Quaint is a word to describe Madame Hello-ria Arroyo. I cannot remember any of her predecessors in Malacañang react publicly to the oft-repeated line that the poor cannot feel their administration's claim of "an improving economy." Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember it reported that Ramos or Erap made tantrums over reports that the poor could not feel any improvement in their quality of life. Only Madame Hello-ria saw it fit to bitch about it, which is tantamount to telling us to look only at the figures and not mind our churning tummies.
I still recall how GMA rudely interrupted an undersecretary of the Department of Education who was, at the time, the acting DepEd Secretary in the midst of her report. GMA reportedly got irked at the very negative picture being painted by the acting secretary’s report, especially when the latter mentioned that we have a 1:100 classroom to student ratio. At this, GMA reportedly stood up and told everyone present that the report is incorrect and right there and then ordered the acting secretary to revise her report and make the ratio 1:50 based on a two shifts a day computation.
The fact is the two-shift scheme is not practicable in all public schools especially in the countryside. We have full day classes here in Tabuk where we have a 1:70 classroom-to-student ratio in the biggest schools. Having two shifts of classes is also not practiced in government schools in the barrios. They have around 20-30 students (maybe less) in a class anyway.
The above translates to a LOT more than 50 students in a classroom in the population centers like Metro Manila and the other metropolises even with the two-shift scheme. This is so because the figures used in the computation were national figures with no discrimination between urban and rural areas.
What I’m driving at is that the figures insisted upon by GMA do not give an accurate picture of the state of Philippine education. It also reflects a lot on her.
Still on the state of our public school classrooms, I attended a national seminar in Subic four years ago where I met two teachers from Parañaque, one of whom claimed his advisory class had 105 students packed like sardines in a classroom designed for 50 students. I can believe him because the other teachers who were from Northern Luzon claim to have between 80-90 students in a classroom. They all admitted that there were students in their classes whose names they could not match with the right face even towards the end of the school year.
I am pointing this out because the fact that our public schools get more and more populated each year is a sign that less and less people can afford to send their children to private schools in spite of the fact that private schools (most of them, at least) could guarantee a better education for their kids. That more and more parents cannot afford the tuition of private schools, I am sure, is not a sign of an improving economy. Maybe, it is improving. But for whom?
You can talk of an improving economy and cite all the statistics that would back your claim, but all that will be rendered meaningless with a churn of the stomach, which millions of our countrymen get to experience, some on a regular basis. **Bani Asbucan
I still recall how GMA rudely interrupted an undersecretary of the Department of Education who was, at the time, the acting DepEd Secretary in the midst of her report. GMA reportedly got irked at the very negative picture being painted by the acting secretary’s report, especially when the latter mentioned that we have a 1:100 classroom to student ratio. At this, GMA reportedly stood up and told everyone present that the report is incorrect and right there and then ordered the acting secretary to revise her report and make the ratio 1:50 based on a two shifts a day computation.
The fact is the two-shift scheme is not practicable in all public schools especially in the countryside. We have full day classes here in Tabuk where we have a 1:70 classroom-to-student ratio in the biggest schools. Having two shifts of classes is also not practiced in government schools in the barrios. They have around 20-30 students (maybe less) in a class anyway.
The above translates to a LOT more than 50 students in a classroom in the population centers like Metro Manila and the other metropolises even with the two-shift scheme. This is so because the figures used in the computation were national figures with no discrimination between urban and rural areas.
What I’m driving at is that the figures insisted upon by GMA do not give an accurate picture of the state of Philippine education. It also reflects a lot on her.
Still on the state of our public school classrooms, I attended a national seminar in Subic four years ago where I met two teachers from Parañaque, one of whom claimed his advisory class had 105 students packed like sardines in a classroom designed for 50 students. I can believe him because the other teachers who were from Northern Luzon claim to have between 80-90 students in a classroom. They all admitted that there were students in their classes whose names they could not match with the right face even towards the end of the school year.
I am pointing this out because the fact that our public schools get more and more populated each year is a sign that less and less people can afford to send their children to private schools in spite of the fact that private schools (most of them, at least) could guarantee a better education for their kids. That more and more parents cannot afford the tuition of private schools, I am sure, is not a sign of an improving economy. Maybe, it is improving. But for whom?
You can talk of an improving economy and cite all the statistics that would back your claim, but all that will be rendered meaningless with a churn of the stomach, which millions of our countrymen get to experience, some on a regular basis. **Bani Asbucan
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