This column is not about health matters. But rather it may present some issues that would certainly make your blood pressures to go up. But on the other hand, it�s inevitable especially with a lot of problems that confront us.

Read this: �I like the story because it taught me to appreciated what I have. When I putted myself in her shoes and I realize I was being lucky.� This was written by a college student in her reaction paper about a story they read in class. If this were the present state of the country�s education, then what would be the future of the Philippines then?

The directive of the President regarding the English proficiency testing of teachers is timely. The aim is to know whether these teachers are competent enough to handle English subjects or if they were better off teaching other subjects. Because if they are not fluent with the language, the quality of education will definitely suffer. Our graduates will lose job opportunities that require fluency in the language.

The purpose of the testing is reasonable but insulting to some teachers. In a conversation with Mrs. Annalyn Raymundo, a full-time high school teacher and part-time college instructor in Antipolo, stated that the problem is not actually the educational system but the government itself. Despite reports that the education department gets the biggest chunk of the annual budget, still teachers feel otherwise. According to Mrs. Raymundo, most of their facilities in school came from donations and not from the government. Donations from foreigners who conducted studies on the education setting in the Philippines- out of pity.

The problem in the educational system is deeply rooted. Although education is said to be a right of every citizen, but still it seems to be a privilege that only few can afford. Albeit the presence of public schools in every locality, corruption, on the hand, prevails. Corruption hinders in the establishment buildings needed to accommodate the increasing population of students and it deprives them too of the latest facilities technology offers. Not only these, it also delays the compensation of educators needed to sustain their daily living. The result of which is prompting them to leave their country to teach abroad or permanently leaving their profession in search of a more dignified good paying job.

Classroom size before was 30 students to a teacher but at present it has gone up already to 50, according to Ely Kasilag, head of a federation of private school administrators (Manila Standard, February 2, 2003). An elementary school teacher in Bagong Nayon I Antipolo Rizal handles 80 pupils. She lamented, �Hirap nga magturo kasi sobrang dami. Sa isang desk, nagsisiksikan ang apat na bata na dapat dalawa lang ang nakaupo.(It is very difficult to teach many children. Ideally, two students should occupy a desk but four pupils would sit in it.) And you would not even imagine that Mrs. Raymundo�s advisory class in the Antipolo National High School is composed of 110 students back-to-back with another class also with a same size in one classroom.

Mrs. Cristy Peconcillo, onetime elementary teacher in San Isidro Elementary School, and my mother�s former co-teacher, left the country a couple of years ago for Hong Kong to become a domestic helper. She had to do this, according to her co-teachers because her salary as a teacher is not enough to sustain the education of her two children. After two years, her children attended a prestigious school and came home and bought a car for their family.

The government wants to remedy a problem that in the first place it created. Bottomline is: Do not blame teachers who are allegedly not fluent in the English language or the teachers in general, for they were also the products of the same quality of education the government failed to provide. The government, the past and present administration, should be made accountable for violating Article XIV Section 1 of the Constitution which declares that �The State shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to such quality education at all levels and shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.�

About the Author

Leah Lapastora currently serves the University of Rizal System Antipolo City as Instructor I. She previously worked as segment producer for IBC Channel 13 and wrote several feature articles for Manila Bulletin. Like her other budding journalist-friends and classmates, she also shares their dream to agitate the public to participate in public affairs that would eventually change the course of society for the better. (ehem, ehem!)