After blogging about my experience of paradise, aka Fully Booked, yesterday, and ending on a book entitled Naked Science, I said that it was a perfect segue for my blog entry today, which has something to do with part of human economics, i.e. education – Philippine Education – to be exact.
In a democratic republic, there exists free public education. Therefore, the Republic of the Philippines, being a democratic republic, has such a facility available for its citizens. But wait a minute kapeng mainit M, did you say free? Is there still anything free in this world today?
Well, technically speaking, it’s not free. Public education is funded by various sources, but primarily it is a beneficiary of the power of taxation. What is ironic here my friends, is that public education, being funded mostly by taxes collected from the private sector – business owners, corporations and employees of these two – is enjoyed by a majority of the children of those who DO NOT work or those who live in, at or near the poverty line.
If that is the case, in the computation of taxes, is it equitable for a regular employee, who is most probably the product of a private educational institution, be charged 32% on his or her salary? In the tax cycle, how do these taxes revert back to this employee as a benefit?
Let’s take aside the dismal government service, pothole filled roads and corrupt cops (which are all also funded by the taxes we pay) for a minute and just focus on the topic of education. If education is free, it would be foolish not to avail of it right?
Let’s dissect the question and proceed to tackle it by focusing on the gray areas surrounding the answer. It would be foolish alright, if public education was at least comparable to those offered by private institutions. I am not a well traveled person, but I can safely say that in the Philippines, the depth of the discussions in public schools will not land you in a good college, if at all.
Alas, our local public education have schools that cramp in 40-50 students per class. Books, which are also a product of taxes, are lacking or outdated. Instead of silverfish consuming books, we have our corrupt politicians eating away at a big chunk of the budget meant for books – the source of knowledge for young, poor kids.
I have mentioned in a separate blog that to understand economics, you don’t have to read and decipher economic numbers published in reports. To understand this “dismal science”, you need only be perceptive and observant of the things you see and the news you read or hear. In the same breadth, the quality of education is therefore appraisable by talking to the janitor, the security guard, and more relevant to our daily lives – salesladies.
To understand the quality of an educational system, you need only talk to a saleslady. Department store and boutique shop salesladies are not to be used as the barometer, although there are times that they can form your sample population. The best sample for you are bookstore personnel. (Please note that I only indicated saleslady because more than 80% of those who work in department stores and boutique shops are females. This is not meant to malign the female gender. ^^)
Whenever I ask a dear saleslady working in a bookstore for a book, they always refer me to the customer service. Upon checking in at the customer service booth, I dictate the title of a book. Sometimes, after saying the title twice, the saleslady and I stare at each other like lovers lost. So I volunteer to write down the title. It almost always instantaneously deliver results.
Am I flaunting my private education produced brain? No. You know that a person is intellectually challenged just by asking a simple question, and getting a quizzical look for an answer. And why is an intellectually challenged person, intellectually challenged?
In Psychometric Psychology, there are two forms of intelligence – fluid and crystallized. In layman’s terms, fluid intelligence is the ability to understand things independent of acquired knowledge. Crystallized intelligence refers to the ability to use skills, knowledge and experience.
In my belief, this intellectually challenged salesperson is a product of a faulty education. They landed their jobs because they have fluid intelligence. Their school failed to grow their crystallized intelligence.
For the common Juan, since you can’t change the inequitable tax system and you can’t force politicians to decrease their privately siphoned public funds, the only thing you can do is to do volunteer work.
During my days as an OJT, we made a marketing plan for a CSR (corporate social responsibility) project of the Ayala Corporation known as Centex. It’s a school for bright, underprivileged kids that offer education at par with the best private schools. Schools like these shouldn’t even be existent if only the government provided for better public schools.
People worry about the brain drain resulting from massive outflow of quality Filipino labor. People forget the one thing that can help alleviate that – quality public education.
