• Filed under dchs88
  Apr 28

  Education situation in public, private schools in Davao City
  By Barbara Carla R. Quiero
  Sunstar Davao
  Friday, April 28, 2006

  EDUCATION, especially of children, is a challenging and complex process. A good educational institution must provide good teachers, adequate number of facilities such as classrooms, chairs, desks or armchairs and textbooks before it can provide what we call today ‘quality education’ to students.

  A good educational institution will facilitate the learning of the students and allow them to explore and exercise their potentials.

  In a developing country like the Philippines, there are several impediments to maintaining good schools: there is the lack of budget, peace and order problems, and even lack of teachers.

  In Davao City, the condition of educational institutions or schools is very well keeping with today’s challenges.

  Department of Education (Deped) education program specialist II Severina Tagubaso said there are a total of 1,855 public schools in Region 11.

  In Davao City alone, there are 349 public schools, 65 schools for the secondary level and 284 public elementary schools.

  Among them is the Maa National High School (NHS), Sta. Ana NHS, Talomo NHS for highschool students and Magallanes elementary school, Kapitan Tomas elementary school and San Roque elementary school for those in elementary.

  As of August 2005, Tagubaso said there are a total of 241,593 students enrolled in all these schools.

  A total of 167,070 are in grade level while 74,523 are in secondary level.

  For the coming school year 2006-2007, Tagubaso said, DepEd is expecting a 2 percent increase in enrollees.

  Expected number of enrollees is 170,411 for elementary level while 76,013 for high school level.

  To ensure that teaching meets government standards, those aspiring to be teachers have to pass rigid screening by the DepEd office before they are allowed to teach, said DepEd press information officer Jenelito Atillo.

  In addition to the regular teachers in the DepEd plantilla, City Human Resource and Management Officer Marcelino P. Escalada said city-paid teachers assigned by the Local School Board are required to be degree holders of Bachelor in Education and have passed the Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET).

  In Davao City, Tagubaso said there are a total of 4,247 teachers in the elementary level. The pupil teacher ratio (PTR) is 1:39.4 or one teacher in every 39.4 grade school students.

  There are 1,968 high school teachers in the city. The PTR is 1:38 or one high school teacher for every 38 students.

  In Davao City, Tagubase said there are a total of 3,856 classrooms. The pupil classroom ratio (PCR) is 1:43 students or 43 students in every classroom.

  While classroom space is just enough, Tagubase said classroom seats are lacking in number.

  For public elementary schools there are only 141,616 chairs, a ratio of one chair for every 1.18 pupil.

  For public high schools, there are 54,533 chairs, which means 1,37 students to one chair.

  “So if you noticed medyo kulang gyud kay dapat 1:1 unta (chair to student ratio should be 1:1),” Tagubase said in an interview Wednesday.

  In terms of textbook, a graph from DepEd shows skewed ratios. Two students have to share one fourth year English textbook. The graph shows 10,000 of these textbooks are needed but there are only 5,000 available.

  A Filipino subject textbook, however, has an actual need for just 2,000 but there are 13,000 in the inventory.

  While seats and textbooks are sometimes the problems of public schools, this is not so in private schools.

  This is so because students pay for these, said Holy Cross of Davao College (HCDC) high school principal Wenifreda Roderos, and students are required to acquire their own from their school bookstore.

  Roderos said the HCDC high school campus has a total of 19 classrooms for all the 19 sections. There are more or less 50 students per class, she said.

  Seats for students are also 1:1 or 1 seat per student. “We also have extra chairs in case there are a lot of enrollees,” Roderos said in an interview Friday.

  Other than textbooks, Roderos said the school also has a library, speech lab, computer lab, audiovisual room, science laboratories and gym to facilitate the learning of their students.

  According to Roderos, a school’s facility is very important in a school.

  “Before a parent enrolls his or her child, nagtatanong talaga sila kung maganda ba ang mga facilities ng school,” Roderos said.

  Roderos said having good teachers and adequate facilities are key to quality education.

  Former President Fidel V. Ramos once said that collective passion in the implemetaion of quality education for young Filipinos is needed to wipe out poverty and other ills in the society. (BRQ)

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