When Reforms Don't Transform (reaction Paper)

Authors’ Logic This lecture focuses on the present condition of Philippine education – how is it now and how far does it reaches now most especially the different reforms proposed by Department of Education (DepEd). Does our education here in the Philippine is still sustaining its primary objective? Does our educational system still fit for all Filipinos? Does the education given here in our country can develop the competencies that a Filipino youth must have? Do all Filipino students or pupils learn something as we point out the different weaknesses of our educational system here in the Philippines? Does the DepEd do something about it? What the society can do about it? What kind of reform our education need in order to transform? Will it be possible or not? Will this reform can truly transform the present condition of our education here in the Philippine? And when does this transformation through reformation will happen? The questions above could be answered by three professors who conducted a lecture on the state of Philippine basic education. This lecture was entitled as “When Reforms Don‘t Transform: Reflections on Philippine Education” and was conducted by two University of the Philippines - Diliman (UPD) professors Ma. Cynthia Rose B. Bautista (Sociology, College of Social Science and Philosophy), Dina S. Ocampo (Reading Education, College of Education), and De La Salle University (DLSU) professor Allan B. I. Bernardo (Cognitive and Educational Psychology, DLSU‘s College of Education). As they started their lecture, they pointed out the reform that the Philippine education had underwent through the years as formal education first started under the Spanish era and how it was reformed when the Americans invaded our country. The three lecturers were saying that as the Americans reformed the Philippine educational system, this reform was no longer reformed again to sustain the current condition of our country although the DepEd kept saying there is a reform that is happening. Same old problems are still lying today. Primary education was for the working class; secondary education was for the middle class; and, tertiary education for leaders and economic elite. For somehow, this situation still happens today and it is a sad fact that there are many poor Filipinos that’s why after attaining primary education, many Filipino youths stop schooling and they start working to survive. Also, another problem arises when we consider the 1925 Monroe survey, where Yale professor George Counts was part of this team, about the educational system here in the Philippines. George Counts pinpointed these problems that arouse and as according to the three lectures, these problems are still present today in the educational system of our country. One of these was the problem to the language of teaching; Counts protested the teaching of English in the absence of lingua franca. Second was the curriculum was not suited to the Filipino children of the 1920s; third, the teachers were also professionally untrained; and the last was the excessive centralized control over the education which resulted in the uniform implementation of a Western curriculum throughout the archipelago. We can clearly read that from the problems stated during 1920s, it sounded like the issues confronting our country today. Since 1925, various reviews have cited the same fundamental issues afflicting Philippine education. The three lecturers promptly said that the education landscape of our country has not changed since colonial days. According to the lecturers, what is distressing about the problems continually arising in our country is that as according to an assessment in Math, Science and English revealed that sample students in three Mindanao regions had great difficulty with items requiring higher order thinking skills? Also, the comparisons of the country’s primary net enrolment and completion rates to the other countries are so distressing. It seems that the Philippine is left behind because some of our neighbouring countries have higher primary net enrolment and completion rates than us. It just only signifies that the problems concerning

Philippine education should be solved right away. Back to reformation of Philippine education, the three lecturers have said few more reform or changes happened. One of these is the spanning of the education spectrum by having neighbourhood day care centers, alternative schools for special children and farmer-scientist programs. The Congressional Commission on Education or EDCOM proposed a comprehensive set of reforms on issues ranging from access and quality to language of instruction. It restructured the educational system into DepEd, CHED, and TESDA. The three lecturers had also said that there are reform projects that are still operating now through the help of the community and sprouted wonderfully where they were implemented. Project IMPACT or the Project on Instructional Management by Parents, Community, and Teachers is an example. It was initiated as a practical intervention to address overcrowding in Philippine public schools. It has many notable features that are beneficial to students. The fact that the three lecturers puzzled at this time is why the effective IMPACT technology of the 1970s was not uses to address Metro Manila’s overcrowded public schools. Another reform projects told by our lecturers are the BEAM or Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao and TEEP or Third Elementary Education Project. Both TEEP and BEAM implemented the School-Based Management (SBM), a framework that integrates school governance with various school level inputs for achieving equitable access to quality education and this includes changes in perspectives on learning, pedagogy, and community participation. BEAM and TEEP differed in many respects but they had remarkable outcomes. BEAM aims to improve the access and education quality in three regions in Mindanao and it asserts higher order thinking skills develop in flexible and cooperative learning classroom environments rather than in classroom characterized by a one way transmission of knowledge to passive learners. TEEP, on the other hand, more focuses on its decentralization objective and research-identified determinants of desirable student outcomes rather than specific learning theories. Reflecting on these two reform projects, the three lecturers believed that combining the features of these projects is the fastest way to implement SBM nationwide. They also said that it could be effective since BEAM and TEEP are both successful reform projects. After discussing the reformation underwent by the Philippine education and the reform projects that successfully bloomed, the three lecturers discussed why reforms don’t transform when it comes to the educational system of our country since we can see that the DepEd is doing some reform projects and they are doing their job. What are these problems that became hindrances for reform to transform? First, the education sector is a highly centralized system that does not give teachers and principals the freedom and responsibility to design the best school for their children and community. Second, DepEd has developed a “project” approach to reform where key reform thrusts are externally initiated and then dropped once the project is over. Third, attempts at reform have focused on institutional inputs such as school building, textbooks, and training teachers. The wrong assumption in this case is that when such institutional elements are present, they will automatically result in learning. Fourth, learning has simply been assumed and has actually been taken for granted in the reform process. DepEd is truly doing its job to make a solution but then this solution is only applicable for a short period of time and thus, resulting in the repetition of the problem. The lecturers said that the other countries that successfully reformed their educational system used a long-term transformational approach. The transformation of their educational system was designed carefully and so that they could meet long-term national development goals. The three lecturers were just saying that the DepEd should also use long-term solution rather than short-term solution to the underlying problems. In the Philippine, there are initiatives that aim to improve student achievement levels but the question of what and how our students should be learning has not been a central concern in discussions of education reform.

The three lecturers proposed that all education reform in the Philippine should first formulate answers to these fundamental questions: First, what kind of knowledge and skills will enable Filipinos to participate effectively in the world of work and also to transform their communities and societies? Second, what kinds of knowledge and skills will enable citizens to build better futures for themselves and for others in their communities? In these questions, competency enters the scenario and thus, the key that our educational system is lacking of or cannot give. As the three lecturers talked about competency, functional literacy and transformational citizenship came into picture. The goals of these two are: to provide learners a window to the world and linguistic, textual, and symbolic tools to engage with the world as acting and autonomous individuals interacting with various groups; to participate the students in transformative ways that they will learn to understand and analyze, to negotiate and cooperate, and if necessary to protest and initiate new forms of social participation; and to develop in all students an intrinsic value for learning and knowledge. In order to attain competency or in order to give it to the students, educational reform must transform our schools into powerful learning environments. Also, there should be a transformation in the traditional pedagogies for classroom instruction. Everyone should know that learning can also be found in informal and nonformal activities and practices based in communities, places of work, and even in the virtual spaces of the internet. It is also said that competency can be attain if there will be combination of creative and flexible forms of alternative learning system. It will best provide access to powerful lifelong learning opportunities to as many diverse learners as possible. As an addition to that, our schools and teachers should be allowed to explore diverse approaches to help our students attain the desired learning competencies. The three lecturers also discussed the case of language used in our educational system. The lecturers also see problems regarding with the language that is use as medium of instruction. These problems have already aroused since the 1925 Monroe survey and this problem continues to affect the learning of Filipino children today. English language has been chosen to be the medium of instruction and it’s been the challenges for native Filipino children to learn two unfamiliar languages simultaneously. They have to master the vocabulary and grammar of these languages to make meaning. While doing that, they have to learn to read. Then, they have to be quick because they have to learn social studies, math, and science at the same time. The lecturers see it as a heavy burden for Filipino children. Individual difference is a simple and fundamental principle in education which means that teaching must start with the student’s strengths. This is based on the view of learning that children will eventually transverse the unknown if they are able to connect this to what they already know. To be specific and direct to the point, the lecturers were just saying that education should begin with the child’s language before systematically moving towards our desired additional languages. The three professors who were also the lecturers ended this lecture by suggesting what UP can do in the service of education reform. They said that UP can mobilize its multidisciplinary expertise as it did in the past. It can also provide the much needed research on all aspects of Philippine education including its own policies. As a well-known university that have high degree of excellency in education, UP must find ways for the education system to break free from the tireless repetitions of problems and so called solutions and if there’s one thing that UP must do in the service of the nation, it is this: bring together the country’s education reformists to work with the public, and even with the private education sector. Student’s Logic

A. Critics “Why reforms don’t take root... and transform the sector and Philippine society...?” A line taken up by one of the lecturers, Ma. Cynthia B. Rose, who opened up the lecture. Honestly, I like their topic that tackles about the Philippine education and also, only by reading what they discussed in UP Centennial Lecture, this is the only time when I realize that I am ignorant about these things. I thought before that there is just a little problem on our education system here in the Philippines but I prove myself wrong as I read this article or lecture. It became my eye-opener to see the many underlying problems. I also thought before that there is no problem regarding with the DepEd but I prove myself wrong again. Before, I respect DepEd so much and regard them as the only department, together with the DOH, who are truly doing something. Yes, DepEd is doing something but what they are doing is not enough because still, education reforms don’t take it root to transform. Philippine is still left behind and all of us need to do something about it. As of now, I view DepEd as a department who is doing something that is not fruitful. If ever it is fruitful, I don’t think they recognize it since the DepEd seems to forget the true essence of education and learning. Just like the Project IMPACT – why on earth they do not implement it here in Metro Manila since this reform project is successful in making solution to overcrowding school? Also, why they do not view decentralization as an important process for education reform to transform? What is the problem with those people behind DepEd? They are not blind but they keep closing their eyes to see the truth that lies in their front. Also, I do not like how they pursue English to become the medium of instruction in primary education. Now, I understand how it is important to discuss what medium of instruction to use because how could the children learn if they can’t understand what they are reading or what they are studying? Dina Ocampo, one of the lecturers, is right for saying that education should begin with the child’s language. It would be easy for children to learn if they can truly understand what they are studying. So simple it is but the DepEd is ignoring it. I don’t know if I am right in criticizing the DepEd and if not, I believe that there is something wrong with them and how they do their job. How I wish now that they change for the better. It is not funny and I am not happy on what they are doing. I want to say to them how disappointed I am to them. I am hoping that with lectures or articles like this, they would finally wake up. B. Insights “Education Reforms will not transform unless we go back to fundamental questions about what education is and what it is for.” It is a line told by one of the lecturers, Allan B. I. Bernardo, as he narrated or discussed the constraints posed by ways of thinking about frame education practices. I like that line because it shows about what is truly lacking in transforming Philippine education. Nowadays, people, most especially to those people behind the DepEd, seem to forget what education is and what it is for. Many people just perceive education only as a necessity in our daily lives but they don’t really ask themselves why it became a necessity? Looking at education as a necessity is not enough for a person or group of people who want to transform it. Everyone must know the basic before anything else because the basic info about what education is and what it is for will became the foundation for Philippine education to transform. What is education? From the root word, educate, meaning to teach, education means as the action or process of educating or of being educated. A process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, value, and skills from one generation to generation. An action that involves teaching and most of all, learning. Yes, learning! Most people, nowadays, view education equal to school, the institution itself and how sad it is they forget that education is merely all

about learning. Yes, learning! Obviously everyone should learn and should value learning because no one will live, survive, and prosper if one doesn’t want to learn. So simple what education is but people seem to forget about it. If only all of us here in the Philippine view education as what truly it is, then, the transformation of education would no longer find it hard to continue and bloom. What education is for? I think I’ve already answered the essence of the answer of this question but since we want to clarify things better, let’s be specific. Education is for the masses to learn; not only to those who are rich but to all people who belongs to the society even the poor. Everyone should be educated because every need to learn in order to live, survive, and prosper. The only problem here in our country is only those who can afford to go to school are the only one who are educated in a broadest sense. Education is dedicated to all and the ones who are responsible for it here in the Philippine should do something to give it to all Filipinos. I believe that DepEd should not only make a move just to prove they are doing something. I believe that they should make a move having the spirit to truly transform the education reform for all Filipinos’ sake and for the sake of learning. Also, I believe that we will need the help of one another to do this successfully.

When Reforms Don’t Transform: Reflections on Philippine Education (Reaction Paper) \

Submitted by: Michelle G. Rocillo II – 14 Submitted to: Prof. Bert Tuga (Teacher – Professional Education 1: Foundations of Education)