Baguio City (CNN Philippines) – Educators led by Rep. Antonio Tinio of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers partylist gathered at the auditorium of the Baguio City National High School last Saturday (July 25) to discuss various concerns under the Aquino administration, particularly the K-12 program.
This program, Tinio said, had so far not addressed perennial problems on education, such as shortage of classrooms and learning materials and rising costs.
“Hindi libre para sa lahat ang K-to-12 program ng Aquino administration. Umaasa ito sa isang heavily privatized model of implementation sa pamamagitan ng voucher system,” Tinio said.
[Translation: “The K-to-12 program of the Aquino administration is not free for everyone. It relies on a heavily privatized model of implementation through a voucher system.”]
He said close to a million school children would be further pushed into the private education system through an expanded voucher system, more commonly known as the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE).
The voucher system, he added, was not in line with the constitutional provision on free education for all up to high school because it only gives a partial subsidy for students and their families.
As a result some 2.3 million Filipino children from 5 to 15 years old, encompassing the years from kindergarten up to 10th grade, are out of school, mostly because of poverty.
Tinio said he would be among the members of the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives who would march in the streets to protest the Aquino administration’s seeming lack of attention to the education sector.
A nationally coordinated protest by ACT teachers all over the country will also be conducted in time for the president’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday (July 27).
Colonial orientation, displaced teachers
Another issue that Tinio raised was the colonial orientation of the K-to-12 system. They said the system would prepare students to be part of the labor export force. So the introduction of technical-vocational courses and skills would only benefit the foreign labor market — not the local economy.
The system, he said, would also cause unemployment, because the shift was expected to lead to a drop in enrollment.
Citing data from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Tinio said an earlier estimate was that 70,000 college teaching and nonteaching personnel would be displaced by the implementation of the senior high school program. But this was reduced by CHED to 23,000 teaching and nonteaching personnel.
“Until now the Aquino administration does not have a concrete program to address this,” he said.
The solutions being proposed by the Department of Education (DepEd), he said, were very fluid.
He pointed out that the displaced teachers would be get only a P15,000 subsidy per month for six months — not the initially planned two years — when enrollments suddenly dip to almost zero.
“Parang binibigyan lamang natin ang mga college teachers and staff ng six months para makapaghanap ng bagong trabaho. And instead na sila ay babalik after two years, parang hindi na sila makakabalik dahil iba na ang offer sa kanila, bilang maging contractual employees,” he said.
[Translation: “It’s like we’re just giving college teachers and staff six months to look for a new job. And instead of expecting them to return after two years, it’s like they would no longer be able to return, because they’re now being offered to become contractual employees.”]
With less than a year for the Aquino administration, he this issue had not been addressed.
Unprepared for shift
Lastly, Tinio said the public school system appeared to be unprepared to implement the K-to-12 program, with a shortage of classrooms for some three million incoming high school students.
In 2014 alone, he pointed out, the DepEd budget for the construction of almost 40,000 classrooms had not been spent. So, as of the first quarter of 2015, only some 7,000 classrooms have been constructed.
There had also been a shortage in the supply of books and other learning materials since 2012.
Teachers, meanwhile, have not had a decent salary increase for the last three years.
Metro Baguio situation
Tinio’s concerns were apparent in the situation in Baguio, according to ACT Metro Baguio President Dr. Erlinda Castro-Palaganas.
The city serves as the educational center for the north, with more than a dozen colleges and universities catering to some 60,000 college students.
At Saint Louise University, the city’s biggest, Palaganas said more than 600 teachers would be retrenched during the transition period to senior high school. Up to 1a thousand more are also to be affected in many universities and colleges in the region, she said.
At the University of the Philippines Baguio, she said that some 50 percent of the 122 personnel would be affected as these instructors and lecturers are yet to finish their masters and doctorate degrees.
