Solving education’s Gordian Catch-22

Picture this scene happening in a factory: RECRUITMENT OFFICER — “I am sorry we cannot hire you.” TESDA GRADUATE — “Can you please tell me why?” OFFICER — “Because you have no experience.” GRADUATE — But how can I get experience if you do not hire me?!”

The situation described is called a Catch-22, from the war novel of the same name written in 1961 by the American author Joseph Heller and made into a movie in 1970.

Catch-22 is a military regulation which stipulates that a person who is insane may be allowed not to fight by formally filing a petition seeking to be relieved from duty for reason of insanity; but by asking to be relieved from duty to escape fighting, he is deemed sane, so he is forthwith sent to the front lines to fight!

The paradox is similar to the one described by Winston Churchill: “A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

But graduates who have not found a job need not lose heart. Early in his career, Alexander of Macedonia encountered a similar perplexing problem.

The story is told that King Gordius (the root word of Gordian knot) of Phyrigia tied an intricate knot which an oracle said is so complicated it can be untied only by the future ruler of Asia. Failing to untie it after several tries, Alexander the Great thought for a while, unsheathed his sword, and slashed the knot. He went on to conquer Asia.

After reviewing long-standing proposals to extend by two years the current 10-year basic elementary and secondary school system — to follow a worldwide standard — the Department of Education finds itself in the middle of a gargantuan Gordian knot.

The thinking behind the 12-year system is that it will make graduates more competitive in finding a job, even if they cannot go on to college. The opposition centers on the additional cost to parents of two more years, the more urgent tasks of solving hunger and malnutrition, which impair the child’s learning ability, building more classrooms and increasing teachers’ wages, and creating more jobs, rather than improving the graduates’ qualification for nonexistent jobs.

Understandably, all of the above will cost funding beyond what the government can raise — or if it can raise — can afford. Considering all the other basic needs that have to be met — health care, food, housing, roads, basic utilities, the list is almost endless — it may not even be practical to prioritize things because they all need to be done right here, right now, in fact, yesterday

Education Secretary Armin Luistro, former president of De La Salle University, will formally unveil the plan on Oct. 5, on the propitious occasion of National Teachers Day. He is looking forward to a sober and thoughtful national dialogue.

A story we all loved to read in elementary school, penned by Lewis Carroll, articulated the problem well enough: “Pussycat,” Alice asked in absolute wonderment, “can you tell me which way I ought to go from here?” Replied the cat: “That depends on where you want to get to.”

We know where we want to get to. We also seem to know which way we ought to go from here. In fact, we know many ways, perhaps too many. Knowing far too many ways to get there, we face the problem of determining where to begin. So we end up going around in circles, looking for the best place to start.

Considering all the problems we face, any place seems a good place to start. Let’s try the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

The newly minted head of TESDA, former party-list representative Joey Villanueva, has ordered a review of the agency’s school accreditation and scholarship program, citing a lower than 20% employment rate of their graduates.

“That’s unacceptable!” he cried.

Villanueva reported that of the 743,465 students who enrolled in TESDA centers and accredited schools nationwide, only 113,710 or 15% found a job after graduation. Government records show TESDA spent P5.6 billion from 2008 to 2009 to support scholars.

“We will have to review the system to find out what we’re doing wrong,” Villanueva said, adding he was also looking into reports of bogus schools and ghost scholars. Conceivably, if he finds proof of malfeasance, heads will roll and budgets will be slashed. Alexander’s sword may come in handy.

Maybe he can also learn a lesson or two from the Cristo Rey High School in an urban ghetto in New York City. The innovative school was recently featured by Pulitzer-Prize winner Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal in a piece entitled “A Good Catholic Story” — refreshing news at a time when Catholic ministries are under attack worldwide for child abuse committed by clerics.

Wrote Henninger: “On June 10, Cristo Rey High School in East Harlem will graduate all of its 50 seniors. All come from families at or below the poverty level. All will attend college.”

The Cristo Rey Network — 24 high schools teaching some 6,000 students in big and small cities across America — began in 1996 with the ambitious goal of qualifying its graduates for college. Almost all of them are Latinos or African-Americans, a group that traditionally finds it hard to hurdle college admission tests. Last June, the St. Martin de Porres High School in Cleveland, Ohio, also qualified all its graduates for college.

The Jesuits are credited with the Cristo Rey system because they started the first school in Chicago. The system is now supported and operated by 29 Catholic orders including the Dominican Sisters, the Sisters of Charity, the Christian Brothers, the Salesians, and the Vincentians.

How the Cristo Rey system does this is a lesson in education worth learning. Cristo Rey high schools are not public schools — they are private schools funded up to 65% by the students themselves who work full time one day a week in partner companies. The companies pay anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000 for student work teams. The money goes to the school fund, sharply reducing tuition fees.

The list of sponsoring companies is impressive. There is no reason well-heeled Philippine companies cannot find the social conscience to do something akin.

To find the time to work a full day, the students compress their school work into four days. They learn to study hard to be able to work. In the process they also learn to work hard to be able to study. The money does not go to them but to the school to partly finance the cost of educating them. There must be a lesson there somewhere worth learning.

If we adopt the Cristo Rey system, the high school graduates we churn out will already have learned the value of studying hard. They will also have learned the value of hard work. When they apply for work after finishing high school, they will never be caught in the Catch-22 situation of not getting hired because they have had no working experience.

Solving Churchill’s conundrum — the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma — may still tie them up in knots, but they can always learn how to sharpen a sword, and cut their way through the Gordian knot that ties up the country’s educational system.

Sometimes knowing a basic skill like sharpening a sword can get us out of difficult knots. But only if we have the political will to swing the sword. For that, there seems to be no school yet invented.

Political will is not learned. It is simply done. –By Winston A. Marbella, Businessworld

The author is chief executive of Marbella International Business Consulting, a think tank specializing in business planning, management training, marketing strategy, corporate communications, and transforming social, political, cultural and technological trends into business intelligence that works. Comments are welcome at e-mail mibc2006@gmail.com.