Sunflowers

Pinoy Kasi : Sunflowers

First posted 11:34pm (Mla time) April 25, 2006
By Michael L. Tan
Inquirer

Editor's Note: Published on Page A15 of the April 26, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

"GO AND appreciate our sunflowers."

That was the way Frances Mae Ramos ended her speech, delivered on behalf of new graduates, during recognition rites of the UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy last Saturday.

I was feeling particularly proud as the anthropology department's chairperson because Frances Mae was graduating with a BA in Anthropology, summa cum laude, the first in our 89-year history. But amid the jubilation, I was also feeling a bit of malaise.

That was the word used by our guest speaker, Juan Miguel Luz, to begin his speech. The college had chosen Luz as guest speaker because of his honesty and integrity. As education undersecretary for finance, he had refused to accept three government checks for a congressman's scholarship program. That did not please the gods (and goddesses), and last Friday, Luz resigned from the Department of Education. The problems he named were a mixed lot, ranging from the lack of a sense of shared history to the rigidity of religion. But in this season of graduations, I wanted to zero in on one of the problems he mentioned: miseducation.

Inequitable
Luz explained what he meant by miseducation: an inequitable educational system. He pointed out how for most Filipino children, the only option for basic education is the public school system, where they will get six years of elementary and four years of secondary education. That 10 years is far from adequate, compared to most countries of the world where the young get at least 12 years of education. (China, for example, has six years of elementary education and another six of jung xie or middle school.)

Our private schools do offer more years of basic schooling: preschool and nursery and kindergarten, up to seven years of elementary education, four years of high school. It's not cheap to go for these alternatives; just last Sunday, I was talking with a friend who told me she was going to shell out P38,000 for her daughter's preschool tuition.

Even the middle class will invest large amounts for preschool and elementary education, hoping that their children will have a headstart that will get them into a government science high school or eventually one of the state universities, preferably the University of the Philippines, with its low tuition.

Mismatch
This problem of inequity is amplified many times over. The poor get only a few years of basic education, and of dubious quality at that. We produce high school graduates with not much more than some degree of functional literacy. They enter the labor force but are often underqualified for the few jobs that are available, so they find their way overseas where they will get $250 to $350 a month, not much more than what they would get in the Philippines if they had a bit more skills.

Meanwhile, what happens to those who could afford a better quality of basic education? They get into UP, and if the families still have money, into one of the better private schools. But these graduates don't necessarily have it better either. They're well trained, and end up, too, mismatched to the job market. I am amazed at the number of jobless "computer science" graduates. Many will leave, which has led Dr. Sergio Cao, UP Diliman's chancellor, to tell UP graduates last week: "Wherever you go, remember that we did not teach you just to be exported."

But Frances Mae gives a new twist to the problems, when she reminds us it's not just a matter of salaries: "I am not going to complain about unequal opportunities, for unbeknownst to some of us belonging to this college, not all social scientists starve. If we would be willing to sacrifice principles along the way, we could actually cash in on dictated research commissions from huge profiteering corporations. Or allow ourselves to be obscenely paid consultants to traditional politicians."

Frances Mae talked about how, as an anthropology student, she had gone off for fieldwork and learned to appreciate how that kind of work can help to build the nation. In her speech, she fretted about how our government, unable to recognize cultural differences, is bent on imposing "uniform and linear plans." She also criticized the way these plans are "trapped by the standards of economically powerful states whose socio-political and cultural landscapes are far from identical to ours."

But what will happen to Frances Mae and others like her? After the recognition ceremonies, Dr. Zosimo Lee, our dean, asked me if I knew of Frances Mae's plans. I said she wanted to do graduate work. The dean was ecstatic, but I was feeling, well, that malaise again, because UP really has very little to offer our graduate students by way of scholarships and grants.

Fighting chance

Out in the sun, after the recognition rites, I found Frances Mae and her family. I went to congratulate her, to encourage her to push through with graduate work.

By coincidence, our guest speaker came over as well. He congratulated Frances Mae, commenting how their speeches had such similar themes. His advice to Frances Mae was to work before going on to graduate school.

My feeling is that for someone like her, it might be possible to combine both options, to find some way to have her begin working in the real world, even while continuing to pick up skills as a social scientist.

It all boils down to leveling the playing field, to giving a fighting chance to our young. Many other countries offer high quality basic education and then make the students--rich and poor--compete for college. Just recently, I was talking with an Indian friend and he told me about an additional 2 percent income tax they're now paying. He wasn't complaining, as he explained how this added revenue was to be allocated specifically for basic education, to include programs like nutritious meals for the students.

A fighting chance also means giving options to the ones who do make it through college, whether through UP and other good schools. We beg them not to leave, but are we offering enough to get them to stay? As we see with Frances Mae, it's more than a matter of salaries.

As I left UP last Saturday, I paused briefly to look at the sunflowers, as Frances Mae had suggested. UP plants them each year right before graduation, an appropriate metaphor for education. Like our young people, the sunflowers look deceptively sturdy, but they get to bloom only with intense nurturing: lots of sunlight, water and nutrients from the soil. It's hard work, but when they bloom, as our graduates do, the sunflowers bring such cheer and joy.

The sunflowers will disappear after they bloom. Our graduates will need more nurturing so that maybe, eventually, they'll get it right with their children and we won't need more speeches about national malaise.