By
Prof. Rolando S. Dela Cruz
(Speech delivered before the graduating students of Darwin International School, Batch 2010. 28 March 2010, Sta. Maria, Bulacan)
Our distinguished Commencement Speaker, Dr. Elizabeth M. Perfecto; beloved parents; the officers, faculty and staff of Darwin International School; my dear students of 4th year and Grade 6 who will be graduating today; friends, guests, ladies and gentlemen; Good afternoon. Happy graduation day to all parents and students!
Before the establishment of Darwin, it is not a popular idea in Bulacan to enter the top universities, namely UP, Ateneo, La Salle, UST, San Beda and Mapua. Thus, was born the MISSION of Darwin of Darwin International School. This mission is to encourage students to dream big and to help them enter the top universities of the country. It is my honour to tell you the results of this mission, so far.
In 2007, 93% of our first batch of graduates passed in the top universities. In 2008, it became 96%. In 2009, placement improved at 97%. This year, 2010, we have finally attained the highest results of our mission: 100% of our students passed the top universities!
How are we able to do this at Darwin? We send our graduating students to the top schools through our enhanced curriculum. This means that we implement the Department of Education’s curriculum, but with added topics as well as added subjects. In this sense, Darwin’s curriculum is unique. To our graduating students, however, do not think that your having graduated from Darwin automatically makes you the best students of the best universities. It is not automatic. You need to work hard for that. You need to further develop your study habits.
Darwin is able to produce the best in you, because we innovate the Darwin system every year. We believe that change must always be constant. To name a few, these changes included instituting new subjects, implementing the centralized two-exam system, revising the honours program, requiring a high mastery grade, innovating the tutorial system, implementing the English Police system, providing free Summer Review for 3rd and 4th year students, offering free review for the Mock UPCAT exam handled by UP academics, institutionalizing new methods of teaching like the e-learning program, strict Code of Conduct, etcetera. More of such improvements and changes shall be implemented in the coming months and years.
Every year, Darwin improves its standards. But these changes are only slowly and incrementally being implemented because students in the higher levels, especially the 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 batches of Darwin, are absolutely all transferees from other schools. These batches had to catch up on Darwin standards because of their deficient earlier foundations. For example, most, if not all, of them were not English-speaking when they entered Darwin. Most also didn’t have good study habits. Gladly, there is constant improvement, batch after batch of graduates – based on the Deped’s National Career Assessment Examination (NCAE) and the annual college entrance exams. It is because the later batches, like this graduating batch, had more years of exposure to Darwin’s educational program and innovations.
While I talk about the accomplishments of our graduates, let this occasion be a venue for me to remind our beloved graduating students. Do not assume, for instance, that you, Gelo Buluran and Carmela Reyes, being the Valedictorian and Salutatorian of this batch, respectively, already know everything that every high school student in the Philippines must know. I admire, respect, and believe you and your intelligence, but you must be prepared to encounter the other Gelo Bulurans and Carmela Reyeses of this country when you go to the top universities this June. This goes true also to all members of this graduating batch, BATCH PAGBABAGO, who must not think that your being graduates of the number 1 school in Bulacan has given you the license in college to waste your time. Do not waste your golden opportunities! If you do, you will be the greatest loser of your own negligence.
In the NCAE, this year is the first time that the graduating students of Darwin have received all line of 9 grades, the lowest is 94% while the highest is 99+%. This means that you belong to the upper 6% to upper 1% of the whole country’s graduating students, based on the NCAE. Congratulations to all of you! You are able to defend the Darwin tradition of being Top 1 in the whole Bulacan and being one of the best in Region 3. But I need to remind you: more than ever, you need to be serious with your studies in order to sustain your momentum. There is a saying that goes: “Ang kutsilyo, kapag di hinahasa – pumupurol.” Darwin taught you to embrace suffering in order to succeed. Now, I add: Embrace the blessings you have already received. If you don’t, it will leave you – and it will leave you forever!
Darwin has given you a strong foundation to enter the country’s best universities. Be cautioned, though, that the goal of these elite schools is not simply to collect your tuition, but to give you the most difficult lessons and kick out those who will not meet their standards. Therefore, anticipate very demanding programs in college, focus, and be disciplined.
Ngayon na tinulungan na kayo ng Darwin para makapasok sa pinangarap nyong mga tanyag at pinakamahuhusay na unibersidad, nasa inyong mga kamay na ngayon ang inyong ikatatagumpay o ikabibigo. Di nyo kailangang mainggit sa kakayanan o kaalaman ng ibang mahuhusay na estudyante, ang dapat ay itanim nyo sa inyong puso at isipan na dapat nyong alamin at unawain ang bawat pahina ng libro na ipababasa sa inyo.
Sa oras ng mga pagsubok, di kailangang manghina ang inyong paniniwala sa sarili, sapagkat tinuruan kayo sa Darwin na magkaroon ng malaking pangarap at positibong pananaw sa buhay. Kung kayo ay magiging negatibo, negatibo din ang epekto. Kung kayo ay magiging positibo, positibo din ang aanihin ninyo.
Di dapat tumakas sa mga problema at isisi ang kabiguan sa iba, ang nararapat ay kilalanin ang mga kahinaan at mga pagkakamali, at bumangon kung saan kayo madarapa. (Si Manny Pacquiao nga na pinakamagaling ngayong boksingero sa mundo, tinatamaan ang mukha at katawan kapag sinutsuntok.) Di dapat lumaki ang inyong mga ulo at maging mayabang dahil sa angking talino; sa halip ay manatiling mapagkumbaba, bilangin ang inyong mga biyaya at matutong magpasalamat sa mga tumulong sa inyo – kabilang ang inyong mga mahal na magulang, kaibigan, guro, paaralan, komunidad at bayan. Dapat na lalo kayong matutong magtiwala at magmahal sa Diyos na nagbibigay ng awa, subalit huwag puro awa ang hingin, sa halip ay ialay sa Diyos ang busilak na gawa.
I expect you to win in many of your battles in life. But in order to win, always remember the saying: “Ang di marunong lumingon sa pinangglingan, di makararating sa paroroonan.” A very powerful Filipino value that you can use all throughout your journey in fulfilling your own mission in life.
Binabati ko kayong lahat na mga magulang at mga magsisipagtapos.
Maraming salamat sa inyong lahat. Patnubayan nawa tayo ng Maykapal.
Showing posts with label private schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label private schools. Show all posts
Monday, March 29, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
THE TRAGEDY OF EDUCATIONAL STRATIFICATION IN THE PHILIPPINES
There are many Filipinos who take education as their course in college. Many schools of higher education offer it as one of its majors. Even the newly established ones are offering the education course, peddling it as if it is so easy to train or produce good teachers. Why is it that many teachers are needed in the country? Why are so many schools offering education degrees mushrooming?
The population of the country is burgeoning. It is one of the fastest growing populations in the world. The government has failed to curb it because of a vocal church that is against family planning methods such as the use of contraceptives – plus the fact that government programs normally and traditionally go nowhere because of, what else but, corruption. But even then, the predominantly Catholic country is populated with Catholic Christians who do not necessarily follow church teachings when it comes to planning the family. All these result in poverty as having many children in an underdeveloped setting means more mouths to feed.
It has been a worldwide sociological phenomenon that in poor countries, those coming from the lower classes usually have more children than their richer counterparts. One theory is that they need more hands to feed the whole family, as in the feudal setting of rural areas or in squatter colonies of urban centers. But the other view is that poverty leads to lack of education, and lack of education leads to ignorance regarding the socio-economic consequences of having more children. The opposite is also noticeable: those belonging to the upper strata of society have less number of children. The theory posed is that the richer couples are busier with economic activities, and that their being more educated makes them plan their family with economic, health, and educational priorities in mind, not to mention individualistic or social pursuits such as acquiring skills in certain arts or traveling, respectively.
With the rising population of the Philippines, the country is unable to effectively absorb people in its workforce. Thus, the government since the time of President Ferdinand Marcos up to the present has made it official state policy to export labor. The waves during the 1970s included engineers and manual laborers sent to the Middle East. Later, this was followed by doctors and more manual laborers during the 1980s, not only in Arab countries but also in the United States. During the 1990s, Filipino entertainers went to Japan and other Asian countries. At the turn of the century, Filipino nurses and other health workers began to invade Western Europe and other countries of North America. All throughout these periods, Filipino seafarers have dominated shipping, providing cheap labor to the biggest shipping companies of the world. All these mean that both manual laborers and professionals were able to send their hard-earned money to their relatives in the Philippines. This also meant greater access to education, not only in public but phenomenally also in private schools, for those belonging to the lower classes of Philippine society.
The combined factors of population growth and the entry of dollars sent by Overseas Filipino Workers assured not only the survival but also the proliferation of educational institutions in the country. During the beginning until the half of the 20th century, the whole educational system developed under the rubric of the public school v. private school dichotomy. The public school system built by the United States during its colonization of the country was typified by quality that can be availed of by the ordinary Filipinos. But the system having been transferred into the hands of the Filipinos, especially after the Second World War, the quality of the system has deteriorated. In the meantime, the exclusive schools where the rich children enroll have improved relative to the public school system. The trend of the poor going to the public, and the rich going to the private schools, therefore, continued but with a twist: those who are not rich but can somehow afford to pay tuition because of OFW money started to prefer to send their children to private schools.
The private school system was initially dominated by Catholic educational institutions. Eventually, however, rich families started putting up their own private schools. As the population increases and demands from the lower and lower middle classes for quality but cheap education heightened, the Catholic schools have started to offer places in school at a cheaper rate, but with more students per classroom. There are only very few Catholic schools that have maintained its quality as supported by extremely high tuition. Meanwhile, large privately owned non-sectarian schools started to compete for the lower-income population. Thus, following the model of many Catholic schools offering classes at affordable rates, these non-sectarian private schools have increased also their class sizes to recoup their investments.
In the end, the country is now faced not only with the traditional dichotomy as to public and private ownership. More pronounced now, and very disturbing at that, is the dichotomy as to quality orientation v. the lack of quality among schools. Many Catholic educational institutions have become commercialized, too, together with huge privately-owned non-sectarian schools. Thus, their quality deteriorated along the way. In the meantime, the continuous neglect of various post-war administrations assured that the public school systems can no longer be mistaken to be the same quality-oriented public school system established by the Americans. The whole educational system, therefore, is now dominated by weak educational institutions. Quality schools are more of an exception, both in public and in private schools. In the public sector, only the Science High Schools and a handful of state colleges and universities can be considered excellent. In the private sector, only a handful, too, of Catholic schools and non-sectarian private schools are quality-oriented.
In the meantime, the forces for lack of quality continue to pressure the whole educational system: the escalating population; the aspiration of Overseas Filipino Workers remitting dollars to the country to provide their children with education; and the lack of real government action to solve the lack of funding, low quality of teachers, and lack of classrooms. Now, it has become a cycle: the lack of quality produces even more lack of quality. The remaining quality institutions have become, on the other hand, more elitist as the pressure to support quality rests on higher tuition and strict implementation of admissions policies to weed out students who are ill-trained in the earlier years of their education.
What has been happening in Philippine education is a tragedy. Needless to say, mainly the rich are able to get quality education, and only very few poor students from the Science High Schools are produced yearly. With this current educational systemic reality in place, one wonders if there will be real hope for the majority of the Filipinos.
Prof. Rolando S. Dela Cruz
16 March 2010, 1:06 am
The population of the country is burgeoning. It is one of the fastest growing populations in the world. The government has failed to curb it because of a vocal church that is against family planning methods such as the use of contraceptives – plus the fact that government programs normally and traditionally go nowhere because of, what else but, corruption. But even then, the predominantly Catholic country is populated with Catholic Christians who do not necessarily follow church teachings when it comes to planning the family. All these result in poverty as having many children in an underdeveloped setting means more mouths to feed.
It has been a worldwide sociological phenomenon that in poor countries, those coming from the lower classes usually have more children than their richer counterparts. One theory is that they need more hands to feed the whole family, as in the feudal setting of rural areas or in squatter colonies of urban centers. But the other view is that poverty leads to lack of education, and lack of education leads to ignorance regarding the socio-economic consequences of having more children. The opposite is also noticeable: those belonging to the upper strata of society have less number of children. The theory posed is that the richer couples are busier with economic activities, and that their being more educated makes them plan their family with economic, health, and educational priorities in mind, not to mention individualistic or social pursuits such as acquiring skills in certain arts or traveling, respectively.
With the rising population of the Philippines, the country is unable to effectively absorb people in its workforce. Thus, the government since the time of President Ferdinand Marcos up to the present has made it official state policy to export labor. The waves during the 1970s included engineers and manual laborers sent to the Middle East. Later, this was followed by doctors and more manual laborers during the 1980s, not only in Arab countries but also in the United States. During the 1990s, Filipino entertainers went to Japan and other Asian countries. At the turn of the century, Filipino nurses and other health workers began to invade Western Europe and other countries of North America. All throughout these periods, Filipino seafarers have dominated shipping, providing cheap labor to the biggest shipping companies of the world. All these mean that both manual laborers and professionals were able to send their hard-earned money to their relatives in the Philippines. This also meant greater access to education, not only in public but phenomenally also in private schools, for those belonging to the lower classes of Philippine society.
The combined factors of population growth and the entry of dollars sent by Overseas Filipino Workers assured not only the survival but also the proliferation of educational institutions in the country. During the beginning until the half of the 20th century, the whole educational system developed under the rubric of the public school v. private school dichotomy. The public school system built by the United States during its colonization of the country was typified by quality that can be availed of by the ordinary Filipinos. But the system having been transferred into the hands of the Filipinos, especially after the Second World War, the quality of the system has deteriorated. In the meantime, the exclusive schools where the rich children enroll have improved relative to the public school system. The trend of the poor going to the public, and the rich going to the private schools, therefore, continued but with a twist: those who are not rich but can somehow afford to pay tuition because of OFW money started to prefer to send their children to private schools.
The private school system was initially dominated by Catholic educational institutions. Eventually, however, rich families started putting up their own private schools. As the population increases and demands from the lower and lower middle classes for quality but cheap education heightened, the Catholic schools have started to offer places in school at a cheaper rate, but with more students per classroom. There are only very few Catholic schools that have maintained its quality as supported by extremely high tuition. Meanwhile, large privately owned non-sectarian schools started to compete for the lower-income population. Thus, following the model of many Catholic schools offering classes at affordable rates, these non-sectarian private schools have increased also their class sizes to recoup their investments.
In the end, the country is now faced not only with the traditional dichotomy as to public and private ownership. More pronounced now, and very disturbing at that, is the dichotomy as to quality orientation v. the lack of quality among schools. Many Catholic educational institutions have become commercialized, too, together with huge privately-owned non-sectarian schools. Thus, their quality deteriorated along the way. In the meantime, the continuous neglect of various post-war administrations assured that the public school systems can no longer be mistaken to be the same quality-oriented public school system established by the Americans. The whole educational system, therefore, is now dominated by weak educational institutions. Quality schools are more of an exception, both in public and in private schools. In the public sector, only the Science High Schools and a handful of state colleges and universities can be considered excellent. In the private sector, only a handful, too, of Catholic schools and non-sectarian private schools are quality-oriented.
In the meantime, the forces for lack of quality continue to pressure the whole educational system: the escalating population; the aspiration of Overseas Filipino Workers remitting dollars to the country to provide their children with education; and the lack of real government action to solve the lack of funding, low quality of teachers, and lack of classrooms. Now, it has become a cycle: the lack of quality produces even more lack of quality. The remaining quality institutions have become, on the other hand, more elitist as the pressure to support quality rests on higher tuition and strict implementation of admissions policies to weed out students who are ill-trained in the earlier years of their education.
What has been happening in Philippine education is a tragedy. Needless to say, mainly the rich are able to get quality education, and only very few poor students from the Science High Schools are produced yearly. With this current educational systemic reality in place, one wonders if there will be real hope for the majority of the Filipinos.
Prof. Rolando S. Dela Cruz
16 March 2010, 1:06 am
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)