Ask a Filipino what educational challenges the country faces and she/he will give you a list. Common items found on that list includes a lack of budget, classrooms and teachers, as well as undernourished or malnourished learners. (Rodriguez, 2014) Frankly, many of these issues focus more on government policies and they are not something I wish to address. Instead, I’d like to focus on teachers. A teacher in the Philippines faces problems like big class sizes or lacking the resources. Since 2013, they have also had to deal with a new educational system.
In 2013, Republic Act 10533 or the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 was implemented. The law resulted in a massive overhaul of the educational system. Prior to the change, the Philippines only had 10 years of basic education. The law ensured that kindergarten was a part of basic education. It added two years in high school, resulting in a total of 13 years of basic education, and allowed students to choose specialized tracks based on their interests. It even changed the medium of instruction, particularly in the lower years. The changes aimed to make education in the Philippines to be more “learner-centered” and diverse. (RA 10533,2013)
Implementation began during school year 2012-2013 and took until 2017 to complete the implementation. Since then, people, mainly students, teachers and parents, have commonly portrayed the change as burden. It makes one wonder: what fundamental aspect did the Department of Education miss? How was the new educational system designed? What can be done to make it better?
One challenge that we can extract from this is how to train or retrain teachers for the new educational system. At the senior high school level, in particularly, teachers are now required to teach newer, more specialized subjects. Often these are subjects they have not encountered since their university years. In some places, there might not even be enough teachers to handle such problems. In cases like these, the DepEd allows schools to higher non-education graduates or professional to teach at schools. The only requirement is that they fulfill the necessary requirements of the Licensure Exam for Teachers (LET). Part-time teachers are exempted from this requirement. (RA 7836, 1994) Currently, there is passing rate for the LET is quite low. This suggests that there is problem in training teachers in the Philippines. (Cepeda, 2017)
The current model is for training a teacher with no education background is for them to take classes equivalent to 18 professional education credits (or units as they are known in the Philippines). One thing I noticed about teachers with no education background is that their knowledge of content is more rounded than teachers with an education background. Unfortunately, this does not usually translate to knowledge or skills in things like classroom management or relating to people from varied backgrounds. Their backgrounds also do not necessarily equip them with Aoun’s new literacies. This usually makes it difficult for them to model these new literacies to their students. (Aoun, 2017)
I would also like to specifically address the challenges of being a science teacher in the Philippines. The Department of Science and Technology (DOST) in the Philippines identified several factors that may help answer my questions. I would like to focus on are teacher quality. This in turn can be associated to the general lack of qualified science teachers, training opportunities and resources. There also time when there is a mismatch between a teacher’s science background and her/his teaching assignment. For example, because there is no science teacher available, a teacher trained in social science will have to teach physics. The methods used in the classroom are also is still very teacher-centered and focused college-bound students. (NISMED, 2011)
The challenge I would like to address designing a program that is more flexible for training teachers with no education background. The program should enhance skills the teacher already obtained from prior work experiences as well as give him/her the basics of handling a class. I would also like to address challenges faced by science teachers, especially those who feel the need for better conceptual understanding of their subject matter. It would also help if the program can empower them to come up with activities that will help develop students’ curiosity and problem-solving skills.
An alternative to university classes for teachers with no education background would be an online program focused on classroom skills and the basics of professional education. One advantage of having the program online is that it will be accessible to more teachers, especially those who cannot travel to local colleges or universities.
The program can present different school-related situations in video format. The trainee teacher will then try to answer questions about the situation. Questions can range from “How can you address the situation?” to “What can be done to improve the response of the teacher?”. Other students in the program can then join in the discussion of the situation. Finally, seasoned teachers/program providers can give feedback about how to deal with that situation.
This would only address the trainee teacher’s theoretical knowledge. Her/his supervisor observations will be an important part of training. The supervisor will be provided with a rubric that they can use during their regularly scheduled observations. Evaluations by his/her fellow teachers can also be used, particularly as a formative assessment. The summative assessment can be a combination of their responses to hypothetical school situations and on supervisor observation. This would mean that the school itself would be working closely with program to help train the teacher. Assessments for this program would be crucial since it would lead to obtaining a license as professional teacher.
As for science teachers, one way to address their conceptual challenges to help them come up with activity ideas to use in the classroom. The rationale behind this is that since they are literally doing a crash course on the basics of the topic they need to teach, it would really help if they get the basic concepts along with activities they can do in class. To facilitate the trainee teacher’s learning and to help answer conceptual questions he/she may have, there can be a network of experts in each field of science as well as other science teachers. The network would be online and available to throughout a teacher’s career. To encourage discourse, the network can even be gamified. Points can be given based on the number of conceptual questions one answered and how well the question was answered.
Both proposed models would have implications for the relevancy of the LET. A model like this one would essentially make the licensure exam irrelevant. Hence, the government would have to come up with a new way to certify teachers. Again, it boils down to the problem of assessment. This bring up another challenge: what exactly does the Philippines want from its teachers in the future? If we can answer that, then we’ll be better able to address the challenges in our educational system.
References
Aoun, J. E. (2017). Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Cepeda, M. (2017, October 2). Half of PH schools for teachers perform poorly in licensure exams. Rappler. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/nation/184062-worst-best-schools-teachers-licensure-examination
Republic Act 7836 Philippine Teachers Professionalization Act, 1994
Republic Act 10533 Enhanced Basic Education Act, 2013
NISMED, S.-D. &. (2011). Framework for Philippine Science Teacher Education. Retrieved from http://www.sei.dost.gov.ph/images/downloads/publ/sei_sciteach.pdf
Rodriguez, F. (2014, February 8). PH education and health lagging behind ASEAN nations. Rappler.
