i was late for my first class. sir dipad was already discussing something to the class. a report assignment has already been given to two of my classmates. i looked at the photocopy sir dante was holding. his report will be about nature, scoop & function of a school administrator.
by the way, my subject is seminar in administration & management.
the discussion moved to the problem of overcrowded classrooms in the philippines. typical. sir dipad mentioned the best solution is geographical division of places. only students from adjacent barangays are to be admitted in every school. i guess, this is already a policy. the problem is implementation.
according to sir dipad no student is to be refused from being admitted to enroll. then how can this geographical separation be applied?
on the part of school administration – the bigger the student population, the bigger the school’s budget allowance (MOOA). this leads me to think negatively. for the sake of money.
another is the parent factor. those who live in the rural areas thinks central (urban) schools are better than the schools in their area. they also esteem the teachers in the central schools far better than those who are serving in their places. but why not? they maybe teaching the same curriculum but in terms of facilities, which is well furnished? how about teachers attitude and conduct? rural folks can observe when teachers assigned in their posts arrived late on Monday mornings and scurry every Friday afternoon to return back home (not everyone is guilty of this). of course the localization hiring policy is DepEd’s solution to this. but why is this situation still prevalent today?
then our discussion jumped to k+12. i will be selfish here. i need a job and this is one of the possible means i will get hired. if this is a failure, abolish it after i got hired. the premise to this is the longer a child stays in school, the more learning he will acquire. definitely, this is true. first and foremost, why are we having a problem of a no-read, no-write graduates? because we are keep on doing what we are doing. my apology to my friends who are telling this is an additional financial burden. but don’t we have a free basic education for all? when con people raises the argument of more drop-outs in this additional years, i say, there is no royal road to learning. education is hard. it’s meant to be. i heard ma’m gabelo during my college days saying “if education is expensive, try ignorance”.
our discussion again changed to the qualification of teachers. sir dipad raised his concern that at present there are educators teaching subjects not in line with their majors. very true. let us take for example TLE. lessons in this subject will lead to the students skills’ certification. but are their mentors certified as well? sir dipad mentioned the tragic abolition of the tertiary course industrial education and vocational high schools in region v. these would had equipped us better in implementing today’s curriculum. i can’t be sure but i want to verify if indeed there are no more vocational school in region v. because when i attended a seminar in UbD, some teachers mentioned a different curriculum being implemented in their school. talking about developing skilled worker as a result of this new curriculum sir dipad asked, “what is the government’s true intention? the student’s future or increase of migrant worker?” i think, whatever it be, i can see nothing bad about it.
we talked about budget. unavoidably, it lead to the lawmakers’ CDF. could it be true? for the budget to be approved, lawmakers has to safeguard their own cuts first. how sad? could it be also true, that among the lawmakers, only Senator Lacson is not getting his CDF. his reason – they are lawmakers, not executive officials.
sir dipad also illustrated a scheme where a congressman uses his CDF which is, according to sir now amounts to Php100 million. a congressman might opt to create five congressional item. on the first year, the salary of the five teachers will be taken from his CDF. but on the next year, the salary of these teachers will be moved to the general appropriations fund. and so, the congressman may again choose to create 5 more teaching posts. and the cycle continues.
