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Youth group: Teachers’ schools turning into diploma mills


Based on the poor showing of education graduates in licensure exams, teachers’ schools may be turning out to be diploma mills, a youth group said over the weekend. Kabataan group said data from the Professional Regulation Commission shows only a little more than 100,000 education students reach the fourth year. “And of the more than 100,000 who graduate, only a few pass the licensure exams," Kabataan vice president Carl Marc Ramota said in a statement. He said only 17,377 out of 59,457 or a measly 29.23 percent of the examinees passed the exams for elementary education while 32.44 percent or 17,290 out of 53,303 examinees passed the test for secondary education in the August 2006 Licensure Examinations for Teachers (LET). This shows many teacher education institutions are producing “half-baked" graduates who add up to the bulk of LET non-passers and unemployed or underemployed teachers, he said. Such poor performance of our graduates in professional examinations is only reflective of the dismal state of the Philippine education system, he said. “Even these schools are now being turned into mere for-profit diploma mills rather than as training ground for future mentors," he lamented. On the other hand, Ramota said many of those who manage to pass the LET eventually abandon their profession in favor of jobs that are available here or abroad. “Sadly, of the current crop of teachers, the best and the brightest are now teaching abroad. Many of them are also leaving to work as domestics in other countries," he added. He said the employment crisis, low salary and unrealistic professional regulation policies continue to plague the education profession. Since 2001, he said, the salaries of government employees, which include teachers, have been frozen. The last salary increases were given in 2000, a 10-percent increase (P440) and five percent in 2001 (P242). “We could only imagine what kind of students we are producing if their teachers are not adequately equipped with the appropriate skills," said Ramota. Ramota said that while the first day of school this year has already passed, education officials should not ignore this “distressing signal." According to him, the country has enough education graduates to plug the growing teacher-student gap but many of them fail to pass the licensure exam due to raw training. Besides, he said more opt to go abroad, while those who stay in the country prefer to work as housemaids. “Every school year, more than 400,000 college hopefuls aspire to become teachers. Practically almost all tertiary or college level institutions in the country offer a degree in Teacher Education. Yet the country lacks roughly some 50,000 teachers," he said. He said only a fraction among the thousands who flock to Teacher Education are able to attain their dream profession. A teacher’s starting salary is only P9,939 a month, a little higher than the minimum wage in Metro Manila. Militant think-tank IBON Foundation pegged the monthly cost of living in the National Capital Region at P20,454.61 or a difference of P10,515.61. A study released by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also show that teachers in the Philippines work an average of 1,176 hours per year and teach classes of over 50 students. “We can’t blame our teachers for leaving the country or for working as housemaids. Whatever salary they receive does not correspond to their load of work," he said. - GMANews.TV

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