Is a DepEd Summit needed? (Part 2)

For 375 years (1521-1896), Spain did not create a free public school system in our nation. Filling up the vacuum, the church opened parochial schools in parishes. The church and parochial schools were in the town poblacion and only children whose parents live in the poblacion like the hacienderos, businessmen/public officials could send their children to school. The children of the laborers, tenants, workers had no money for education. The masa in the colonies of U.K. (India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Burma, Borneo, Ceylon, Bangladesh), France (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), Holland (Indonesia) were also in the same situation.

America defeated Spain in 1898. As consolation for the war, America paid Spain 20 million dollars at one dollar per Filipino. America was a British colony until it fought and won its independence in 1776 and then had a colony when it bought the Philippines. It did 3 things which in 1900 made the other European colonizers in Asia very uneasy. 1. Allowed elections of public officials from mayor, governor to representative. 2. Opened public schools with American teachers who were later called Thomasites (most teachers arrived in a ship named S.S. Thomas so the name stuck), and 3. Built public hospitals. This is why 80% of the 100 million Filipinos can read and write English. Except for us and Singapore the percentage of English speaking people in Asia range from 2% to 30% because English is not part of their curriculum.

Under America, (1898-1946) a Filipino enters high school after finishing grade 7. In 1946 we became a republic and DepEd’s biggest problem was whether one can enter high school after grade 6 because some wanted to add grade 7 in the elementary system. In 1946, the government adopted the grade 6 rule. PNoy Added grade 7/8 starting school year 2016 because his DepEd secretary, advisers, consultants wanted it. The grade 7/8 rule would not have been made if one or some of PNoy’s USECS/consultants belonged to the masa/middle class and started their DepEd career as public school teachers in Manila’s squatters areas, in provincial, mountainous places with old about to fall school houses with flood prone grounds, leaking roofs, dirty/smelly open air toilets, badly lit, unventilated classrooms, very few erasers, chalks, teaching visual aids. These masa-exposed oriented teachers saw, knew, and felt the “calvary” of the poor masa parents who scrimp, save, salvage, struggle, endure every day so that their children can finish grade 6 and after 4 high school years of continuous toil of blood, sweat, and tears, with a sigh of relief and big smile, think at least with a high school diploma, my child can get a job and help us.

It is in this light I ask the DepEd to reconsider the grade 7/8 rule. There should be public hearings not only in the fully air-conditioned, sweet smelling, clean, spacious, brightly lighted urban halls but also outside Manila. The consultations could be in the dirty, very old, humid, foul, smelly basketball gyms, not in the Regional offices which have the same comfort as the Manila DepEd offices.

Do it in the towns, barangays and squatter areas. For once, let’s listen to the 100 million poor, not to the burgis, the elites, the illustrados and middle class. We are playing with their children, not with the children of the burgis and elite who have all the time, money and comfort to easily enter High School. Anytime, ALL THE TIME.