Sunday, September 17, 2006
EDUCATION FOR SALE!
Buy it at the most expensive school near you.
“The state shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels and shall take appropriate steps to make education accessible to all.”
Article 14 Sec. 1 1987 Constitution
There is a worsening crisis in the educational system. Year after year, tuition fees across the nation are jacked up to provide quality education.
This blatant display of commercialization signals the entry of education into the market forces as provided in the myopic education plan of the present regime.
Thus, the commercial, colonial, and repressive characteristics of our educational system are maintained.
The educational system is commercialized because high tuition and miscellaneous fees determine the parameters in getting quality education. As profit-oriented educators run the show, education becomes more and more a privilege for a few.
The educational system is colonial because it caters to the need for a cheap, skilled and obedient manpower for the multinational and transnational corporations. As students drop out, more vocational schools are built to absorb them and to churn out a labor force for these corporations. Textbooks often conform to Western setting and despite findings that students learn faster in the native tongue, English is still used as a medium of instruction.
The educational system is repressive because the regime suppresses students who struggle for their welfare and rights inside and outside the school. Non-recognition of mass orgs, clamping down student publications, controlling student councils and the contractualization and retrenchment of faculty members are indications that the regime is intent on molding passive students to anti-people policies.
With these situations, it is evident that the present government has failed to perform its purpose of uplifting the sate of the education in the country. Instead, it has been one with the educator-capitalist of stealing hard-earned money from our parents and has never upheld student’s rights and welfares. With this continuing degradation of the country’s educational system, primarily because of the lack of utmost support from the government itself, no wonder, years from now, our country will be a pool of drug addicts, pushers, and prostitutes.
The present regime provides a hopeless future for the students and youth. The only way is to militantly struggle for genuine freedom and democracy, for a nationalist, scientific, and mass oriented education.
A nationalist education upholds the dignity and independence of the Filipino people from imperialist rule. It is geared toward propagating national consciousness, an awareness of the interest of the majority and a genuine desire to serve the majority.
A scientific education pursues the development of science and technology in service of national interest. It seeks national industrialization and agrarian reform to achieve economic emancipation and self reliance.
A mass-oriented education that is based on the needs of the majority. It is expressive of the struggle and aspirations of the Filipino majority and is democratic, participatory, free and accessible regardless of socio-economic class.
Now, more than ever, the students should actively fight to expose the decadent nature of the system and to fight militantly against it.
PS: This is one my favorite articles characterizing Philippine Educational Sysytem in the country.
Posted by alfred ::
4:15 PM ::
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