Newly sworn President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. promised that history will not be retaught in schools under his administration.
In his inaugural speech today, the president described his education agenda in broad strokes, one that he said would prepare the “coming generations for more and better jobs” instead of getting menial jobs abroad and being exploited by traffickers.
“What we teach in our schools, the materials used, must be retaught. I am not talking about history, I am talking about the basics, the sciences, sharpening theoretical aptitude and imparting vocational skills such as in the German example,” he said.
Setting and carrying out an education agenda amid a flurry of crises is indeed going to be the litmus test of Marcos putting his money where his mouth is.
As in previous pronouncements as president-elect, Marcos talked about “our teachers, from elementary, are heroes fighting ignorance with poor paper weapons.” He already said in news reports that he wanted to prioritize the welfare of teachers along with improving the country’s literacy rate. This should not come as a surprise as his predecessors have said the same thing. The real challenge lies in first, making these promises come true and second, sustaining them.
Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte for instance has failed to make good on his promise to raise teachers’ salaries and benefits, according to the Alliance of Concerned Teachers.
Duterte for instance has yet to sign Senate Bill No. 2520, which would have made poll service honoraria tax-exempt, resulting in tax reimbursements of P1,800 to P2,400. The House of Representatives adopted the Senate bill on May 31, 2022.
The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition, another teachers’ group, asked Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio to fully implement provisions of the 56-year-old Republic Act No. 4670 or the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers, which stipulates overload or overtime pay. By law, teachers exposed to “hardships like difficulty in commuting to the place of work or other hazards peculiar to the place of employment” are entitled to “Special Hardship Allowances” or compensation equivalent to at least 25% of their monthly salary.
With Vice President Duterte at the helm of the Department of Education (DepEd), she inherits one of the biggest, if not the biggest problem of her father’s administration: addressing education needs beset with longstanding problems that have been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since March 2020, teachers and learners continue to contend with a slew of problems to ensure that no student is left behind, from access to internet access and digital resources to mental health needs and other learning-from-home issues. Children in special education as well as their parents and guardians encounter a more demanding situation when face-to-face instruction is ideal.
The first year of the pandemic saw a huge drop in enrollment from kindergarten to senior high school by more than 25% from the previous 2019-2020 school year, DepEd data show. Keeping children in school and improving the quality of education by sustaining support for teachers and parents are going to be difficult but requisite demands of the new administration.
Education experts agree that education must adapt to the so-called ‘new normal’ to help mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the development of young children, who have been forced to stay at home. END