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The Education System In Philippines

Article · May 2020

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Deniz Oğuz Sevil

Bolu Abant Izzet Baysal University
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The Education System In Philippines

At first glance Philippines might seem to be a country that does not have a decent
education especially owing to its poverty with 9,494 GDP-PPP($) ranking 118​th out of 191
countries. To provide context, Finland which arguably has world’s best education system is
27​th so, one could only expect Philippines to make a mess of its education system but that is
not the case.

By examining the Philippine economy, education vision, beliefs, and history, this text aims to
identify and explain the success of Philippine education system with special importance given
to English language teaching while taking the country’s serious economic status and history
of colonization into account.

The major concern regarding education in the country is the equality of opportunity; ​“the
Philippines has some way to go to achieve universal access to quality primary and secondary
education. In 2013, less than half (42%) of children aged 3-4 years were enrolled in day care
centres, and in 2015, the net enrolment rate at primary school level was 91.05% and 68.15%
at secondary school.”​ (Situation of Children in the Philippines 2017, Health).

Although the overall picture might look severe, government made necessary innovations to
aid the situation. The research arm of Switzerland-based business school, the International
Institute for Management Development (IMD) released the study of the talent
competitiveness of 63 countries in the world, according to the study, the country managed to
rise up to 49th place from 55th place. One can see these innovations as the recent curriculum
change.

English Language And Curriculum In Philippines

Philippine curriculum consists of four stages and is called “K to 12 Program”, it covers 13

years of basic education with Kindergarten to Grade 3, Grades 4 to 6 Grades 7 to 10 (Junior
High School) Grades 11 and 12 (Senior High School). Thus, one of its strand is English
language, English is regarded as a tool to access, process, and use information ( Learning
Strand 1, P2).

The curriculum also states the competences expected from each level such as, in terms of
reading, elementary level (lower): “Interpret simple written sentences...sentences...are related
to: immediate needs, specific activities in the community…”(Learning Strand 1, P4). Even
one of the learning competency for grade four to grade six is listed; summarize the
information from a text heard (Learning Strand 1, P22).

One of many reasons contributing to the English language education is English language
being medium of instruction, to get into more detail, all the subjects expect Filipino and
social studies are in English, the education focuses on learner-centered teaching and students
are to do meaningful tasks using English. Second official language of the government in the
country is English, there is also the Tagalog dialect that combines English and Filipino.

All the legal documentation and the laws are in English. The history of the country has
influence on the official languages: American colonization in the Philippines began during
the Spanish colonial period (1565-1898) and it lasted 48 years. With The Treaty of Manila of
1946, U.S recognized the independence of the Republic of the Philippines​. It was during this
period that ​“The Education Act of 1901 authorized the colonial government to recruit
American teachers to help establish the new educational system, and 80 former soldiers
became teachers. They were soon joined by 48 teachers recruited in America who arrived in
June 1901 on the ship Sheridan, and by 523 others who arrived on August 1, 1901, on the
Thomas. Collectively, these teachers became known as the Thomasites.​” who taught English.
(wiki/Americans_in_the_Philippines, American colonization, References)

Conclusion

For the comparison, the question of how good the education system is in the Philippines
needs to be asked. The EF Epi report shows us the world’s largest ranking of countries by
their English proficiency. When most of studies find the correlation coefficient to be positive
between the socioeconomic status and education, reachers in the field would have a fixed
point regarding a country’s education system but with results from EF Epi, one can expect
different outcomes. Qatar is in 1st place with 134,623 GDP-PPP ($) providing us that it is the
richest out of 191 in the list, expecting very high proficiency from Qatar only seems to be
reasonable, however, according to EF Epi, Qatar is in 80​th place one below Turkey.
Furthermore, from year 2012 to 2019, the ranking of Qatar descended 37th to 80th place,
whereas Philippines scored 20th place.

In conclusion, it is fair to say that a country’s economics cannot be the single aspect to
adequately examine its English education, as it was pointed out in this text that curriculum,
the importance of the English language in the community, country’s history and attitude
towards English, in this case, Second language and many more factors are needed to execute
a successful assessment.
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References

● https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/worlds-richest-and-poorest-countr
ies
● https://worldtop20.org/education-data-base-2019
● https://www.deped.gov.ph/k-to-12/about/faq/
● https://www.deped.gov.ph/k-to-12/about/k-to-12-basic-education-curriculum/#
● https://www.deped.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/LS-1-Comm-Skills-English.p
df
● https://www.britishcouncil.ph/teach/state-english-philippines-should-we-be-concerne
d-2
● https://www.quora.com/What-makes-Filipinos-speak-English-well
● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946)
● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_in_the_Philippines
● https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philippines#British_invasion_(1762–17
64)
● https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/
● https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/regions/middle-east/qatar/
● https://www.unicef.org/philippines/education
● https://www.unicef.org/philippines/media/561/file/Situation%20Analysis%20of%20C
hildren%20in%20the%20Philippines%20brief.pdf