Teaching out of their depth

A grade 8 Science teacher in a private school recently admitted to her students that Biology was her field of expertise, thus she’s at a loss how to teach them Physics. Candidly, the teacher said that while she sees little problem teaching Earth Science, she would have to do more than review her college Physics textbook if she would be able to teach them anything regarding mass, velocity, speed, etc.

In the “spiral system” in place under hastily implemented K-12 program of the Department of Education (DepEd), students, as in the above case, have to take four different science subjects in a year. The set-ups in Math and in other subjects are more or less the same as in Science.This is very much different from the previous system wherein students take the whole year taking Physics or Algebra or Trigonometry. 

In another private school, an English teacher faces the same dilemma with the “spiral system” as she’d been forced to handle subjects that are not her forte. This dangerous situation of the “blind leading the blind” is surely happening in most schools all over the country because the K-12 program had been rushed by DepEd.

The K-12 Program is like the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of this and the future generation of Filipinos. Instead of improving the state of education in the Philippines, it has the potential to worsen it because of so many problems at the ground.

And what has DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro done?

Luistro’srecent plea for the graduates of the University of the Philippines (UP) to help in building schools nationwide missed the point completely. No.1, that many UP graduates have “return service” agreements in appreciation of the government funding their education. And more importantly, it’s not just the lack of classrooms that is ailing the Philippine education system, but a seemingly ill-conceived and haphazardly implemented K-12 Program.                                         

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Image by www.teachforthephilippines.org

Not in Harvard or Princeton you don’t

 

Some 40 words commonly used by Filipinos in the Philippines and abroad have gained acceptance and entry into the latest edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). As expected, there is great rejoicing in social media over the biggest number of Pinoy words to make it to the OED.

Among the words that found their way into the OED are halo-halo (mixed sweets on ice and milk), barangay (village), suki (frequent buyer), balik-bayan (returning expatriate), kikay kit (vanity kit) and initials like KKB (kanya-kanyang bayad or paying for one’s expenses).

“The addition of Philippine terms in the lexicon lends itself to the ‘legitimization of Philippine English as a variety in its own right,’” reported the Inquirer, quoting a Filipino lexicographer based in the UK who works as a consultant editor for OED. 

That statement is quite a stretch if the lexicographer meant that Philippine English is a “variety” akin or similar to American English or British English. American English is used by Americans and non-Americans alike while British English is used by the British and, again, by the non-British. 

The same cannot be said of Philippine English which is used exclusively by Filipinos and, if at all, by their partners and offspring in inter-racial marriages. So it’s not like a Filipino student in Harvard or Princeton can use OED-listed words like “presidentiables" and "batchmates” in their papers and cite the OED to defend their choice of words.

The professors would just throw at any such student a 10-kilo, thousands-of-pages copy of Websters Dictionary and flunk them. The point is, while language is vibrant, dynamic and ever-evolving, it would take more than a listing at the OED or at any dictionary for that matter for Filipino words to really make it into mainstream American or British English. 

The only time that  the so-called Philippine English can be classified as a “variety” of English is when it has gained wide acceptance and usage not only by Filipinos but by non-Filipinos. Let’s not kid ourselves. 

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Killer Air

 

We have a Clean Air Act (RA 8749) enacted many years ago, but why is it that air pollution is still a big problem, especially in Metro Manila?

According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB), the air quality situation in the National Capital Region in the first quarter of this year is even worse than it was at the end of last year.

The air pollutant concentration in the National Capital Region reached 130 million micrograms per normal cubic meter (µg/Ncm) in terms of total suspended particulates, up from 106 µg/Ncm at year's end in 2014, the agencvy said. The maximum safe level of air pollutant concentration is 90 µg/Ncm.

Particulate matter (PM) small enough to be inhaled include gases emitted from motor vehicles that can affect the heart and lungs and cause serious health effects.

Pollution, particularly from PM that can find its way deep into lungs, is largely to blame for 3.2 million preventable deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization.

The EMB estimates that 71 percent of air pollution in the country can be traced to 7.5 million motor vehicles on the road. This number is even higher in the National Capital Region  where 85 percent of air pollution comes from vehicles.

Because the Clean Air Act has obviously failed to solve air pollution, a civil society group called the Coalition of Clean Air Advocates has filed administratuve charges against top officials of the Department of Trade and Industry for alleged "dereliction of duty". The complaint lodged before the Office of the Ombudsman said the DTI failed to create the Bureau of Automotive Maintenance, which is supposed to  strictly oversee the enforcement of motor-vehicle standards.

The move by civil society to hale government officials to court for gross dereliction of duty in so far as ensuring clean air is a step in the right direction. This is the proper thing to do, so that these officials are made accountable for their acts of omission. After all, air pollution kills people, if not at once, then surely later.  

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Hollow praise for seafarers

 

On Seafarers’ Day today, June 25, a full-page advertisement came out in several Philippine broadsheets extolling Filipino seamen for their US$5.6 billion remittances in 2014 and for being a “pillar of financial stability for the country.”  The ad also commended “our Filipino seafarers whose efficiency, resilience and competency continually make them the seafarer of choice worldwide. Indeed they are the our country’s source of pride...”

Nice words, but they’re just words at the end of the day, especially with the thousands of jobs of Filipino seafarers aboard European-flagged vessels in danger of being lost because of training certification issues raised by the maritime authorities of the European Union.

What Filipino seafarers and the cadets who would follow their footsteps really need is for the government to crack the whip hard on substandard maritime schools that have sprouted like mushrooms all over the country. A number of these diploma mills had already been shut down but still many others remain in operation, along with test and certification centers that issue certificates even to underperforming cadets in exchange for hefty bribes.

Likewise, the government should join forces with the private sector in providing more training vessels for cadets to get much-needed on-board training that would provide them with the experience and skills necessary to be considered for employment by shipping companies.

Lastly, manning agencies should really take care of the seafarers they deploy even without the threat of being charged with violations over the non-compliance of their principals to the contracts signed by our seafarers. Yes, Filipino seafarers are very much in demand for their dedication and resiliency. That they are sought after by ship owners is despite the fact that many get a raw deal from the training afforded them by local maritime schools.

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Image  by Wiki

A victory for UP’s GE27

The 11-member Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines (UP) did right in approving today (June 23, 2015) the petition of 27 UP Baguio students to graduate despite following an outdated general education (GE) program. In a memo, UP President Alfredo Pascual informed UP Baguio Chancellor Raymundo Rovillos of the decision of the highest governing body of the state university composed of representatives from the government, the university and other stakeholders.

The decision means that the 27 students from the College of Arts and Communication of UP Baguio, including several honor students, would be able to join tomorrow’s(June 25) commencement exercises. More importantly, they were spared the prospect of taking 15 or so units more of the GE subjects they missed.

Clearly, it was not the fault of the 27 but of some UP Baguio officials that they took GE subjects following an outdated checklist that should have been discarded following the release of an updated checklist. There were also regular consultations between students and faculty advisers each semester thus it was a puzzler how the error escaped notice until the very last moment.

The UP system is unique among local universities and colleges in the country in that it allows students to select GE subjects relevant to their courses in a menu or list, subject to approval by their advisers and colleges. The UP gives importance to its GE subjects to  “mold well-rounded professionals” and  “instill in them UP’s time-honored values.”  

With this backgrounder, the decision of UP Baguio’s University Council to bar the 27 students from graduating despite a recommendation from the CAC Executive Board for the issuance of a waiver to the missed GE subjects drew widespread criticisms. It was at that point that students, henceforth referred to in social media as the GE27,  filed a petition at the UP System level.

“As our college has emphasized, we have not violated the spirit of the [RGEP]. We have completed 15 units of GE courses in each of the three domains (Humanities, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences/Mathematics) and have thus complied with the RGEP requirements,” the 27 wrote Pascual.  “We believe that these RGEP courses, together with our core and elective courses, have helped us develop the desired skills and competencies expected of a UP graduate.”

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 Image by RAVTS