IN a professional/consultant capacity I am currently involved in an NGO-led project that aims to uplift the quality of public education in the Philippines with a vision to “nurture teachers to build a nation of readers.”
Big words. But that’s how visions should be, shouldn’t they? On the tactical level, the project is designed to empower public school teachers by giving them access to ICT (Information and Communications Technology) and online teacher-training resources.
In helping prepare the proposal that would hopefully get the project much-needed funding I came across some statistics that really made me sad. Consider these facts:
Out of every 100 Filipino students —
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- only 98 will enter grade school
- only 75 will complete Grade 4
- only 65 will graduate from Grade 6
- only 58 will enter High School
- only 42 will graduate from High School
- only 14 will become college graduates
This sad reality does not end here.
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- only 2 out of every 100 fourth year high school student are fit to enter college
- in Metro Manila where the literacy index is relatively much higher than in rural areas, incoming high school students are reading at Grade 4 or Grade 5 levels — two years behind in terms of their age and grade levels!
As a product of the Philippine Public School System (from elementary to high school) and a proud son of a public school teacher I can easily connect with these realities. Given the above odds I consider myself to be very lucky. I hope I can be instrumental even in a small way in alleviating the sad state of our public school system (My mom has dedicated her whole life to this cause and continues to do so to this day.).
And this is why I fervently hope that this project will take off. I believe in it. #
Note: above statistics were lifted from research prepared by Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation.
sad.
and did you notice the quality of graduates today? but i think that would be another post.
sad, but true.
>Carmine: Nice to hear from you, and thanks for visiting my blog. I’ll try to pull some figures re: quality of graduates today and maybe blog about it. Yes, it’s really sad and it’s true.