ASSIGNMENT

Why Juan and Juana can’t read

In 1955, American educator and writer Rudolf Flesch wrote a book titled “Why Johnny
Can’t Read and What You Can Do About It.”

While his book tackled the need to shift from one method of teaching reading to children
—by sight-reading words—to linking the teaching of words by learning to say those words
(phonics), the question of “why Johnny can’t read” has expanded to cover other aspects
of formal education.

Here in the Philippines, the question of “why Juan (and Juana) can’t read” expands to
other questions like “why Juan and Juana can’t count”; “why Juan and Juana can’t
comprehend even the simplest scientific concepts”; “why even unto adulthood, Juan and
Juana cannot reason his or her way out of concepts like citizenship, nationalism, civic
awareness, and even fake news.”

The year about to end has had more than its fair share of daunting challenges on the
education front. Like other young people around the world, Filipino Juans and Juanas
have had to forego classroom learning in favor of remote learning via the internet, TV, or
radio, or a “blended” combination of distance learning and printed modules. The reason
for this is the fear of aggravating the spread of COVID-19, with classrooms viewed as
potentially lethal settings for the exposure of schoolchildren to the coronavirus.

From the beginning, this experimental approach to replace traditional methods of formal
education has hit considerable snags. First is the poor connectivity and digital
infrastructure that has long bedeviled internet-dependent communications in the country.
Not only are individuals, households, and businesses suffering from slow service and iffy
communications. In many areas, internet service is practically nonexistent, and digital
devices are far beyond the reach of poor families.

Long before COVID-19 hit our shores, formal education in the country had been suffering
a number of ailments. This was borne out by the dismal results, for the country at least, of
international assessments designed to test the capabilities of school-age children. In
2018, the country ranked very near if not in the bottom of a multi-country test. Of 79
participating countries in the Programme for International Student Assessment, the
Philippines ranked last in reading and second to last in math and science.

The results of the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study further
confirmed the dismal state of the country’ educational system: The Philippines once more
landed in the bottom of the rankings for participating countries based on Grade 4 tests on
math and science. One of the findings was that only 19 percent of Filipino students
reached the “low intermediate benchmark, which indicated that only a few percent have
some basic mathematical knowledge.”

One wonders how much worse the results of such tests would be for the Philippines given
the compounded hurdles posed by this year’s events, from the pandemic to the economic
fallout from the lockdowns and the problem-riddled “blended” learning approach.

Education Secretary Leonor Briones has announced that the Department of Education is
planning to pilot-test in-person classes in January next year given the “relatively smaller”
proportion of cases and deaths for children aged 5 to 19. Briones cited a study conducted
by Unicef that showed that 91 percent of COVID-19 cases among children resulted from
household exposure.

Still, the Asian Development Bank asserts that the plan to open up classrooms early next
year “may hike COVID-19 deaths by 8 percent.” In the same breath, the bank also
estimates that “stopping in-person classes during the school year 2020-2021 would cost
P1.9 trillion in foregone economic opportunities.” This has prompted acting Economic
Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua to call for a “gradual” resumption of classes while
ensuring the safety of all, especially of students.

Indeed, there are steps that should have been taken long before COVID-19, and should
be taken during and long after the public health threat has passed. One is the priority
given to the budget for education which, like those for health and transportation, has
suffered deep cuts in the 2021 budget despite the present crisis.
This came about, said Sen. Panfilo Lacson, after legislators “toyed around” with the
government’s allocations so that they could move more than P28 billion to the
Department of Public Works and Highways and fund their favorite public works projects.
With a pandemic still raging, the bicameral conference committee deliberating on the final
national budget is prioritizing infrastructure over health, and while education still gets the
biggest pie, the allocation of the DepEd has been slashed by P11.4 billion—at a time
when this year’s experience revealed the need for a drastic overhaul of the education
system, one that has clearly failed its stakeholders, most crucially, the children on whom
the country’s future rests.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:07 AM December 26, 2020

Argument Analyzation:

1. The main argument presented by the manifesto as to why “Juan and Juana”
can’t read which also expands to the questions why “Juan and Juana” can’t
count, comprehend even the simplest scientific concepts, why even unto
adulthood cannot reason his or her way out of concepts like citizenship,
nationalism, civic awareness, and even fake news can be rooted back to the
formal education of the country suffering long before and during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
2. The first reason the author created to support his conclusion is found on the
4th and 5th paragraph which is among the hurdles experienced with the
Filipino youth resorting to printed, online and blended learning due to fear of
exposure to the spreading virus, “First is the poor connectivity and digital
infrastructure that has long bedeviled internet-dependent communications in
the country.”
3. The other reasons that support this claim are as follows:

o The internet service in many areas is practically nonexistent, and digital

devices are far beyond the reach of poor families
 o the priority given to the budget for education, like those for health and
transportation, has been decreased in the 2021 budget despite the present
crisis
o the bicameral conference committee prioritizes infrastructure over health
on the final national budget and while education still gets the biggest pie,
the allocation of the DepEd has been cut down to P11.4 billion now
when the experience this year revealed the need for a drastic overhaul of
the education system

4. The most important argument of the author in the following is the cut down
allocation of the DepEd to P 11.4 billion because despite the obvious need
for a change in the education system as seen on the data presented before
and during the pandemic, the national budget prioritized infrastructures over
health and education alike.
5. The manifesto is under the category Goal. It doesn’t present list and rules to
be followed nor was it done by an authority like the World category. The
text is a declaration of what problem the author sees as to why many
Filipinos failed on the tests for Math and Sciences hence concluding that
“Juan and Juana” can’t read. With the data they had placed on the text that
supported their claims, they had generated a picture of our shortcomings in
terms of education that the readers can relate to.