“PSA STUDY: 19M SHS GRADS ‘FUNCTIONAL ILLITERATE’” — Inquirer headline.
Functional illiterate senior high school students refer to those who could read, write and compute but could not understand what they read. This is the finding of the Philippine Statistics Authority’s periodic study, as found out in a hearing conducted in a Senate hearing.
As of last year, estimated number of Filipinos, age 10 to 64, who may be considered as functional illiterate, is 24.82 million.
Another 5.86 million Filipinos belonging to the same age group are “basic illiterate,” or unable to read, write and compute. Educator and Inquirer columnist Lynn Pinugu clarifies, “In more concrete terms, someone who is considered functional illiterate has very basic reading and writing skills but is unable to apply them effectively in everyday situations and contexts…for example they may be able to write their full name but they cannot properly fill out a job application form or understand complex written instructions.”
WHAT HAPPENED?
In other words, almost 25 percent of the more than 116 Filipinos are under-educated or miseducated, and are most likely unable to cope fully with facing life’s difficulties with the necessary critical decision-making skills, and values that make them see and do what is right, and avoid doing what is wrong.
In short, material and mental/cognitive poverty have stalked millions of Filipinos, subjecting them to the bane of political patronage during elections, promoted by the political dynasties – at the expense of good governance for the country.
What happened?
The former president who is now detained in Hague, Netherlands, in an International Criminal Court (ICC) detention cell, facing charges of “crimes against humanity” failed since 2016, to focus on improving the country’s education system. He concentrated, unfortunately for the country, on his brutal “War on Drugs,” enforced by his aides, current senators Bato de la Rosa and Bong Go, resulting in more than 30,000 extrajudicial killings (EJKs).
Severely unaddressed were the problems of lack of classrooms, low educational technological support, outdated curricula on values, patriotism and good citizenship, antiquated teacher education modules, and inadequate pay for teachers.
[M]aterial and mental/cognitive poverty have stalked millions of Filipinos, subjecting them to the bane of political patronage during elections, promoted by the political dynasties – at the expense of good governance for the country.
REMOVE ALL VISUALS!
Sadly, the current president, Bongbong Marcos (the son of the dictator, Ferdinand E. Marcos, who plundered the economy, amassed billions of ill-gotten wealth, suppressed the Freedoms of Speech, the Press and Assembly, and caused the illegal arrests, tortures, rapes, detentions, enforced disappearances, and massacres of more than 200,000 Filipinos), appointed his vice-president, Sara Duterte, as the DepED Secretary.
Result: a disaster – her first instruction to the schools, in the elementary and high school levels, was: “Remove all the visuals displayed on the walls of classrooms, because they are distractions.”
The netizens responded, the teachers among them: “Stupid Sara! Doesn’t she know that the classroom walls posted with the alphabet – A to Z, the numbers 1 to 20, and pictures of Lapu-Lapu, Tandang Sora, Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Diego Silang, and other Filipino national heroes, as well as those of the country’s presidents, are effective learning devices and reminders for the children?
The pictures of the national heroes, in particular, tell the story of how these courageous Filipinos fought off the oppressive regimes of the Spanish, American and Japanese colonizers. And the students are called on to nurture the same spirit of love of country, and their learnings are aimed at making them responsible citizens in their adulthood.
CONFIDENTIAL FUND
Worse, DepEd Secretary Sara Duterte focused on spending her budgeted confidential fund of P612.5 million, apparently in support of the notorious NTF-ELCAC, responsible for the killing and enforced disappearances of environment and reformist activists.
So, when will Filipinos enjoy a world-class education system?
Excellent reporting! Now we all will realize in the years to come how f…-up the Philippines is and will be, from education leading to ill-prepared and poor-quality citizens of the future, to the quality of present leaders who are simply too dumb, greedy, and incompetent, only interested in enriching themselves, and an election system being perpetuated to ensure that those in power and their minions remain in power up to their next of kins in later generations, and more evil outlook in the horizon!
Any group of leaders after the Kadiliman and Kasamaan batch will have tons of serious challenges in overhauling our broken political, economic and educational systems! Sadly, the next leaders may as well be incompetent just like suppose non-corrupt leaders of the past who failed to institute necessary changes during their time, or dumb leaders produced by the current broken educational system.
The future looks dim indeed, and dimmer probably, full of uncertainties and leaning more towards a continuation of the lost half century of the immediate past!