Editorial: Independence from child labor and the sorry state of public education

THE Philippines is celebrating its Independence Day tomorrow, June 12, but throughout the world June 12 is celebrated as the World Day Against Child Labor.

The international celebration specifically focuses initially on the elimination of children participation in hazardous work.

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According to ILO estimates, of the 215 million child laborers worldwide, 115 are in hazardous work.

“One concern is that the number of child laborers engaged in hazardous work has been increasing among the 15-17 age group,” the ILO primer on the World Day Against Child Labor reads. ILO lists six industries that expose children to the most hazards:

Agriculture where they may be exposed to toxic chemicals, dangerous equipment, and made to carry heavy loads;

Mining where children are exposed to more poisonous chemicals including mercury and cyanide, and face risks of mine collapse and explosions;

Construction where they are made to carry heavy loads, as well as risk injury from dangerous machinery and tall heights;

Manufacturing where they may use solvents and perform repetitive tasks in painful positions;

Domestic work where they may suffer from abuse, long work hours, and separation from family and peers, and;

Scavenging where they face risk of infection and exposure to hazardous wastes.

Somehow, in every industry, a Filipino child is represented.

One of the focus points for governments to truly address the problem is to scale up efforts to battle the roots through education, social protection, and strategies to promote decent and productive work for youth and adults.

This brings us to state-sponsored concentration camps otherwise known as public schools.

Worried by the growing rate of school dropouts and low quality of education, with children dropping out as early as mid-elementary grades, government came up with the Kinder + Plus 12 years program. Nationwide last Monday, hundreds of thousands of six-year-olds flooded the already jam-packed public schools on top of the flood of first-time first-graders. In Davao City, this stampede was postponed to June 13. How lengthening the education period to keep children from dropping out has not been explained.

But with more than 90 percent of the student population in public schools, it is obvious that the problem of education in the Philippines is really a problem of public education.

There are just too many children, too many classrooms that have to be built, too little teachers that pass the grade and have the desire to teach a classroom packed with at least 70 rowdy children at so little pay, and too little classroom facilities and teaching materials.

With a growth rate of 1.9% (2011 estimate) and a population of 94-million, this means 1.8 million babies are born every year; the same babies who will be grabbing their space in the already jam-packed classrooms every school opening. To just account for the annual population growth, government has to build classrooms for at least a million children each year, add to that the backlog and what you have is a problem that will forever fester.

Two simple solutions. First, increase the resources for education, which is close to impossible considering the bigger problem of corruption in government. Second, do something about the population, which the Roman Catholic Church will definitely not allow.

And so we come up with a third: to let the Catholic Church, who stands against managing the population, share the greater burden of providing the facilities and manpower for free public, nationwide, and massive education. Anyway, the moral degradation that has led to massive corruption is also a failure of spirituality and the deep comprehension of what’s right and wrong. Perfect. So… where art thou, bishops? –Sun Star