Philippine Education:
Still commercialized and geared towards foreign interests

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

Among Gloria Arroyo's rather fantastic promises in her June State of the Nation Address was "education for all"�a despicable attempt to placate the youth's simmering discontent over her rotten and puppet regime. The regime has neither intention nor interest to change the commercialized, colonial and repressive education that has long prevailed in the country.

Exorbitant costs of education. A study by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) reveals that a family spends up to P10,000 yearly for various educational expenses in sending a child to public elementary or secondary school. College education is even more costly. At the minimum, tuition in a state college or university comes to P3,100 a year. But a student still needs to cough up P6,900 a month (or P34,500 per semester) for other expenses.

With the budget for education progressively reduced annually, tuition fees in public schools have correspondingly increased year after year. In fact, since 1998, tuition fees in public colleges and universities have risen by a bigger percentage than in private schools.

But if tuition fees in public schools are exorbitant, those in private schools are sky-high. In private schools, one has to pay P22,000 for tuition and other fees per semester. The P65,000 semestral tuition fee in exclusive schools is sheer highway robbery. In the last five years, tuition fees have gone up a total of 65%, while the usual miscellaneous fees have gone up 140%.

The reactionary government has long granted private schools absolute freedom to increase tuition and other fees. This fact dates back to 1982 when the Marcos dictatorship passed the Education Act. In 1997, the Higher Education Modernization Act (HEMA) was passed, empowering the board of regents of public schools to increase fees.

Like previous reactionary regimes, the Arroyo regime has no intention of allotting adequate funds for education. The 2003 national budget provides P130 billion or only 30% of the GDP, for education�a mere half of the percentage recommended by the United Nations. If the regime gets its way, it would provide no more than the same amount for education in next year's budget. Based on the latest price increases and depreciation of the peso, the real value of the P130 billion education budget comes to only P74 billion. The P16.69 billion allocated for 111 public universities and colleges is actually worth a mere P9.51 billion in real terms.

Education for foreign interests. The reactionary state's major educational policies continue to serve imperialist interests. Schools mold the consciousness of Filipino children, inculcating the kind of thinking and worldview that rationalize the present semicolonial and semifeudal social system. They prepare a few to take charge of the reactionary and puppet government and train others to serve as managers and technocrats of monopoly corporations. The greater majority are trained to become subservient workers willing to receive meager wages.

Under the "globalization" slogan, the 2002 Revitalized Basic Education Curriculum (RBEC) or Makabayan elementary school curriculum was implemented ostensibly to make the Filipino youth "globally competitive." The number of core subjects was reduced to five�English, Science, Mathematics, Filipino and "Makabayan" which is a hodgepodge of Social Studies, Music, Physical Education, Health and Technology, and Home Economics. Tailored to the needs of large companies, the teaching of English, Math and Science was broadened. The teaching of history and other social sciences � subjects that have the potential to instill patriotism and militancy � has, on the other hand, been practically dispensed with.

The Arroyo regime implemented the RBEC with indecent haste because it was a condition for the approval of an IMF-WB loan for education sought by the regime. Without much ado, Arroyo likewise ordered the use of English as the medium of instruction in schools. Now, as they did then, imperialist institutions continue to recognize the importance of primary education in producing much-needed workers for the future.

For high school and college, imperialist institutions stress the need for vocational-technical education to ensure a sufficient supply of semi-skilled workers for monopoly corporations.

In line with the reactionary government's labor export policy, the education and training of Filipino youth are ostensibly directed at making them "globally competitive." Education agencies stress such training so that the Filipino youth's labor power could more effectively be offered in auction and sold abroad. This is not surprising, since it is overseas contract workers' remittances that continue to keep the country's bankrupt economy afloat.

To give a concrete example of how much education catering to foreign needs has been emphasized, the government has been promoting and supporting schools that provide nursing and caregiver training programs since the US, Canada and the UK opened its doors to these workers. Within a year, up to 758 schools were set up to provide caregiver training. A total of 18,878 out of their 54,644 graduates immediately left for posting abroad.

Likewise, call center training schools are being set up to meet the growing needs of foreign monopoly corporations. The call center "industry" is now the only sector of the economy that creates new employment. Nonetheless, these companies are extremely exploitative especially since monopoly corporations established them to cut down on costs in their respective countries.

07 December 2004
English Edition

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