Lackluster performance

Science education in our country cannot be considered as a strength.

Based on 2014 statistics, the passing rate for the national achievement
test (NAT) for grade six pupils is only 69.21%. The passing rate for high
school seems far worse, with a passing rate of only 46.38% from 2010
statistics. Moreover, the Philippines consistently performs abysmally in
international surveys.

One example is the Trends in International Mathematics and Science

Study (TIMSS). In 2003, for high school, the country ranked only
34th out of 38 countries in HS II Math, and 43rd out of the 46
participating countries in HS II Science. For elementary, fourth grade
participants ranked 23rd out of the 25 countries in both math and
science. Our country stopped participating in the survey in 2008,
perhaps after getting such lackluster scores.

More recently, the country participated in the 2018 Program for

International Student Assessment (PISA). Conducted by the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the
study ranked 79 participating economies based on their students’
performance in reading, science and math. Filipino students had the
lowest mean score in reading comprehension (340 points, below the
487-point survey average). They also ranked second to the last in
science (357) and math (353), below the 489-point average in both
subjects.

This raises an all-important question: Why is this so?

Shortage of teachers

Numerous factors can be attributed to the current predicament faced by

the country. First and foremost would be the shortage of science and
math teachers in the country. In 2016, DepEd secretary Leonor Briones
stressed the need to hire more teachers with the implementation of the K
to 12 program, which created 36,641 free teaching posts. The
government tried to make ends meet for this shortage by having DepEd
offer teaching posts with above entry-level salary grades to Science and
Technology graduates under the Junior Level Science Scholarships of
the Department of Science and Technology-Science Education Institute.

The scholar graduates of the program would also receive a teacher

training program for them to qualify for the Licensure Examination for
Teachers (LET). Qualifying graduates from the scholarship would be
given the position of special science teacher with a starting salary grade
of 13. DepEd also called for graduates of Science, Math, or Engineering
courses without LET certification, as well TESDA accredited technical-
vocational graduates with expertise in specific learning areas, to apply
as part-time teachers for the K to 12 Senior High School Program.

Shortage of classrooms 

The shortage of classrooms for DepEd schools is also an issue. With the
implementation of the K-12 program, Benjie Valbuena, national chair of
the Alliance of Concerned Teachers-Philippines (ACT-Philippines)
estimated the classroom shortage in the country to be 113,995 as of
2017. By June 2017, Education Undersecretary Jesus Mateo announced
that 50,000 of the needed 113,000 classrooms had already been
completed and are pending for use. The undersecretary stressed the
objective of the government to create more classrooms “to meet lower
class size, which leads to conducive learning.”

Shortage of laboratories

Aside from the obvious lack of classrooms, there is also a lack of

science laboratories to facilitate science learning and application of its
concepts to students. In 2014, DepEd reported a shortage of science
laboratories in regions III, IV-A, X, XI, and XII, with an average of only
one in ten schools having its own laboratory. In the National Capital
Region, the ratio improved with three laboratories for every 10 schools;
however, the findings showed that the rest of the regions did not have
any science laboratories. This problem prompted researchers from
Diliman and Los Banos of the University of the Philippines to develop
Versatile Instrumentation System for Science Education and Research
(VISSER).
This instrumentation system includes hardware, software, sensors, and
experiment modules for various science subjects. The device’s hardware
component includes multi-channel plug and play analog and digital
sensors that run on a microcontroller. The microcontroller pools all the
information and connects such hardware to the device’s modules, which
include experiments in biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. 

Quality of learning materials

DepEd also faces a challenge in terms of the quality of its textbooks.

Many teachers have reported that the books are obsolete and flooded
with errors. In Torrijos, Marinduque, the situation of “sick books” is
nothing new. Teachers from that municipality are well-acquainted with
the circulation of such textbooks. They even provided a copy of an
English book for children inundated with marks from highlighter pens
showing typographical, grammatical, factual, and conceptual errors.
Antonio Calipjo Go, a critic of the circulating DepEd textbooks, identified
1,300 “errors” in a Grade 10 English Learning book. An anonymous
teacher also pointed out numerous errors in her draft copy of the 2014
Grade 9 Science Learner’s material. These errors were already reported
in order to improve the final version of the material.

The general perception of science in the Philippines

The aforementioned predicaments of Philippine education severely limit
how most the public schools can teach science to their students. The
lack of classrooms limits the conduciveness of lectures to students;
public schools that lack classrooms oftentimes compensate by holding
classes at their multipurpose gymnasiums, with their makeshift
classrooms separated only by curtains. Students there can hear the
chatter all over the place, and end up listening not only to their teacher’s
lecture, but also to the lecture from the adjacent classroom.

Textbooks and learning materials are also critical. If they are bland and
unengaging, how can one expect students to even flip through their
pages with interest? The lack of laboratories also damages the quality of
education, limiting teachers to lectures and reporting activities for
students instead of lab experiments that show how the concepts work in
real life. Filipino students are bombarded with theories and
terminologies, which are not necessarily the things that make science
exciting. Scientists do not memorize and regurgitate information; they
ask questions, predict outcomes, and actually perform experiments.

With these limitations in science teaching, one cannot help but wonder
how our countrymen perceive science. The average Filipino who does
not work in a science-related industry has likely never related the
concept to his or her everyday life. The word ‘science’ itself seems
distant and elusive, only being applied to people who spend most of their
days in the lab or in the classroom. When you hear the word ‘science’,
what comes to mind?  Probably, it’s a bunch of concepts from biology
such as evolution, or the oft-repeated statement that “the mitochondria is
the powerhouse of the cell.” As far as chemistry goes, you might
remember mixtures, compounds, and elements. In terms of physics, you
would probably just imagine blackboard full of equations and symbols,
with Albert Einstein patiently and painstakingly trying to make you
understand them.

References: https://www.flipscience.ph/news/features-news/features/teaching-science-philippines/