Road To Salvation

By Antonio M. Reyes

My years of experience in development work searching for solutions to our poverty has convinced me that our only weapon against it is to use the talents God had given us for the good of our country.

If you are a lawyer, do your homework, for justice delayed is justice denied.
If you are a teacher stop drilling your students on the NATS tests and give them the education they deserve.

If you are a politician forget about re-election and just be the role model that your constituents think you are.

If you are a churchmen concentrate on the spiritual needs of your members and stay out of state affairs. If you are a fishermen conserve the reefs and mangroves that your livelihood depends on.

If you are a public servant, act like one.

If you are a plain citizen do something about the injustices you see around you.
For in the final analysis our progress will depend on how we feel about ourselves, our country, and the vocation we have chosen to pursue.

My Pastor Reverend Jaime Moriles tells me that we were made in God’s image.
If this is true, then God must have expected great things from us. Let’s at least try to live up to them by using the talents he has so kindly given us.

Education is The Solution!

The shocking results of last November’s Civil Service examinations, which 90 percent of the examinees flunked, should convince our policy makers that something is seriously wrong with our educational system. For according to CSC Chairman Francisco Duque, it was the first time in history, that only 10 percent of the examinees passed the test.

Among the excuses now being trumpeted by DepEd officials is that last year’s examinations were more difficult than previous years. A claim quickly denied by Duque who claimed it was no different from the commission’s standard annual examinations for aspiring public servants.

Actually it was a combination of factors that led to this latest debacle. The first is that we simply have too many students and not enough teachers. For no matter how exceptional our mentors are; they cannot effectively handle ten subjects a day with 60 or more students per class.

The second major factor is that many of our school teachers have not mastered the English language well enough to teach their class in it. Too many are conducting their lessons in the local dialect, and since the CSC examinations are in English, their students cannot understand the test questions well enough to answer them. This is why public school teachers are drilling their students on the NAT examinations because they know what would happen if they did not.

In a recent World Bank Report on Philippine education school teachers ranked “low public esteem” towards them as a major factor for leaving the profession. They also said they had ten “administrative functions” they had to perform daily in addition to their academic responsibilities.

The new administration that will govern our Banana Republic come July 2010 must do something drastic about our education system which Steve Norris of Macrohon describes as more harmful than no education at all.

DepEd officials should admit its shortcomings and give our children the education they deserve.

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