This is not the UAAP rivalry between the De La Salle Green
Archers and the Ateneo Blue Eagles inside the playing court. But top men from the
two prominent schools have different takes on how to do the reforms on our basic education system and clash
of ideas has been seen by the media.
Br. Armin Luistro FSC of the De La Salle Brothers and now the secretary of Department of Education under President Aquino defended his plan of adding 2 more years to basic education making it 12 years of education from its present of 10 years. He said that it aims to keep up with the international standard of 12-year basic education which the Philippines now lags behind. Further, the former president of De La Salle University – Manila has ordered DepEd to have a general review and overhaul of the basic education curriculum which is expected to be finish in two years.
This plan of Sec. Luistro has been assailed by Jesuit priest Beinvenido Nebres SJ who worked as the head of former President Arroyo’s Presidential Task Force on Education. Nebres SJ said that what is badly needed to be addressed by the department right now is to address the school backlog. Nebres SJ explained:
“Quite frankly, while you can look at the curriculum, at the end of the day, what counts is what happens in the classroom…If you have a classroom filled with 80 kids for 40, you can do whatever is in the curriculum and not much will happen…the heart of the problem is not so much changing the curriculum. The heart of the problem is to make it possible for the teacher to teach well.”
But the archer shot down the eagle’s opinion saying,
“Why? Is it not possible to do both? They always say it’s either one or the other but this is a good time to bring the components together. Whatever changes we want to do, this is the best time to do it. Rather than put old win into wine skins, we will start with new wine skins.”
It will be recalled that during the brief moment when Pres. Aquino and former Pres. Arroyo took a short travel together inside the presidential car for the Inauguration, the latter said to have endorsed to the new president the recommendations that Fr. Nebres SJ on the issues surrounding our basic education in the Philippines.
Off to you guys. To whom are you betting on what to do with reforming our basic education, Br. Luistro’s “doing both” or Fr. Nebres’ working first on school backlog?
Jhay (2)
skysenshi (2)
CamilleDL (1)
Both concerns are valid. There is a glaring backlog in public education. But we have the funds for it, just set aside much of PAGCOR’s income for a year or two and you can solve the backlog in logistics.
Then you can move on to the intangibles like the curriculum and teacher-training.
Fr Nebres, SJ’s point is more of a pragmatic one, while Br. Armin, FSC’s is more of the idealistic one. I say let’s give the former some time to present his plan while keeping the latter’s point of view well in mind.
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Incidentally, I also posted something about this in a recent blog entry: http://www.skysenshi.com/2010/09/as-international-literacy-day-passes-i.html
I’m going with both. They make sense so I think it’s a good idea to combine both their brain powers to help improve our basic education.
Being in the education sector, I was actually aware of this issue months before this was released. We all had our opinions, which basically boiled down to: What does globalization mean for us? If we follow the trend in other countries, it means that we are educating our youngsters for employment in other countries. They will forget their culture in order to fit into that global mindset. (It was in one of the proposals passed, that Philippine History be removed from the bridge program because Science, Math and English are deemed more important.) On the other hand, we are overpopulated here and there’s not much we can offer our graduates in terms of employment opportunities.
Hm. In the meantime — while the Eagles and the Archers are arguing over this — I’m just going to look at our Pep Squad. Go UP! Hehehe.
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And UP actually won the UAAP Cheerdance competition…La Salle and Ateneo are nowhere to be found, LOL
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They are wonderful. Mwa mwa. Love ya, UP!!!
(I saw their routine in the Pep Squad’s Facebook page. Jaw-dropping, I must say.)
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