Drop in quality teachers ails education

EDUCATORS and teachers on Thursday expressed alarm over the continuous decline in the percentage of successful examinees for Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) nwith a measly one of every five examinees passing, as the 2011 LET indicated.

Dr. Paz Lucido, President Emeritus of Philippine Association of Teachers Education (PAFTE), said that there is a need to look at the “professional growth” of teachers especially in the licensure exam since the “LET performance is going down”.

“We have to improve the performance of our teachers (in the licensure exam) and we here at PAFTE, we have to do something about it,” Lucido said during the recently concluded 40th Annual Convention at Diamond Hotel in Manila.

Lucido said that PAFTE recently came out with reviewers for teachers that could help in their performance in the LET. She stressed that PAFTE is also focused in continuing education, innovations and increasing of scholarly works to improve competency of Filipino teachers.

Members of PAFTE include the deans and the faculty of the Teacher Educations Institutions (TEIs) and those who contribute in the formation of the pre-service teachers: the Cooperating Teachers or Mentors, the Resource Teachers for the Experiential Learning, the Principals, the Supervisors and the Superintendents of the Department of Education. Membership may be institutional, or individual.

Records show that in April 2011 LET, only 13,000 out of the 62,000 examinees passed, or about one in every five examinees.

The same records showed that out of 33,023 takers, 5,221 passed in the elementary level while 7,690 out of 29,267 hurdled the exam in the secondary level.

These figures clearly show a decline in the percentage of passers in the elementary level at 15.81% from 19.58% in September 2010, and a very slight increase in the secondary level at 26.28 percent, up 0.42% only from the same month last year.

Earlier, Sen. Edgardo Angara did not hide his dismay with the recent LET result describing it as “dismal average—a pitiful waste of human capital.”

“Every year, we produce tens of thousands of teachers in schools all over the country. However, the education and training they get are not up to standard.” Angara, who chairs the Committee on Education, Culture and Arts, said.

“The task of overhauling the Philippine educational system falls on you—educators who mold the minds and hearts of the youth. In order to improve the performance of our students and graduates, we must first focus on upgrading the training of our teachers,” he added.

Angara said that the education sector, led by teachers, is one of the institutions necessary for innovation.

“This is why we must not be left behind by our neighbors in Southeast Asia in terms of teaching techniques and pedagogy,” he added. –SAMMY MARTIN, Manila Times