilemma and how each of them interconnects with each other: The Budget, The Social Classification between The Privilege and The Poor, and The Quality of Education.

1.The Budget

A study conducted in the year 2019 showed that the Philippines lag behind other ASEAN countries when it comes to budget allocation for education. It shows that the demand in our country to produce a quality workforce doesn’t match the current support the government is giving. We are spending lower than other countries in the education sector. Thus, affecting our county’s economic competitiveness.

Now that the pandemic happened, we are way too late in investment. We are not financially and technologically prepared for this online learning. A recent study conducted by DepEd showed that close to 4 million students were not able to enroll this school year. One of the reasons they see is that we lack resources. Despite being in a digital age, technology seems to be out of reach for most areas here in the Philippines.

Most schools back then lack on computer and internet connection. They were trained about the digital world based on textbooks without experiencing it first-hand. And now that we are on a new normal set up, there were students and even teachers who are not mentally prepared for this adjustment.

How could they use a technology they weren’t been able to have in the past? One more thing that makes our situation worse is that we just let them go to war without giving them a weapon. We just let them adjust to this new normal without thinking that not everyone can afford computers, smartphones, and internet connections. Even if our government pledges the availability of Wi-Fi connection to our country, the connection is still too weak and non-existent in remote areas.

As a result, a large number of students choose to give up on an education they cannot simply afford.

2.The Social Classification of The Privilege and The Poor

Life is unfair, and so is the education access for Filipinos. The social divide in our society has been indeed one of the fundamental issues in our country. Students from urban areas have more access to quality education while those who belong to remote areas still have limited resources. This connects to the issue mentioned above. This is just one of the issues made as an issue emerges. An issue causing another issue.

This social classification may reflect a bigger concern in the long run in our country: the number of unskilled workers and discrimination in education will resurface. Not having the same education inclusions for both private and public schools becomes one of the reasons why some people find it hard to get a job resulting in a greater percentage of unemployment .

3.The Quality of Education

How the country spends on education will mirror the quality of products it produces — the quality of facilities, resources, teachers and so the students. If the budget will not be widely focused on, and if the social divide will still occur, the quality of education will be on a downfall.

The circulating system for some schools should be questioned as well as social divide also happens inside a classroom. A teacher or professor that forces a student to submit projects or expects its attendance despite having a valid reason should be evaluated deeply. There were reports that a student who cannot attend class due to connectivity issues and a student that has been hospitalized due to Covid were still forced to submit their requirements.

Therefore, he and everyone who witnessed this kind of treatment may affect their productivity. Instead of allocating enough time to learn, everything will be on fastpaced, searching for whatever information is there, whatever information they know, or copies to other students for the sake of passing the school year. This poor quality of teaching will lead to poor quality of students resulting to poor economic performance.

Everyone’s adjusting to this pandemic, and it is understandable that we are all not prepared for this pandemic. No one foresaw that this will happen suddenly in our lives. But this occurrence doesn’t mean that we should stop with our development.

That we just let doors closed for those children who could not afford a better quality of education. The chapters in learning should never stop but should never put anyone in the struggle. Our population is growing, our technology is advancing, and so our investment in education should also start improving.

The author

is Master Teacher

I****** at Madapdap Resettlement High School