Lacking Science Education in the Philippines
Public education system in the curriculum; inadequate books and science
Philippines is indiscriminate to children who
happens to fall short of the first section standard
and some teacher could care less if the child
understands or not. The mindset that last section
are slow learners gives a negative mindset to the
students that they are lacking and makes them
lazy at studying and more or less give up at
understanding hard lessons. The sectioning done
is both helpful and harming. Personally
experiencing first section throughout my life,
I’ve been exposed of how toxic competing for
top spots can be. It takes away the fun of
learning and friendship to others, not everyone
can balance studying full time and having time
for hanging out. It is uncommon to hear college
teachers decry the quality of students that come
to them. They lament the students’ inability to
construct a correct sentence, much less a
paragraph. Private schools have been assailed as
profit-making institutions turning out half-baked
graduates who later become part of the nation’s
educated unemployed. All these are indications
of the poor quality of education.
Lately, there has been Science focused
sections and they have access to laboratory that
other sections don’t. Because of this, the other
students don’t get hands on experiences.
Discrimination is what I would call it. It’s
understandable that the teachers fear they can’t
control some students and would break
expensive equipment because each section
commonly holds 40-50 students. What the
science education in the Philippines lack is the
building space that can accommodate more
spaces for better division of classes. Studies and
fact-finding commissions have shown that the
deteriorating quality of education is due to the
low government budget for education; poor
quality of teachers; poor management of
schools; poor school facilities such as laboratory
and library facilities; poor learning environment;
the content of the
equipment.
Contents of the science subject are
outdated and incomplete. They pride themselves
of having major branch of science taught but
didn’t look into the topics that needs focus and
more time teaching. You will often here students
struggling with science because they will forget
the fundamentals and that is because of the
education system. The teachers would teach the
basic of one topic and move on to another, it is
not easy to retain the topic without it being
complete. In the year 2014, the National
Achievement Test (NAT) and the National
Career Assessment Examination (NCAE) results
show that there had been a decline in the quality
of Philippine education at the elementary and
secondary levels. The students' performance in
both the 2014 NAT and NCAE were excessively
below the target mean score.
How can this be improved? Funding is
the top solution as the world is being
modernized, the equipment should follow suit.
Buildings, textbooks, and computers are some of
the major needs. Next is a flexible planning of
lessons by the teacher depending on the
student’s capability. For this to happen, more
staff is needed and there should be a pay rise.
Science can help the future generation as it is the
fundamental of most expert field. It should be
accessible to everyone and not just selected few.
Science holds a lot of information that can be
helpful in preventing some major issues such as
teen pregnancy, STDs, health related issues, and
mental health awareness that is stigmatized
because the people lack understanding of how it
affects others daily life. Last thing that needs
help is mismatch between educational training
and actual jobs by better aligning the education
system by teaching the fundamentals and its
uses before moving onto complicated topics. It
does help challenging student but it should be
done in balance.