Towards the Universal Primary Education, Why languages is important?

(Excerpts from Why Language Matters for the Millennium Development Goals, published by UNESCO, Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education Mom Luang Pin Malakul Centenary Building 920 Sukhumvit Road, Prakanong, Klongtoey Bangkok 10110, Thailand)

Education is one of the most important ways for people to move out of poverty, and a strong basic education is the first step. Children who receive a good educational foundation at pre-primary and primaryschool levels are in a much better position when they go on to navigatelife’s challenges as adults.

Significant progress is being made on MDG 2. Yet data indicates that an estimated 67 million of the world’s children are still not enrolled in primary education. Many children who do enrol in school later drop out. Children from ethnolinguistic minorities—and especially girls—are disproportionately represented among those who are not receiving any, or adequate, education.

Why language is important?

Many children struggle at school when they are forced to learn in languages that are not their mother tongue. School systems that do not use learners’ own languages or respect their cultures make it extremely difficult for children to stay in school and learn. For individuals, communities and even whole ethnic minority groups, this contributes to perpetuating cycles of marginalization and discrimination. For countries, excluding large portions of the population from their right to good quality education can delay economic growth and perpetuate conflict and political instability.

A growing body of research worldwide demonstrates that instruction in the mother tongue, beginning in the first years of school and continuing for as long as possible, helps girls and boys in numerous ways. Teaching children for a recommended six to eight years in their mother tongue – as well as gradually introducing national or other dominant languages (sometimes called Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education) – has the following outcomes:

• Children receive a good foundation: When taught first in their own languages, children learn better, are more self-confident and are well equipped to transfer their literacy and numeracy skills to additional languages.
• Children perform better: Evidence from linguistically diverse countries worldwide shows that children taught first in their most familiar language are more likely to thrive and excel in school.
• Fewer children repeat grades: Studies have found that children who start formal education in a second or foreign language are more likely to repeat school years.
• Fewer children drop out of school: Children who start formal education in a second or foreign language are much more likely to experience frustration and failure, resulting in higher dropout rates for these children. Worldwide, some 50 percent of out-of-school children use a language at home that is not the language used in school.
• Children have more family support: When children learn in their mother tongue, parents and families can be involved and support their education. When children are learning in a second or foreign language, families are often excluded from the process.
• Cycles of exclusion are broken: By including families and drawing on local cultural heritage, mother tongue-based education contributes to communities’ social and cultural well-being and fosters inclusiveness within the wider society.

Policy and practice
Policy
National education policies that prioritize learning in the mother tongue within a strategy to improve educational quality and access are in the political and economic interests of countries with high levels of linguistic diversity.

Sometimes governments fear that mother tongue-based education may have negative socio-political effects. And sometimes parents fear that mother tongue-based education may exclude their child from learning the dominant languages in their country, which are often pathways to jobs and wider opportunities.

A wide body of research suggests that in both cases the opposite is true. Fostering mother tongue-based education helps to reduce alienation and conflict. It better equips children to learn national and international languages, and improves overall performance. Finland, for example, is a leader in mother tongue-based education and also in academic excellence of secondary school children.

In the Asia-Pacific region, in 2009 the Philippines adopted a policy to institutionalize mother tongue-based multilingual education in all public and private schools, from pre-school to high school.

Announcing the new policy, the Department of Education stated, “The lessons and findings of various local initiatives and international studies in basic education have validated the superiority of the use of the learner’s mother tongue or first language in improving learning outcomes and promoting Education for All.

Development partners can support governments by promoting the use of appropriate languages as a central pillar in achieving education quality and inclusion. They can, for example, allocate a percentage of pooled education funds and basic education budgets to the development of mother tongue-based multilingual teaching and learning systems. In addition, they can work to ensure that coverage of primary education in the mother tongue is highlighted as an indicator of education quality.

Practice
There are many examples of successful mother tongue-based multilingual education programmes being implemented around the world. In the Asia-Pacific region, for example, programmes have been implemented or are being planned in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Thailand and Viet Nam, to name a few.

Many mother tongue-based education initiatives in developing and middle-income countries are, as yet, on a small scale. “Scaling up” such initiatives will be vital as countries strive to achieve MDG 2.  Below are some of the examples of regional projects showing success.



Southern Thailand: Local language education fosters communityempowerment and supports conflict reduction
Language and identity are key issues in three provinces of Thailand’s deep south, where there has been ongoing political unrest. The local language and mother tongue of 83 percent of the million-plus population is Pattani Malay. However, the language has not been officially accepted or used in the education system. Ethnic language and culture are thus declining, and local communities have low self-confidence. There is chronic underachievement at school. A pilot programme introducing bilingual education is showing early success. Children in mother tongue-based programmes scored 35 percent higher on Thai language exams than children in traditional Thai-only classrooms.


Bangladesh: Children benefit from mother tongue education
Bangladesh has some 45 indigenous groups, 12 of which live in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The official language of school instruction in Bangladesh is the national language, Bangla. Statistics indicate that around 60 percent of children from indigenous groups drop out of primary education. Working closely with local communities, and in a context of debate about appropriate approaches to education, language choices, writing systems and other matters, Save the Children started a culturally sensitive education programme for primary school children in three ethnic languages: Chakma, Tippera and Marma. The project confirmed that learning in the mother tongue supported the children in their education.

There was enthusiastic involvement from the local community. Lessons learned within the initiative indicated that six months is too short a “bridging period” between using the child’s first language and Bangla as a medium of instruction. A longer time span is necessary for children to feel confident in both languages.

In another initiative focusing on pre-school children, Save the Children and partner Zabayang Kalyan Samity found that children learning in the mother tongue significantly outperformed counterparts who were not taught in the mother tongue, in communications, language and literacy.


Nepal: Reading in the local language boosts child literacy
When Save the Children conducted literacy assessments in Nepal in 2008, it found that 42 percent of Grade 3 children in partner schools in Kailili could not read a single word. Most of those who were struggling to read were children whose mother tongue was not the language of instruction. This prompted intensive efforts to boost local language reading interventions through the development of a Literacy Boost programme. Begun in 2009, Literacy Boost’s design included local language materials development and provision, reading-focused instruction for classroom teachers, and community level reading activities run by local volunteers who could speak Tharu, the local mother tongue. Later testing showed that children in schools running the Literacy Boost programme performed much better in terms of fluency and accuracy than children in comparison schools. Save the Children has since expanded Literacy Boost to more parts of Nepal, including Bajura in the Far Western Region and Kapilvastu in the Western Region.

You may also like reading:

 Rationale of Mother Tongue-Based Multi-lingual Education
Economic Development Through Good Governance and Active Social Involvement

Economic Development Through Good Governance and Active Social Involvement

By Gilbert M. Forbes

Through the years, many parts of the country particularly the rural areas are and have remained poor.  Though, could not fully blamed on the national government but still, it has something to do with bias and unequal economic policy which give less and less focus on agriculture beneath the fact that it is the life-blood of the majority of the poor—at least 70% of them.

Considering that Agriculture is a least economic priority, it is not
surprising that most of the poorest of the poor are coconut farmers.
 (Photo sourced out from www.filamnation.com)

Experts are saying that in order for the current economic policy to have an impact on the poor, economic growth should at least post a record of 7.5% in a continuing basis for more than a decade like that of our neighboring countries.  China and Vietnam are the best example.

But it’s not the case for the country.  Its growth is erratic.  Furthermore, growth is concentrated in the service sector, government or public spending and consumer increase purchases made alive by OFW remittances which has reached more than $20 Billion!  Agriculture roughly reaches more than 2% which is just the population growth equivalent.  If only, growth in this sector could the country’s average, or let say, growth is inclusive, the impact would really be great.  Because of the slow growth in Agriculture, production isn’t that much thus, food is quite high in the country compared to other ASEAN countries like Thailand who’s Agriculture has known to have been in full swing in the 90’s and has continued since then.

In a broader perspective, aside from individual biases, beliefs, and treatment towards gainful living and occupation, local governance has something to do also with economic development.  Economic planning and implementation is top to bottom.  And even with such set-up, still, many of the good programs that the national government intends to implement end up a failure once it reach the community level units after sometime due to lack of sustainability.  There simply is no meeting of great minds from the national down to the local government particularly at the barangay level.  It is not surprising because majority of the leadership at the barangay level lack the necessary leadership and transformational management skills and capabilities that will encourage popular sustainable public support that will steer economic development in their respective areas.

Although many local government units at the municipal level are bent on training barangay chief executives, as observed and experienced in some quite a number of meetings, level of commitment is too weak.  This is very evident particularly in the implementation of priority programs like for instance on the protection of women and children, basic clean and green projects, and livelihoods programs.  For instance swine raising and pig dispersal as a livelihood program most commonly end up to nothingness.  The same with credit facility being offered to start a cooperative.

This could be attributed to lack or very low level of accountability on these elected officials and man forms of dependence on their municipal leaders up to the national level and vice versa .  As one municipal employee once quoted, “ang hirap-hirap namang pasunurin ng mga kapitan, kapag may pamiting ka, hindi lahat nakiki-cooperate.”  It is not surprising, because why are they into these positions in the first place?  There could still be many whose intentions are pure but their incapacity have put them at a loss.  Some on the other hand are just after the position as a source of livelihood, additional source of income for others and connection to further their business interests.  Failon Ngayon, of ABS-CBN Channel 2 has validated this assumption continuously through a series of segments tackling our leaders inefficiency.

At the outset, aside from the national government reviewing its economic policies to make it more effective, local government should also be doing the best thing they could do to improve the living condition of their people.  Individual citizens too must work hard particularly those who already have the means to move out of poverty.  The rich and the middle class however, should extend their hands to their lowly brethren.  They must help invest in their education and in agriculture even when little returns or no returns at all are expected instead of getting drowned in materialism, craze and fads which characterize many of the middle class and rich urban dwellers.

In this time, that our country is being bullied by rich and powerful countries just because we are poor and weak, the challenge and need to get out of poverty, and be wealthy is timely.  Its only when every citizens of our country progress and become financially independent that our country becomes economically and militarily strong because we already have the money and resources.  But until majority of our people are poor so our country is.

Getting out of poverty is not only a challenge for everybody who is poor. Achieving good governance by learning to have better choices among decent. righteous and God-loving political candidates.  Most importantly the topmost social, moral and spiritual responsibility of the bourgeois and elite groups is invest their money wisely and to help others get out of poverty.

Indeed for economic development to occur, active social involvement of every body in achieving good governance is important for only good governance could level the playing field.

(Apart from working in the government as an educator.  The writer has been active in the social movement working for social transformation as a former member of Alyansa ng mga Kristiyanong Mag-aaral.  He holds a Bachelor and MA in Educational Management (CAR) at the Philippine Normal University)

You may also like the following under Politics and Good Governance:

The Philippines, Our Only Home 
Tired of Corruption? We Can Do Something About It 

To all who already have a source of income on a regular basis, you may like the articles under Financial Literacy or Personal Finance

Benefits of the K to 12 Program of the Department of Education

By:  Gilbert M. Forbes
DepEd- Quezon
Region IV-A

Though quite a number of the populace are already amenable with the K to 12 Program of the Department of Education, still quite a larger chunk are not still convinced about its relevance even when it is already starting  this school year 2012-2013.  They still contend that it will be problematic.  It is not surprising however because of the popular media.

Education practitioners particularly school leaders believe otherwise.  Contrary to popular beliefs, the program intends to benefits families and individuals and most importantly the economy for the following reasons:

• Enhanced and Decongest the Curriculum.  This set up will give students more time to master competencies and time for extra-curricular activities, thus allowing for a more holistic development.  Teachers will also be able to ensure that every competencies are taught and mastered and all the necessary skills are transferred and developed.   Usually teachers are not able to teach all the content of the curriculum due to time constraint particularly the competencies of the fourth quarter which are all essential and prerequisites for the next level.  It is further complicated by calamities both natural and man made plus a lot of holidays and celebrations which are usually extended shortening the number that pupils and students should spent in school.  What is most surprising is the fact that, we are teaching a curriculum which requires at least 12 years to finish for 10 years only!
• Acquisition and possession of skills relevant to the job market.  At present, most of our graduates are either too young or lacking the necessary skills and competencies most of the companies requires.  Most believe that only college education is the best way to be gainfully employed.  However, even having college education is not enough and actually is not the job market needs thus many ends up factory workers, call center agents, service industry crews, repairman.  For both the struggling and middle income families, it is a great waste of time of money.  The K to 12 basic education curriculum will be sufficient to prepare students for work.  So most parents are freed from the burden of having to spend for college just to make their children employable.  It will also slowly erase the common weak thinking that college is only the best route for success and gainful employment.
• Higher opportunity for gainful employment or becoming an entrepreneur.  Currently, high school graduates are not only too young but are actually ill equipped for work so if their families can't afford to send them to at least two-year technical courses end up idle.  Hence they have nothing to do, they end up joining their peers or barkada and usually learn vices or worst end-up into serious trouble.  If they would have been in school, it would likely be no happening.  On the other hand, those who are able to finish at least two-year technical and vocational courses of commercially oriented institutions are hardly fit for work particularly those in Marine Transportation and IT because the industry commonly demands at least four years of education. With K to 12, students are given opportunity to acquire Certificates of Competency (COC’s) and National Certifications (NC’s) in accordance with TESDA training regulations thus allowing graduates to have a middle level skills which will offer them better opportunities to be gainfully employed.  There will be school-industry partnership for technological and vocational (techvoc) tracks to allow students gain work experience while studying and offer opportunity to be absorbed by the companies.
• Better prepared for college.  Due to enhanced curriculum that will provide relevant content and attuned with the changing needs of the times, basic education will ensure sufficient mastery of the core subjects to its graduates such that graduates may opt to pursue higher education if they choose to.  Those who don’t could immediately start earning for their livelihood thus contributing already to the improvement of their families and of the economy.
• College Graduates recognized anywhere in the world.  Our graduates, particularly engineers, doctors, architects, etc., could now be recognized as professionals  anywhere in the world.  Those who intend to study abroad will meet the entrance requirements of foreign schools.  Currently, except for the middle east, our professionals are not regarded as equal in countries in America and Europe.  The Washington Accord prescribes 12-year basic education as an entry to recognition of engineering professionals.  On the other hand, the Bologna Accord requires 12 years of education for university admission and practice of profession in European countries.
• Economic Growth.  The economy is expected to experience accelerated growth in the long run.  Several studies have shown that the improvements in the quality of education increases GDP growth by as much as 2%.  Studies in the UK, India and US show that additional years of schooling also have positive overall impact on society..  
• Sound foundation for long-term economic development.  A better educated society provides a sound foundation for long- term development for the new system will contribute to the development of emotionally and intellectually mature individuals capable of pursuing productive employment or entrepreneurship or higher education disciplines.

Other worries such as higher drop out rate are unnecessary and are irrelevant for the Department of Education has already set programs that will address this.  The department in partnership with other government agencies is working together so that the transition will be smooth for it could not afford to fail.

Not only that, the Department is only making sure that it is delivering quality education which every Filipino is entitled to.  This is in consistent with Article XIV, Section 2(1) of the 1987 constitution which states that “The state shall establish, maintain, and support a complete, adequate, and integrated system of education relevant to the needs of the people and society.”

We Filipinos love changes.  It is evident in the way we embrace almost anything that is new.  Therefore, why not changes in education which after all is intended to make it relevant to the need of the times.

Of course, it would be difficult for some but it is only for the start.  Once we got adapted and used to, it will be just as natural and as easy as before.

We got to remember this,  “The illiterate of the new millennium is not the one who will not be able to read or write, but one who will not be able to learn, unlearn and relearn.”- 1998 Delor’s Education Report

(The writer has been working in the Department of Education as a public school teacher and school principal for sixteen and a half years.  Currently, he works as Elementary School Principal II of a central elementary school in the division of Quezon. He holds Bachelor Degree and MA in Educational Management (CAR) from the Philippine Normal University, Manila)

References:

Cue Cards Prepared by Gilbert M. Forbes as part of the Practicum on Basic Training Management and Oral Presentation Skills conducted by the National Educators Academy of the Philippines in partnership with DepEd Region IV-A (CALABARZON), April 21- 24, 2012.

Primer on the Enhanced K+12 Basic Education Program

K to 12 Basic Education Program Frequently Asked Questions as of November 25, 2011

Discussion Paper on the Enhanced K+12 Basic Education Program, October 25, 2010

You may also like reading:

Why K+12 is necessary? Information Dissemination Campaign, Key to Public Awareness and Acceptance of K+12 Program

K+12 to integrate best features of basic education

K to 12 will define our youth

The Economics of K to 12 

First Things First: A Commentary on K+12

Angel C. de Dios

Department of Chemistry

Georgetown University

Washington, DC 20057

a_c_de_dios@yahoo.com

“The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent Georgetown University.”

The basic education system of the Philippines faces two major problems: (1) high dropout rates in primary and secondary schools, and (2) lack of mastery of specific skills and content as reflected in poor performance in standard tests for both Grade IV and Grade VIII (2nd year high school) students. 

Graphics courtesy of http://www.specialeducationphilippines.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Philippine-K-to-2-Basic-Education-Curriculum

Unfortunately, the proposed K+12 curriculum does not directly address these problems. Both dropout rate and poor performance in standard exams indicate failure in the early years of education. That these problems are caused by a congested 10-year curriculum is not strongly supported by currently available data. The international standard tests take into account both years of education and basic skills. The standard tests ensure that students from all the participating countries had the same number of years of schooling.

The proposed K plus 12 curriculum have various components. It is useful to look at each component in deciding whether it helps address the pressing problems Philippine basic education presently faces:

(1) Kindergarten: This addresses the problems. Early childhood learning when done properly does provide a head start for elementary schools. Kindergarten prepares the child emotionally, physically and mentally for grade school.

(2) No formal subject of science in K to Grade II: This is a waste of a great opportunity. Science education in early childhood is cheap. It does not require elaborate laboratories or equipment.  Young children, in addition, are naturally inquisitive and the years of kinder to grade II are excellent for introduction of basic scientific curiosity and methods.  Only having science as a formal subject can ensure that science will indeed be covered.

(3) Use of mother tongue as medium of instruction: This is very expensive. It requires competent teachers who can teach math and science using the mother tongue. There is no objection that the mother tongue must be taught as a subject in elementary schools since this allows a smoother transition from home to school. The question of what medium should be used in instruction is separate. One medium of instruction can unite the nation. English is the best option since course materials especially from the internet are usually in English.  In this respect, Singapore is a good example to follow.


(4) Spiral curriculum: This type of teaching is highly applicable to elementary schools where both science and math are still treated as general approaches. In high school, both math and science diverge into separate disciplines. A spiral curriculum in high school will require teachers with knowledge in all these areas at a sufficient level. These required teachers are not going to be available in numbers so this program will be poorly implemented. A layered curriculum, on the other hand, is easier to implement - biology is taught in one year, chemistry in the next, physics is usually the last. In this manner, a high school can operate with a chemistry teacher, a physics teacher and a biology teacher, and each one need not be a master of all three disciplines.

(5) Discovery-based learning This type of learning requires longer hours and fails without sufficient guidance (see “An Analysis of the Failure of Electronic Media and Discovery Based Learning”, Clark, etal.(2009) http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/clark_etal_2009_analysis_of_the_failure_of_electronic_media.pdf).  

 The ideal is a mix between traditional and inquiry based methods. This is usually achieved in the sciences by having separate lecture and laboratory components. Guidance is provided during lectures and students work on their own or as a group in the laboratory.

(6) Last but not the least (in fact, this point is crucial), the proposed K plus 12 curriculum also involves short school hours. This seems to be an attempt to enable multiple shifts in the schools.  This goes against de-congesting the curriculum. It likewise does not make it worthwhile for schoolchildren especially those who have to travel far to attend school. This also opens opportunities for child labor as well as greater environmental (outside of school) influences on children education. Elementary schools in the US are full day so that students do have time to cover the material and, at the same time, it allows parents to work and be more productive. A full day in school means less television, less video games, less time on the streets, and less other activities that do not contribute to a sound education of the young.

Most countries have only ten years of compulsory education. Compulsory education in the US varies from state to state, but the average requires anyone who is under 16 years of age to be either enrolled in a school or home-schooled. This means that on average, the US only has 10-11 (including kindergarten) years of compulsory education. The last two years in the US K-12 education already include courses in tertiary education. These are called advanced placement (AP) or international baccalaureate (IB) courses. Examples are calculus (up to multivariable) and AP chemistry. Students who take AP chemistry usually have already finished one year of basic chemistry and one year of advanced chemistry, so in sum, a student could have taken three years of chemistry while in high school. Some schools in the US can not offer these, and consequently, there is great heterogeneity among US schools.

Addressing basic education is a matter of prioritization. Adding kindergarten and two years to high school is estimated to cost more than 100 billion pesos. On the other hand, to solve the two pressing problems, as UNESCO has advised, 6% of the GDP must be assigned to education. At the current funding (2.3% of GDP) of the Department of Education (DepEd), additional years will only lead to a greater demand for resources. Adding two years to high school essentially increases the needs of a high school by 50% - teachers, classrooms, desks, toilets, learning materials, etc. The DepEd can only answer less than half of what UNESCO deems is necessary for the 10-year basic education program. Adding two more years will stretch the budget of DepEd even further.

Implementing a new curriculum requires strong leadership at the school level. The success of a school depends a lot on the principal. A significant fraction of public schools in the Philippines currently do not have a principal or a head teacher. This clearly needs to be addressed first before any reform in curriculum is initiated. Otherwise, a new curriculum has no hope of being implemented successfully.

Instead of trying to attack the problem at the end of high school, efforts must be focused on the early years of education. This is where the dropout rate begins to escalate and these are the years where students are failing to learn as diagnosed by the standard test scores. Resources are very much needed in the first ten years of education and kindergarten and DepEd can do a better job on these years if DepEd does not have to worry about the added senior years in high school.

The government should allow its citizens to work out on their own a solution for the desired two years that aim to prepare students either for college or the workforce. College preparatory schools or community colleges can do this job and TESDA could address those who are leaning towards vocational training.

For any overwhelming policy that involves dramatic changes and budget requirements, it is important that the policy is based on good data and statistics. The Philippines, with its financial condition, cannot afford to waste. The ten-year basic education program can work as demonstrated by a Philippine school in Qatar (see “Do Filipino schools make the grade?” http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/qatar/130893-do-filipino-schools-make-the-grade.html) 

The Philippine school at Doha, Qatar participated in PISA 2009 and their scores were: Science (466), Math: (461) and Reading: (480). These scores place the Philippines near the average scores of participating countries.  The problems concerning basic education that developing countries face are enormous and complex.   A few years from now, the international donor community will look at how close governments they have funded to improve education have reached the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). It is highly likely that the Philippines will not meet the second item in the MDG, universal primary education where the Philippines agreed to  ensure that, by the same date (2015), children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling and that girls and boys will have equal access to all levels of education." (http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.pdf)

With regard to this goal, here are the indicators for the Philippines: Percentage of pupils starting grade 1 who reach grade 5, both sexes (last updated: 09 Aug 2011): 2001 (75.3), 2002 (73.4), 2003 (72.2), 2004 (71.5), 2005 (70.4), 2006 (73.2), 2007 (75.3) (see http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/md /SeriesDetail.aspx?srid=591&crid=608)

Other data have been summarized, for example, in the following article in Business World http://www.bworldonline.com/Research/economicindicators.php?id=0498. It is understandable that the Philippine government is under tremendous pressure and it seems that a magic potion is required. However, what is lacking in most of the components proposed is a thoughtful and careful consideration of evidence and data. It is unfortunate that amidst the lack of sound evidence, although this paucity in data has been emphasized and repeated so many times in published reviews and articles, various components have been incorporated in the K+12 plan with "panacea" stamped on them. The following paragraphs highlight specific examples.

The mother tongue based multiple language education (MTBMLE) is one example. In 2009, the US Supreme Court issued an opinion (Horne vs. Flores) that Structured English Immersion (SEI) works better than bilingual education. It was a narrow decision (5 against 4) so it is not a clear judgment against MTBMLE, but it sure is a clear sign that MTBMLE is not "panacea". Recent news from the state of California also indicates that multilingual education is likewise not working well (see “English-Learning Students Far Behind Under English-Only Methods” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/25/english-learning-students_n_1030990.html).

The world experts in MTBMLE are careful in promoting MTBMLE. To make a strong case in favor of MTBMLE, data must show that high dropout rates are unquestionably due to using a second language as medium of instruction (Smits et al., 2008, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0017/001787/178702e.pdf ).

I strongly recommend taking a closer look at Table A.1 of this study by Smits et al. because this contains data pertinent to the Philippines. Specifically, the paper states: "The figures presented in columns 4 and 8 of the table give an indication of the part of the attendance differences that is due to differences in the background characteristics. For both age groups the reduction is 25 percent or more in 13 of the 22 countries. So in the majority of countries the background characteristics play a role of importance. This result provides support for hypothesis H1. Hypothesis H1 of this paper is “The differences in educational outcomes among linguistic groups are (partly) due to socioeconomic differences and/or differences in urbanization of the place of living among the groups.” The Philippines lists 45 and 48% in columns 4 and 8, respectively.

 In this light, the Philippines is among the three odd countries listed that show very strong correlation between school retention and socioeconomic factors, the others are Ghana and Peru. In Table B1, page 41of the paper, data from the Philippines clearly suggest that the various language groups in the country do not differ from each other in a significant manner in terms of dropout rates. Another aspect of the K+12 plan that has been promoted without scrutiny is the length of instructional hours. This is intimately related to multiple shifts in schools. This area, as experts have warned, is likewise characterized by scarce good data. There are large amounts of data that contain information regarding the length of instruction and learning outcomes, but these data involve so many additional factors.

Nonetheless. amidst these complicated cases, one thing is clear: "....the amount of time spent engaged in learning tasks is related to student performance....”(Abadzi, " Instructional Time Loss in Developing Countries: Concepts, Measurement, and Implications” World Bank Res Obs (2009) 24 (2): 267-290, http://wbro.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/2/267.full.pdf)   The issue of multiple shifts is important and could be a significant factor determining learning and one that definitely warrants a careful study.

I know that anecdotal instances are not of any help, but when I was in grade school, I have always wondered why the top six students from the graduating class always came from the morning shift. In high schools, it was worse, students were placed in sections according to their past year's performance, and the lower the section was, the later their shift was. In a school where three shifts were employed, the poorest of the learners took the late-afternoon-evening shift. Now, these are all anecdotal but these instances illustrate that these factors need to be studied carefully.

Would it satisfy the international donor community that the Philippines would embark on a heroic last minute effort? My answer is that this question is the wrong one to ask. The Philippine government must do what is good for its citizens.

For further discussion and information, you may also like reading the following:

Why K+12 is necessary? Information Dissemination Campaign, Key to Public Awareness and Acceptance of K+12 Program  

The Economics of K to 12 

K+12 to integrate best features of basic education  

Rationale of Mother Tongue-Based Multi-lingual Education 

Diversity Shock: Losing the Mother Tongue (First of 3 Parts)  

Lenten Gory Rituals, A Cultural Tradition or a Sign of Arrogance and Ignorance?

By Gilbert M. Forbes

Through the years, the highly secular and the non-practicing Catholic Christians or Catholic Christians as an appropriate tag for them (other Christian fundamentalists and denominations don’t consider Catholics Christians) draw themselves on a holiday sprees instead of Holy Day reflections, retreats and family spiritual bonding, others poised themselves on Lenten gory rituals as yahoonews has described.

Photo by Romeo Ranoco of Reuters from yahoo news.

The church has consistently reminded the faithful that these kinds of acts are not necessary.  Monsignor Pedro Quitorio, spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, said the Church has discouraged the practices, describing them as "inappropriate".  Inappropriate for in the church perspective, it is not in accordance with the Holy Scriptures.

"What happens here is that we want God to grant us what we wish for," Quitorio told Reuters, saying it is enough for true Catholics to pray, fast and give alms during the Lenten season.

Melvin Pangilinan, an organiser of the annual Lenten ritual who carriede cross in his younger days, told Reuters. "But, it has been our tradition for decades and we have to honour it."  Carlito Santos, a pastor at a local Methodist Church, said the practice cannot be easily relinquished as it has already been embedded in the local culture.

But should we continuously follow a cultural tradition when the higher spiritual authorities has consistently been reminding us that it is no longer necessary?  When even the Hoy Scriptures say it other wise?  Or our difficulty of following emanates from our being hard headed  or arrogant and total ignorance of the Holy Scriptures—a result of our folk Christianity.

These practices actually is damaging to faithful and practicing Catholics for they are often accused of being pagans by their fundamental Christian counterparts.  Much on the part of the Church who has been consistently losing their members in favor of their separated brethrens.  This only strengthens division instead of healing.  At the outset, these separated brethren whom since separation has not listened to Catholic teachings many thought that the church encourages and support these practices.

The sad thing about it is that it is also creating a bad impression among the youth that it is alright to disobey our religious leaders as long as it is done in our own free will without the understanding that doing ones free will has its limitations.

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