School season

On Monday the gates of every public school will be open for the students to enjoy their first day of classes. The Monday blues will sink in. I can literally hear the cries of the kindergarten pupils in my head on this weekend as their parents leave them for their first time to be on their own. They hold on tight to their moms and dads, clinging to the hope that they won’t have to go to school. It’s reality. Everybody’s got to learn something somewhere.

A week before the start of classes parents and other stakeholders were busy cleaning the campuses for the Brigada Eskwela. Others opted to give their donations in kind to buy paint and other needs. This forced teachers in some areas to manually do the labor or ask their family members to join in. After all, the essence of the Brigada Eskwela is to work as one community for the sake of the next generation that will be in school for the next 10 months.

Meanwhile, in the tertiary level, students are clamoring for universities to stop their plans to increase tuition fees. On top of the daily expenses of their parents to send them to school, higher tuition fees might make it impossible for them to finish on time or even finish the degree at all. It will become easy for one to contemplate to find a good job that will sustain their daily needs rather than spend 8 to 10 hours a day in school with no monetary exchange.

This is the reality of Philippine education. Although for the basic level, the Department of Education has been working hard to make sure that it will be accessible to all. Books and other resources are to be borrowed by the students for free. They provide some of the materials to be used for classes, and uniforms are not mandatory at all. Of course, we cannot discount the fact that there are still other expenses. And if a student wants to stand out in class, there should be some money spent for good quality items to be used for various projects and activities.

The truth is, despite the many efforts to make it appear like education is top priority, it really isn’t. That is why I always give my appreciation to private companies who spend out of their own pocket so those in public schools may be elevated. I also show my sincerest gratitude to those who shoulder scholarships for poor but deserving students. We all need access to education, and this is the only key through which our country will prosper. A well-educated citizenry will uplift us to become at par with the world.

As classes start, I hope that somehow the new K-12 system has helped our status of education. We don’t know yet how far its products will go but at the end of the day there is always a good student no matter how bad the situation is.