Another crisis - SKETCHES By Ana Marie Pamintuan

In a season of bad news, there was one item I found particularly depressing: Filipino first-year high school students ranked 36th among 38 countries in the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), according to results released last week.

Now this isn’t really news – I’ve always thought I wasn’t alone in being math-challenged in this country, or of being confounded by physics and geometry. But seeing my nieces and nephews breezing through grade school math and geometry, I thought younger Filipinos were major improvements on their elders in math and science.

I found the news on TIMSS particularly worrisome after my visit to Japan. That country still hasn’t emerged from a decade-long recession, but you can’t help being impressed when you consider its progress after the de-vastation of the war, including the zapping of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From defeat and great national humiliation, Japan became an industrial powerhouse and an economic superpower, becoming a leading producer of consumer electronics and automobiles.

Even after the economic bubble burst and suicides rose (33,000 in 1998 alone), you can’t help being impressed. The Japanese still enjoy one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, and Japan is still the world’s leading source of official development assistance (although a Diet member is proposing a 30 percent cut in ODA).

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Even average folks enjoy all the amenities of modern life in Japan. Aside from the appliances we are familiar with, they have heated pads for their tatami mats, heated toilet seats (to prevent sudden change of temperature from a heated room to the toilet), bidets and a shower for your butt. They can afford trips abroad at least once a year.

Although recovery is slow, the Japanese aren’t throwing in the towel. Their third-generation mobile phone, to be launched in May, is expected to revolutionize the industry. Japanese culture is captivating the global market. Sony’s Play Station 2 is the toy of Christmas 2000 (watch out, the price may give you a coronary). After Pokemon, my nieces are now crazy about all things animé (animation). Surely you are aware of Tamiya toy cars. But have you heard of "Fushigi Yugi: The Mysterious Play"? Or manga (magazines)?

Even with the recession, I can’t help believing that Japan will recover. The nation has one of the highest literacy rates in the world, with one of the most rigorous educational systems. This has led to a number of teenage suicides, by the way, but that’s another point. In the latest TIMMS, Japan ranked fifth in math and fourth in science.

It’s also a nation of newspaper readers. The biggest, Yomiuri Shimbun, has a daily circulation of 10.2 million – the biggest in the world – apart from its afternoon and English editions. My Japanese guide kept reading The Financial Times for tips on where to put her money. In that country, don’t expect action stars and comedians to win public office on sheer popularity.

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A school teacher told me that after the war, his family was so poor their family could afford to eat meat only twice a year. Milk of sufficient quantity was introduced only by the Americans. They worked their butts off to revive Japan after the war, he said.

The younger generation, the teacher lamented, never knew the horrors of war and is growing soft. He thinks soft drinks and other processed sweets are destroying the younger generation’s teeth (here he flashed his perfect teeth), and that hamburger and French fries are making them fat and lazy. He conceded though that the diet of beef and milk is producing bigger people. But these days, he grumbled, students are complaining about the six-day school week and want less school work.

In our case I don’t think our students are getting fat or lazy. But we simply aren’t investing enough in education. Although there are efforts to provide quality education at affordable prices to deserving students, the opportunities are too limited.

I think even education officials will concede that the free public elementary and high school system offers substandard education. We can’t even make up our mind on the best medium of instruction for the entire country. This is a crisis that has been with us for years, and there’s no relief in sight.