Piranha frenzy

February 9, 2008  --  Got something to say?
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Notebook By Jual L. MercadoBy Jual L. Mercado
We spend about P7,000 for every student in this country,” the Education Department official said at a recent Region 7 meeting. The international average spending, when converted, is about P47,000. Many other countries spend more than P100,000 for each student.”

So, is that news? Weve always snitched on our kids futures by penny-pinching on essentials, be it schools or health. Of 42 countries that took the Third International Mathematics and Science Test in 1995, for example, the Philippines limped in as Number 39, just above Kuwait , Sri Lanka and South Africa.

We then spent the smallest amount per pupil: US$318 (purchasing power parity), an earlier Philippine Human Development Report observed. Thailand which near the median spent more than six times as much per pupil. And topnotcher Singapore allocated $1,582.

The Philippine math average ( then ) was only 78 percent of world average,” PDHR added. In science, the score of Filipino children in lower secondary school were below the international median by 77 percent.”

In the fourth IMST, we were a non-descript 38th among 42 nations. Now, were into what? The seventh IMST drill? And we really havent budged out of cellar status. Thats been true too with national tests. When ill-educated kids flunk, as hundreds do, we resort to a typically Pinoy device: Instead of tough reviews and retakes, we lower the passing grade, notes A New Math: 37.5 = 75.”

Thus, theres thin comfort in Mark Twains wisecrack: I never let schooling interfere with my education. Go through what kids scribble and wince. We hav sop drink in batols. Or listen to the noontime soaps. Simple question and answer contests flummox our kids…

In the post World-War II effort to wipe out backlogs, schools got about 30 centavos out of every tax peso. This shriveled during the Marcos dictatorship even as population surged, foreign borrowings bolted and corruption metastasized.. School budgets then dipped to a trough of 5.6 percent in 1976″. And in the New Societys waning years, it averaged only 8.7 percent.

Theres an errie little-noticed echo of that tailspin in the Asian Development and World Bank report on Early Childhood Development”. Malnutrition ushered in more Filipino pre-school children to premature graves than poorer countries like Bangladesh or Kenya, that landmark report noted. Under the Marcos regime, the steady decline in infant mortality faltered, then stopped as health services thinned out. And death rates started to climb.

The Aquino government reversed this lethal decline, the bank report said. It also restored educations importance, PHD Report adds. That budgetary priority continues today : Succeeding administrations slice, for education, the largest share of the budget.

The education budget is 3 percent of countrys GDP or total output. Thats large if one uses total government spending as yardstick for comparison. But a reality check comes in comparison that other East Asian countries allocate.: 5 to 6 per cent.

This is double what we anted up, despite officials Wholl sound off with numerous Filipino proverbs on educations value. Say aral ag natepeway kuarta, Pangasinans Speaker Jose de Venecia would say. Education is better than wealth.”

Sure. But rhetoric papers over the persisting gap. Priority In Public Spending tables, of the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report, show Malaysia spends 8.0 percent of its GDP for Education, more than double our allocation ( 3.2 percent ). Thailand set aside 4.2 percent for its schools.
Asian Development Bank just released a comparative study of real per capita income in Asia and the Pacific. The 2005 International Comparison Program says, for example, Malaysias real per capita GDP is 3.9 times bigger than the Philippines. Bruneis GDP is 40 times larger than Nepal .

This is not a bleeding-heart argument for throwing more money at schools. Rather, it is a hard-nosed fact that economists have proven : education is the escape hatch from poverty. In a study of regional poverty, UP School of Economics Arsenio Balisacan found that the rate of poverty incidence falls by three percent for every one percent improvement in functional literacy.”

Many congressmen are like piranhas. A scent of blood whips them into a frenzy. Hence, there is little hope that congressmen will yield to former Senator Franklin Drilons plea to waive their pork barrel.
Can this nation survive schools that are locked into perpetual crisis: from overworked, under-trained teachers to error studded textbooks and schoolroom shortages? That seems the least of our officials concerns.

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