Social costs of 12-year schooling

Passion For Reason

THE GOVERNMENT plans to make children spend two more years in basic education. The plan is admirable in its boldness but worrisome in its impact on poor parents. Many poor children may thus be robbed of a credential, a high school diploma; however dubious or diluted, it may nonetheless spell the difference between hope and despair. Stated plainly, the 12-year plan might be a bright move from a management standpoint but is questionable from a human standpoint. It may be smart but it is not necessarily just.
The problem is not merely that it will cost the government more, as indeed it will. We don’t have enough classrooms to house our current student population, and here we are talking about hosting two entire grade levels more, plus the staff complement of teachers to man those classrooms.

But the real problem is that it entails social costs, some visible, some invisible, that will be borne mainly by poor parents and students. To start with, they need to invest in two more years in school. Basic public education is theoretically free, but parents still need to shell out real money for myriad school expenses, like school supplies, the daily food and transportation allowance. For the underpaid or unemployed, even baon money is already a big chunk of finite family funds.

The Department of Education, the proponent of the 12-year plan, can say that delaying graduation won’t really postpone the student’s capacity to earn on his own. It would be right. It is not graduation that transforms a dependent into a breadwinner. It’s getting a job or starting a small business. It is not as if, after graduation day, one mouth to feed morphs into two hands that earn. We have so many diploma-holders who are jobless. What matters is the economy’s capacity to absorb every graduate into the labor force.

One may say, therefore, that the diploma itself doesn’t hold much meaning job-wise. But having been a teacher for more than 25 years, I can confidently say that, for students and their parents, the diploma holds other meanings at a different level. It has an incalculable psychic value that the sheer prospect of graduating can embolden poor parents to keep on striving, and inspire bored kids to keep on plodding.

The DepEd plan may appear as “just another two years,” but for struggling parents barely able to meet the monthly grocery budget, that additional expense and wait will make it easier to let Junior’s school attendance slide in the meantime until he eventually drops out. It may be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

That is why I’m not convinced by those worthy plans that aim to bring our high schools to the level of the European “gymnasium” schools. The ecology is entirely different. Both are secondary level and are taken after grade school and before college or university. But perhaps abroad, a high school diploma is enough for most garden-variety jobs and going on to college is merely an option for those who are more academically inclined or who wish to train for a profession. In other words, for regular jobs, high school can be a terminal course. Sophisticated education is needed only for the fancier specializations.

For us in the Philippines, we have credentials inflation, and we require a college degree for even the most rudimentary work. I can perfectly understand the DedEd if it says that it is precisely the European model we must emulate. That is to say, that we must upgrade basic studies precisely so that high school graduates can qualify for good jobs. But again, as I have argued above, that wouldn’t be a function of the schools. That would be decided only by the job market. If there are too many job-seekers and too few jobs, employers can basically demand that office receptionists first read phenomenology or do calculus.

On the other hand, for wealthier parents who voluntarily pay stiff tuition in private schools, the additional two years is actually a superfluity. Their kids already spend at least 12 years in school, if you count the nursery and kindergarten years, plus the additional 7th year in elementary school. By all accounts, the better of these schools do give fine education to their wards. Yet to thus exempt them from the 12-year policy smacks of preferential treatment for the rich over the poor, and allowing the affluent to buy their way out of a government regulation.

There is actually an alternative: Improve the teaching in public schools, and tighten their management. I don’t know if it will be cheaper. It will entail investing in better books, and making sure there are enough books for the students. We will have to pick and choose which schools get which kind of help. In some places, the problem is the lack of classroom or the lack of teachers. In others, it might be access to computers or the Internet or to laboratory equipment. Right now there is a pecking order with the national science high schools at the apex, the provincial high schools right below, and the barangay schools at the bottom of the pyramid.

The 12-year plan is a one-size-fits-all solution. It looks administratively simple and straightforward. Just go on doing the same thing, but spread it over 12 rather than 10 years. Apply the same formula all over the country.

The alternative will entail a nuanced calibration of each school’s market and its strengths. That will draw upon the strength of an education secretary who came from the private schools. Education Secretary Armin Luistro must guard against becoming a government bureaucrat and remain a leader who will bring to the public schools the same energy and dynamism with which he led one of the country’s largest private universities. –Raul Pangalangan, Philippine Daily Inquirer

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