No Education: No Freedom, No Opportunity

(November 13 - 25, 2005)
By Jan-Argy Y. Tolentino

Jan-Argy Y. Tolentino

This is my third time in Gummersbach--- the training camp for liberals and I must say that I have somewhat developed a relationship to this place, not only seeing the picturesque surroundings of the academy but meeting old familiar faces again. I have never imagined that I will come back and be part of another milestone of this academy…being chosen as an offline participant to the first on-line pre-qualification seminar of the International Academy of Leadership.

Some people would say that seminars are boring, but not IAF seminars because its method is participatory and everyone acts as a resource person. And of course, the topic is relevant for everyone---Education. To say that the modern public puts a premium on education is to state the truly obvious. It seems hard to imagine a world with high levels of ignorance and illiteracy. And the demographics of the participants proved this…we are as diverse as the issue of education itself. From old ! to young, West to East, Male, female and in between, radical to moderate, name it and this group have it.

Education is important especially with the advent of the “Information Age,” one’s education determines the options that one has in life. A good life and a successful career are usually linked to the quality and level of one’s education; mavericks like Bill Gates and the Tai Pans – who never finished or took up a college education – of Southeast Asia are usually exceptions rather than the rule when it comes to accomplishment. So for most people, even a high school diploma is usually the key to a better future.

Discussing the price of educating a country’s public inevitably leads to the age-old debate on whether education is a right or a privilege. Most modern societies adhere to the principle of education as a right, and thus the proliferation of public schools. Indeed, in the world’s foremost democracy the grand majority of its young are reared in public s! chools. This creates a link between the quality of education for the masses and public expenditure, best exemplified in public outcry over decreases in the education budget. It would seem, to most people, that the efficacy of a country’s education program lives and dies by the amount of money allocated by the government to it.

Private initiative in supporting education has usually met with skepticism if not outright hostility. Recognizing that the Philippines’ premier state university, the University of the Philippines Diliman campus, was seeing a deterioration in the quality both of the caliber of its education and its facilities, endeavored to seek private support to augment the “meager” budget allocation it receives from the government. This was to be done through using idle land in the expansive campus for commercial purposes. Such a move was met with much opposition, mostly from militant students based in the university. Instead, they have asked for an increase in ! the budget for education, echoing the general perception that the infusion of more public funds into the sector will solve its problems like some magic bullet. Prof. James Tooley of United Kingdom studied the feasibility of this option in a poor country, in Kenya, and the result was positive. Private Education could work for the poor and eventually it helps these people get out from the bondage of poverty.

One interesting thing about the IAF seminar is the field trip! We were exposed to all levels of education in Germany, and I was assigned to a high school physics class in Goethe Grammar School. German kids are quite polite, I just don’t know if it’s because they have foreign visitors. We also went to the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg where I see how machines have replaced human in the assembly line. We meet with few important people but interestingly, the outgoing chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder was also in the hotel where we are staying. He was given honor by the! military and it made me think…am I in 1941? I thought they have decided to vanish those kind of images. One thing I’m sure about Schroeder, he’s like any typical Filipino politician. Why? Because he choose Sinatra’s “my way” as his swan song.

One area of Reform that I proposed in the seminar is that government must learn to let “market” forces in the education sector regulate itself rather than to call for increased allocations to education from an overburdened budget, or for greater regulation of the sector even to its private learning institutions. The private schools have seen the adverse effects of abnormally high tuition fees, as more and more students flee towards the public schools following a sharp spike in fees. Even given the realities of the situation, the private schools will most definitely react to this response of the “market” by improving their facilities, ensuring the quality of their curriculum and/or lowering their fees. One of the more distinguished-yet-expensive schools of the Philippines, the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University, has decided on a compromise in a (relatively) low increase in its tuition while increasing the number of students it accepts for the incoming batch of freshmen. Other schools implement increases in tuition only for the incoming freshmen, while upper years keep their old rates or see much lower increases. For State Colleges and Universities, I am proposing that they be given full fiscal autonomy instead of outrightly privatizing them. Only by giving them the power to look for their own resources and utilize their assets will they become independent and creative in managing their respective institutions.

It is true that, in a world facing the impact of increasing access to knowledge and information, education will play a key role in the viability of whole nations as much as they dictate the choices available to the individual citizens of these nations. Pouring in m! ore money to old systems and habits will only waste the already-scarce resources of the State to a move that does not and cannot guarantee substantial positive results. It is only by going beyond the preconceived notions that higher capital infusion equals higher quality of education – thinking out of the box, as Sec. Abad said – will we be truly be able to address the issues confronting the education sector today.

Second area of reform must be in the education curriculum which also needs a thorough review of its efficacy. Which subjects remain effective and able to be of use and of relevance to the studentry? Is the way of instruction for the basic knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic effective in keeping the population effectively literate? There will be no use in infusing the system with fresh capital while the system itself is ineffective in delivering its mandate. Curriculum creation and revision processes must include other stakeholders like the students, al! umni and the parents. Students must be able to choose subject that is of their interest and will help them develop the career they want to take.

Lastly, Social mobilization must be done if we still hope to see some genuine upgrading in the academic performance of the Filipino students. It is as imperative that community's resource holders whether individual or private businesses realize that education is too complex an issue to be left to the government alone. Students, Teachers, School Administrators, Parents and other stakeholders like the Business sector must be made aware that they have it in them to bring about positive change in the sector. We could very well devise a system on the mechanics of stakeholders involvement in pursuing reforms. Complacency and lack of imagination among these groups has allowed the system to perpetuate in its inability to educate. If we all – even those in public schools – demand results at least to the level of their money’s worth, then! school administrators and the government will be forced to act as they are the key constituency of this sector. Those in private schools can make use of the business aspect of such institutions to demand their “rights” as “consumers” of the “product” being offered. For those in public schools, just because it is relatively free education doesn’t mean demands cannot be made; it is, after all, a question of whether your hard-earned taxes are working for you.

Would I still want to go back to Gummersbach? YES! but that would be pushing my luck too much. I would hope to see the day where asian liberals could also put up a place like that of IAF in the heart of liberalism in asia, my country. A place similar to home where we asians are all at ease to debate and to determine the sharpest line. Cogito Ergo Sum, so says Rene Descartes and id like to paraphrase it which goes something like this--- I think, therefore I am...a liberal!