By TONY LOPEZ
What a monumental mess Vice President Sara Duterte left at the Department of Education.
Public elementary and high school education has failed our kids. Our 15-year-olds cannot read, cannot write, cannot count beyond 20, and cannot explain the science of simple experiences. About 75% fail the tests for competency in math, reading, and science. After 12 years in school, they learn only the skills good for seven years of schooling. Bullying is rampant, twice the global ratio. Change is coming.
In the two years that Duterte was in charge of the government’s biggest cabinet department, July 2022 to June 2024, here are examples of what happened:
75% failure rate in global competency tests
Of 7,193 15-year-olds (90% of them came from public schools) who took the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) in the third quarter of 2022, in Math, Science and Reading, more than 75% failed the competency tests—the worst in the world, with 81 countries participating, or 77th out of 81.
The main problem is the decrepit Philippine public school system. The 10% students, those who came from private schools, did significantly better, with 16% higher PISA grade in Math, 21% higher grade in Science, and 25% higher grade in Reading.
12 years of schooling good only for five years of competency
Today, Filipino high school kids who finish 12 years of schooling learn only the equivalent of seven years of schooling or competency—in Math, Science and Reading, a delay or deficit of five years, compared with their peers abroad who finish the same 12 years of schooling. Our 15-year-olds, for all practical purposes, are certifiably stupid. They cannot read. Even if they can read, they cannot understand what they read. They cannot even read their own names. They cannot count beyond 20. They don’t know science, the how and why of things. They cannot explain ordinary happenings using knowledge acquired in school.
To remedy such massive stupidity, Secretary Sara had a program called Catchup Fridays. It failed.
Undelivered laptops
— DepEd Secretary Duterte delivered only three of every 100 laptops and learning resources intended for some 22 million kids in elementary and high school.
— Laptops and smart tvs procured or imported way back in 2020 and 2022 were not delivered. In 2023, procurement of new laptops took six months while delivery another six months. Result: Very poor delivery. Laptops have useful life of five years. So if these computers and smart tvs are delivered today, they will be good for just a year.
— In 2023, of 5,133 classrooms targetted to be built and already funded, only 192 were built.
— In Philippine public schools today, there is only one computer for every nine students, and one computer for every 30 teachers. The absence of computers did damage to Filipino examinees in PISA. The tests were done with computers. It was the first time most of the Filipino participants had a chance to use computers and a mouse.
— Science is taught by teachers who do not know science or were not trained nor educated for it. Teachers are supposed to teach and only teach. Yet, they are given no less than 50 administrative and ancillary tasks not related to their teaching chore.
— Sara was mayor of sprawling Davao City for 12 years or for three terms. She was known as feisty. Her regime was marked by extrajudicial killings.
She was a bad example. Filipino students suffer from among the highest incidences of bullying. Six of every ten Grade 5 students experience bullying at least once a month. This is double the bullying ratio in the world or in countries who participate in the OECD’s PISA system.
Formidable
On July 18, 2024, long-time senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny”Angara took over the DepEd. He calls the problems he inherited “formidable”. Yet, he is determined to succeed.
DepEd is the government’s biggest bureaucracy. One of every two employed by the government is a teacher. The Education budget for 2025 is P790.89 billion, 12.5% of the proposed P6.32 trillion national expenditure program. The government spends only 3.7% of GDP for education.
The ideal should be 4% to 6%. The government spends on average P31,000 per student. Of every P100, P70 goes to the salary of the teacher.
Coping with PISA failure
DepEd Secretary Angara is keen to improve the Philippines’ PISA rankings dramatically.
“PISA is about enhancing a learner’s critical skill as well as his ability to be analytical and to approach a problem in several aspects,” notes Angara, “meaning one question can challenge his reading, math, and science capabilities in real life situations.”
“What we are doing is have (kids’) education to be multi-dimensional in that sense. So the kids can cope with such kind of exams,” Angara told a recent House budget hearing on the DepEd’s P790-billion 2025 budget.
“Also, there seems to be a focus on certain types of awareness, meaning environmental awareness, and other problems, climate change, among others. So it is very crucial to enhance that in our learners,” the Education chief explains.
He recalls that those who took the 2022 PISA exams, it was their first time to use a computer and a computer mouse, “so they panicked.”
More computers and fast
This is why, Angara stresses, “we will get as many of them to have access to computers, and for them to take the test on computers.”
“There is also the problem of language because some take the test in their native language but there is no PISA test in Filipino as of yet,” recalls Angara, “so the test was in English.”
Foundational skills
DepEd seeks to de-congest or de-clutter the curriculum “so we can focus on the foundational skills – literacy, numeracy, reading, math.”
Angara told Congress:
“Ang nais ko lang sana ay guminhawa po yung buhay ng ating mga learners at ng ating mga guro at ng DepEd Family and in what way? By making sure that we provide the learning environment, the appropriate learning environment for our learners although it is quite a formidable problem to provide some of the resources to enable our children to really learn and to empower our teachers.”
Also, he wants to “enable the DepEd to function more efficiently as an organization, make sure the books are delivered on time, the computers are working, there is electricity in our schools just the basics. The problems have become serious and intractable that we’ve sunk to new lows. We really need to step up as an organization. Each of us in the DepEd must get out of our comfort zones and work overtime.”