“After almost a century of education reports, we are still in a rut. It is tragic that the 1925 Monroe Report, available online, is still relevant today. We have not changed much in the past 96 years.
“Reading the 1925 Monroe Commission report on Philippine education, I was struck by the opening lines: ‘The Board of Educational Survey is not unmindful of the consequences which may result from its frank discussion of the country’s education. There is in the report much criticism of existing conditions. This report will fall into the hands of persons who have at heart the welfare of the Filipino people and some who may seek to reap some personal advantage from such criticism.
“Then as now, government officials are sensitive to truth, i.e., the risk of being weaponized for personal, partisan, or political purposes.
“Significant findings of the Monroe report are on the medium of instruction, the need for a common language, and bridging communication in an archipelago separated by many languages and dialects.
“English replaced Spanish and brought to a Malay people ‘Anglo-Saxon institutions and civilization [and] ideals of universality, practicality, and democracy.’ The ‘universal’ education recommended wasn’t suited to the needs of Filipinos.’
“Issues on quantity and quality of education, academic vs. social education, were noted. Not all students were suited for an ‘academic’ path, so there was a need for more agricultural, trade, and vocational schools.
“Then as now, Reading was not the problem but Literacy or understanding what ‘is read.’ The 1921 Civil Service Records revealed that 98 percent failed the English composition exam. Nobody passed the 1918 exams for messengers and third-class patrolmen. In the 1922 exams for junior teachers, 87 percent failed. How would today’s students perform in international assessments if the tests were in Filipino? How successful are our bilingual or mother tongue experiments?
“In 1925, the Board found that classroom education was bookish and artificial (Filipinos were then using US textbooks alien to their lives). There was ‘an overemphasis on uniformity and a corresponding failure to provide for initiative and participation.’
“Different subjects were taught ‘in almost complete isolation, one from the other.’ Worse, ‘the development of the ability to think, meet new situations, and solve the kinds of problems one encounters in real life is neglected.’
‘The educational process here is largely the memorizing of materials in books or developing specific skills in formal operations or handwork.’ That sounds painfully familiar.
“Attention-grabbing recommendations from the 677-page report: That real property, real estate, and cedula taxes be increased and devoted to educational purposes; that national government should not bear all expenses of education, that provinces and local government should share in it.
‘Support of the academic high school be thrown entirely upon the province, with the option cost of instruction is covered by tuition or provincial funds or a combination of the two,’ it said.
“Non-teaching work of administrators and teachers like reports and records be simplified and reduced – and education insulated from politics.” [“Philippine education: 1925 vs. 2021,” Ambeth R. Ocampo, LOOKING BACK, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 14th Jul 2021]
Those familiar with the blog won’t miss the following:
“In 1925, the Board found that classroom education was bookish and artificial (Filipinos were then using US textbooks alien to their lives). There was ‘an overemphasis on uniformity and a corresponding failure to provide for initiative and participation.’
“Different subjects were taught ‘in almost complete isolation, one from the other.’ Worse, ‘the development of the ability to think, meet new situations, and solve the kinds of problems one meets in real life is neglected.’
‘The educational process here is largely the memorizing of materials in books or developing specific skills in formal operations or handwork.’ That sounds painfully familiar.”
Let’s hold it right there.
Is Philippine education still (1) bookish and artificial; (2) with an emphasis on uniformity, thus failing to provide for initiative and participation; (3) different subjects taught in almost complete isolation, one from the other, and neglects the development of the ability to think, to meet new situations, and to solve the kinds of problems one meets in real life?
Is Philippine education still essentially memorizing materials in books or developing specific skills in formal operations or handwork?
Consider: The character of this world, this universe – of dynamism (as in personal “initiative”) and interdependence (as in “participation” in the pursuit of the common good) – aren’t part of our instincts.
Instead, we are parochial and insular. And so, we value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.
Then consider: Duterte’s running for VP isn’t a constitutional issue? But does it demonstrate impunity given the worldwide condemnation of EJKs? Of course, we’re not alone.
The GOP House leader, captured in TV clips speaking against the 6th Jan insurrection, is now promoting the return of Trump as party leader.
Recall that I have no respect for US politics and chose not to exercise the right to vote. America is the hegemon — and has no right to lead the free world if it can’t demonstrate exceptionalism.
Unsurprisingly, “Fitch Ratings warned that the United States could lose its perfect credit rating due in part to the ongoing assault on democracy and worsening political polarization.”
Let’s hold it right there.
Why do freedom-loving nations need a hegemon to lead their efforts — and personal commitment — for the common good?
Recall even the wife asked the question, “What are we doing in this god-forsaken place?” And I am not the only volunteer expert showing people — born and raised as socialists — the ropes of freedom and the free market. WE FILIPINOS MUST KNOW IF THESE EFFORTS HAVE VALUE between JICA and USAID and those from the EU.
And perfection is not of this world. There will be despots and autocracies that will undermine the world order. Not a surprise, given in Eden and the Last Supper, evil was present.
But then again, if Peter wasn’t perfect, how can Uncle Sam be?
Yet, given our values of hierarchy and paternalism, we expect omnipotence. Instead of the pursuit of the common good, we put primacy on parochial and insular concerns.
Sadly, that is why and how we created a Marcos and a Duterte. Said Rizal, he who submits to tyranny loves it. There is no free lunch.
The bottom line: It is about the value of freedom instead of tyranny. And these values aren’t expressed in binary terms. That’s why the blog often speaks to the spectrum of dualistic to relative thinking in cognitive development.
In other words, there are as many hues as nations are representing these values, and not one can be copied and pasted.
But we Filipinos can’t move beyond narrowly defined systems given our failings in our system. Try to establish a benchmark like our neighbors, and we won’t see poverty as our be-all and end-all. Instead, we would have traversed poverty to prosperity.
Let’s pause — and ponder.
Do we or don’t we hold the future of Juan de la Cruz in our hands?
Why can’t we internalize that Juan de la Cruz’s place in the sun is to traverse poverty to prosperity?
Yet, it is not surprising, given that our caste system puts us in pigeonholes.
And if we push the envelope, what he deserves is “paternalism,” as in the 4Ps. In short, he will always be subservient to hierarchy.
But we won’t acknowledge that because that is how we define “inclusive.” We conveniently forget that we preach otherwise to teach Juan de la Cruz how to fish as Christians.
And so, we turn around to denounce the inequality in the free-enterprise system.
Yet, inequality is not a representation of “freedom” alone. Oligarchy and political patronage — not foreign to Juan de la Cruz, the Philippines is the epitome of “inequality” — are why former Soviet satellite states remain under tyrannical rule. I do business in this part of the world, and friends haven’t stopped bending my ears to their reality.
And to temper this impunity, Western institutions impose sanctions on individuals concerned. Our problem as Filipinos is that we love tyranny ourselves. We still can’t step up to the reality of EJKs, for example, despite the condemnation from freedom-loving nations.
“Moldova: An anti-corruption party triumphs. Moldova has a chance to clean up.” And some nations pay heed.
“She is slight, polite, and gets what she wants. On 11th July, the party founded by Maia Sandu won parliamentary elections by a landslide. Over the past two years, Ms. Sandu has seen off a local oligarch and has now dispatched the men from Moscow, too. [The Economist, 17th Jul 2021]
One more time with feeling: Our parochial and insular concerns — that we equate with national interests and why the crab mentality sticks with us — are subsets of a more extensive set. Think of dynamism and interdependence inherent in this universe. Systems are a human construct — not static nor omnipotent. Unsurprisingly, the 21st century’s character is that of innovation and global competitiveness.
I speak not as an academic but practitioner – and have lived in the West for over 30 years and with people born and raised as socialists under Soviet rule for almost two decades.
But let’s get back to Juan de la Cruz.
Here’s a quote from an earlier posting: “In the meantime, 64.25% of Filipinos cannot afford a healthy diet. And whatever happened to the 4Ps where we have to borrow tons of money to keep Juan de la Cruz’s body and soul together?”
In other words, we cannot keep throwing good money after bad if indeed we want to overcome the poverty of Juan de la Cruz.
As the blog has argued, the 4Ps will not succeed on their own – and are the tangible expression of paternalism given our failure to traverse poverty to prosperity.
And where is the “insanity”? How? See above; we were taught different subjects in almost complete isolation, one from the other. But not only. We keep to populist initiatives yet take the requisite principles for granted.
They neglect to develop the ability to think, meet new situations, and solve the kinds of problems one encounters in real life.
The evidence? There’s a slew of them, as the blog has repeatedly pointed out. Start with the comprehensive land reform. Add the farms-to-market roads and the irrigation and fertilizer programs, among others.
It is not that they are wrong per se. We must move beyond analysis into analytics – i.e., analytics is not overly concerned with individual “analyses” or analysis steps but with the entire methodology.
And this is where the modern math concept of sets and subsets comes in. For example, the 21st century’s character is one of innovation and global competitiveness. Why do we fall flat on our face by addressing rural poverty?
Because as our neighbors like Thailand and Vietnam have demonstrated, our products must be perceived as innovation outcomes and thus globally competitive. That is why these countries export rice while we import them.
Or think of the drivers of our economy, OFW remittances. Again, because we wanted to address the poverty of Juan de la Cruz, we saw overseas employment as the answer. And we celebrated the fact that over 10 million Filipinos are OFWs.
Again, that is not wrong per se. But we missed the “entire methodology.” We must move up to an investment-industrial economy. Our neighbors, the Asian Tigers, and China, and most recently, Vietnam, showed us the way.
Question: This phenomenon of tiger economies has been around for decades. Yet, over that period, we celebrated our vaunted fiscal and monetary policies – delivering GDP growth rates of 6%-7% – while neglecting to make the Philippines an industrial economy.
Recall that the blog has argued that while we look on the economic managers to drive the economy – via the said interventions – we miss the context of our challenge: nation-building.
In the process, we also took infrastructure development for granted, including the most basic of them, water and electricity.
Why? Because we became a major service economy and applauded that our top companies gave the Philippines dollar billionaires.
Still, we haven’t learned. The “entire methodology” demanded by the 21st century should have been crystal clear to us: Our top export categories – that account for over 64% of export revenues – are in the related sector as that of Samsung Vietnam. But Samsung Vietnam – singlehandedly – delivers far more significant economic benefits than our top companies – combined.
Let’s drill that down just a bit. Take San Miguel. San Miguel’s revenues can compare to Fortune 500 companies, yet its market value is a mere fraction. See above; the 21st century’s character is one of innovation and global competitiveness.
And we are not alone. As The Economist pointed out, Europe lags the US and China in nurturing businesses in industries that dominate contemporary times.
Over the last dozen years, the blog has argued that we won’t lift Juan de la Cruz from poverty until we reinvent ourselves and overcome our instincts.
Between “Pinoy abilidad” and our education counting almost a century, we cannot meet the challenges of this century.
And given that we in the Philippine elite class are in the best position to show the way to Juan de la Cruz, we are also the least predisposed to change and reinvention. Consider: We are parochial and insular. We value hierarchy and paternalism and rely on political patronage and oligarchy that ours is a culture of impunity.
In other words, rank comes with privileges. Why change?
“After almost a century of education reports, we are still in a rut. We have not changed much.”
Yet, we expect a different outcome for the good of Juan de la Cruz?
Consider: “The education crisis we face is a catastrophe in the making. We raise much noise about the love of country and patriotism in connection with foreign intrusion into our lands. But we have a more significant problem in our backyard, and there is mostly silence from among our leaders. They fail to realize that the problem involves the lives of our children and grandchildren and the nation’s future as a proud member of the international community.
“The truth is we have been on this long journey to nowhere for some time now. Things do not just develop overnight and suddenly happen.” [“World Bank apology,” Ramon J. Farolan, REVEILLE, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 19th Jul 2021]
Gising bayan!
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