Nurture tomorrow with a progressive science education

Editorial

FOUR POINT THREE TRILLION PESOS. The education sector is set to get the lion’s share, with P654.77 billion allotted to the Department of Education (DepEd), State Universities and Colleges (SUCs), and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) combined.

At first glance, Philippine education looks well-cared for. So by extension, science education must be thriving as well. However, Duterte’s track record in education has been dismal so far. With an ingenuine promise for free education, campus militarization, and countless human rights violations as more than a hundred of Lumad schools were forcibly closed down – all in the past three years. We should be well past the point of expecting anything new.

Ingenuine promises

As one of the university’s largest colleges in terms of student population, it can be said that the College of Science is one of the most heavily affected by inadequate educational policies. At present, there is already a multitude of pressing concerns: incomplete reagents, defunct instruments, the dorm slot crisis, and delayed stipends, to name a few. In fact, in the Academic Year 2018-2019, beneficiaries of the Department of Science and TechnologyScience Education Institute (DOST-SEI) Undergraduate Scholarship Program suffered months of delayed release of stipends.

To nurture the best of the best, we need to provide to them the best education possible— from opportunities, facilities, and quality instruction. But this cannot be accomplished

with the way things are looking now, not when students still suffer from insufficient research subsidies and outdated laboratory apparatus. The point is that the fight does not stop with the passing of Republic Act 10931 (R.A. 10931) otherwise known as the Free Tuition Act. We need genuinely free and quality education starting with higher state education subsidies.

The discussion on free education has been a long-standing issue. While the struggle for a truly free educational system has achieved significant progress with the passing of R.A. 10931, it is much too early to bask in content and triumph. There are still many challenges that hinder the pursuit of free education; in fact, many students are forced to pay a multitude of fees, such as graduation fees and other auxiliary requirements that they should be able to do without. In particular, CHED released a list of allowed Other School Fees (OSFs) essentially imposing compulsory payment from students. This, however, directly contradicts R.A. 10931 which very clearly states that education must be free of charge.

Perhaps for some of us, it may seem that everything is easy or relatively easier. But it is of no doubt that there are those among us who struggle to get by day by day, forced to complete jobs while pushing through the semester just to meet their necessities. Let this remind us to never settle in the apathy of privilege and recognize that the fight for our rights needs all the support it can get. Every single peso that the R.A. 10931 has failed to provide contributes to the plight of the disenfranchised.’

Education is the answer to the nation’s problems, as repeated by our elders ad infinitum. If, then, the proper conditions for quality education are not met, what can we expect from the state of our national development? What does our state of education imply about our national situation?

Let us rephrase the question; what is the state of our science and technology (S&T)? As such, science and technology (S&T) is one of the most stunted sectors of our nation, ultimately speaking of a stunted science education.

We say that S&T in the Philippines is stunted, because it is one of the most underdeveloped sectors. In the 2016 UNESCO Research and Development (R&D) expenditure report, the world average for R&D expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 1.7%. 1 Meanwhile, our national budget allocated only a measly 0.14% to R&D. Quite damning, considering our neighbors such as Malaysia and Singapore have allocated 1.44% and 2.2% in R&D respectively in 2016. 1 This lack of funds naturally translates to the Philippines being ranked 83rd out of 138 countries in terms of technological readiness, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF). 2

Another reason why we say that S&T in the Philippines is stunted is the fact that in spite of the country’s abundance in mineral resources, the mining industry contributes very little to our GDP. Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority reports that out of our $356.814 billion GDP in 2019, only $2.88 billion or 0.77% was contributed by the mining industry. 3 Unsurprising, since the mining industry is monopolized by multinational corporations such as Oceanagold and with the Mining Act of 1995 allowing up to 100% foreign ownership on profit. This points to two things: one being our lack of national industries as a result of our economy being taken over by foreign monopoly capitalists, and secondly, how we lack the capability to harness our own resources for our people’s benefit.

The evidence pointing out the technological incompetence of the Philippines goes infinitely longer than the reasons stated above. Of course, one primary rationalization to gather from this is the state’s clear lack of prioritization of science and technology. What few scientists remain locally are ignored and disrespected by state officials. This is not an isolated problem —the situation of our S&T mirrors that of S&T education. In 2018, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), an academic assessment survey of 15 year-old learners. The Philippines fared poorly, ranking in the low 70s out of the 79 participating countries for different subjects: last in reading literacy with an average of 340 versus the OECD average of 487, and 78th in mathematics and science with 353 points and 357 points respectively against a 489 OECD average. 4 This is mirrored in tertiary education; CHED reported 38,219 enrollees for the natural sciences in 2013-2014, but only 8,693 or 23% graduates in 2017-2018 for four-year courses. Similarly, mathematics had 16,195 enrollees for 2013-2014 but only 3,446 or 21% graduates in 2017-2018. 5

The state of the science sector on a national level leaves much to be desired, and that is the terrible truth that we have to accept. But this truth need not remain forever. Rather this harsh reality must drive us further forward and encourage us to continue to fight for increased state support for our respective fields and science education as a whole. Clearly, the fight for genuine free and quality education has everything to do with developing Philippine S&T that has been long ignored.

Fascist Administration

The logic demanding genuine free education and greater educational subsidies seems obvious enough, for any self-respecting government. Our current administration clearly digresses, with Duterte’s major benefactors being DND, AFP-PNP, and Build! Build! Build! (BBB). The Duterte administration, instead of directing funds to R&D, calamity fund, education, health, and agriculture, has chosen to give the bulk of budget increase to arm the

AFP-PNP to intensify their attacks on human rights groups under the banner of “counterinsurgency.” Instead of investing the people’s taxes for long-term development, the administration instead took to building more infrastructure to showcase illusory growth, with P972.5 billion allocated for infrastructure in 2019 which in turn funded Duterte’s BBB. Included under this campaign are multi-billion peso reclamation and demolition projects.

As it stands, the national crises seem to be unsolvable without divine intervention. But that’s not the point. If anything, the worsening state of our nation should provide more reason as to why we should keep pushing our campaigns forward. But in this quagmire of treason upon treason against the people, where can science education even find its place? But perhaps the state has already answered that, if our stunted state of science and technology is anything to go by.

Progressive science education leading to national development

Given all these, it is only imperative that we continue to demand for higher state subsidies. If we don’t, we’ll never be able to solve the issues that we keep debating about. As long as Philippine S&T remains backward and stunted, we’ll never hear the end of brain drain, technological incompetence, plummeting economy, and so forth. We should start somewhere, and one of those places can be envisioning a quality science education under genuine free education.

In the end, such science education is not without its expectations. And just like everything else, it will find itself among many other issues that our nation is currently facing or is yet to face. The goal, then, is to achieve a science education that is nationalistic, progressive, and mass-oriented. It has to be nationalistic, because it has to serve the interests of our nation by propelling the challenges of national industrialization forward and breaking free from total foreign subservience.

We need a science education that encourages our scientists to stay in the country and help develop the fields of S&T and R&D, eventually leading to the creation of national industries made by and for the people. It has to be progressive and mass-oriented because what point does S&T have to offer if it serves only the interests of the elite? If it is only used as a tool to further exploitation and oppression? And lastly of course, a mass-oriented system of education ensures that education as a basic right is met, that all are given the opportunity to receive quality education.

These characteristics are essential because it is only through these orientations will we be able to create the conditions for an education that nurtures the youth into serving the people.

References

1. “Science,Technology and Innovation : Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GERD), GERD as a Percentage of GDP, GERD per Capita and GERD per Researcher.” UNESCO Institute for Statistics. UNESCO. Accessed February 21, 2020. http://data.uis.unesco.org/index. aspx?queryid=74.

2. “The Global Competitiveness Report 2016–2017.” World Economic Forum. Accessed February 21, 2020. https://www.weforum.org/ reports/the-global-competitiveness-report-2016-2017-1. 3. “National Accounts.” Philippine Statistics Authority. Accessed February 21, 2020. https://psa.gov.ph/nap-press-release/dataseries.

4. “PISA 2018 Results.” Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Accessed February 21, 2020. https://www.oecd.org/ pisa/publications/pisa-2018-results.htm.

5. “Statistics.” Commission on Higher Education. Accessed February 21, 2020. https://ched.gov.ph/statistics/.