The educational structure of the Philippines has a long, rich, and somewhat complicated history. The contributions of prior Spanish, American, and Japanese generations left a legacy of higher education, intellectual resiliency, and impressive liberal advances by placing education under government control and bringing literacy to a large percentage of Filipino populations. Although the Philippine system of education has long served as a model for other Southeast Asian countries, in recent years that system has deteriorated. The country’s top educational administrations like the Department of Education, Culture, and Sports (DECS), the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA are trying hard to restructure what many global and domestic populations view as a deteriorating educational system and implement a new K-12 curriculum that places Filipino students on par with international learners (Alazar-Clemena, 2006). Nonetheless, this explorative essay will uncover some of the most notable historical, cultural, and philosophical influences that have shaped today’s scholastic environment.

 

Early Filipinos

 

Similar to the notion of ‘unschooling’, informal instruction dominated the Philippine educational system during the pre-Spanish/ pre-colonial era. The Alibata, or native alphabet, was used as the medium of instruction, taught by the Babayan and the Katalonan. It was composed of 17 symbols each representing the letters of the alphabet. The symbols contained three vowels and the rest were consonants. “Gifted with wisdom and spiritual knowledge, the Babaylan and Katalonan were deeply respected by the local populations of the society” (Lewis, 2015). In conjunction with their deep spiritual connections, the educational instruction was focused on teaching long established beliefs and traditions. Baybayin originates from the word baybáy, which means spelling. According to British linguist David Diringer, the baybayin possibly came directly from the ancient Kavi script of Java, Indonesia; however, he also infers that it could have been introduced to the Philippines by way of the ancient script used by the Buginese people of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Given that this style of education was of great value among early Filipinos, it was common for fathers to train their sons in skilled hunting tactics and other means of maintaining a livelihood. Conversely, mothers were responsible for instructing their daughters to sustain household routines. The purpose of this type of education was to prepare both boys and girls to become “wholesome” husbands and wives in the future.

 

Education – Spanish Period

 

During the Spanish colonial period from 1521 to 1898, the culture of the archipelago experienced a major transformation ranging from a variety of native Asian and Islamic cultures and traditions, including animist religious practices, to a unique hybrid of Southeast Asian and Western culture, particularly Spanish, including the Spanish language and the Catholic faith. In fact, the oldest universities, colleges, vocational schools including the first modern public education system in Asia were created during this colonial period (Hardacker, 2013, p. 22). By the time Spain was replaced by the United States as the colonial power, colonial education under Spain not only propagated:

 

“Christianity and the Spanish culture, but also lifted the people to a high intellectual level…because of the existence of schools, the Philippines during the Spanish period had a high percentage of literacy comparable to that of other Asian countries and several countries in Europe” (Hardacker, 2013, p. 23).

 

Therefore, education became exclusively for the elite in the early years under the Spanish rule but later became accessible to more (not all) Filipinos with the enactment of the Educational Decree of 1863.

 

The decree was an effort by Spain to reform the Philippines colonial education foundation by establishing a more complete system of schooling in the archipelago requiring two elementary schools in each municipality (one for girls and one for boys), standardizing the curriculum, and establishing normal schools, thus making systematized education available to the masses (Hardacker, 2013, p. 1). The law had an impact that was the antithesis of what Spain originally intended in the early 19th century, an elective curriculum of rudimentary academics and a heavy dose of Catechism. This new formal system of education provided Filipinos with the tools to function outside of colonial rule.

Since learning had still persisted as somewhat of a badge of privilege, the gap between the illustrados, or educated class, and the general native population continued to widen. Fittingly, the majority of these uneducated groups were those who favored the separation of the Philippines from Spain; however, the natives grew restless with Spain’s policy to openly neglect the education for the natives. As a result, intolerance festered and the colony experienced a growth of native leadership. These sentiments fueled the animosity between groups and thus began the Philippine revolution against Spain in 1898. “This event may have heralded the end of Spanish rule in the Philippines and their eventual evacuation; however, the American occupation was quick to follow the withdrawal of the Spaniard occupation” (Durban, 2012, p. 62).

 

Education – American Period

 

Similarly to the Spanish movement, the Americans brought many cultural and traditional changes to the country during their 45 years of colonization, and education served as one of the most effective means of pacifying the country’s native populations after the revolution. Even today, these strong influences can still be seen in the lifestyle of the Filipinos. With the American motive to spread its cultural values, specifically the English language to the Filipino people, education became a very important subject for the United States’ colonial governments and they used it as a tool to fulfill their visions. 

 

During the American occupation, levels of education were divided into three: 1) the ‘elementary’ level that was composed of four primary years and three intermediate years; 2) the ‘secondary’ or high school level that consisted of four years; and 3) finally, the ‘tertiary’ or college’ level (Hardacker, 2013, p. 26). Contrary to Spanish rule, religion was not part of the school curriculum. Moreover, if Filipino students excelled academically, they were given a chance to continue their studies in the United States to pursue their expertise in their chosen fields or professions. The term ‘scholar’ was introduced to classify these students as the government covered all their expenses; but in return, they were to teach or work in government offices in the Philippines after they finished their studies in the United States.

 

Volunteer American soldiers taught in elementary and secondary schools left behind by the Spaniards until 1901 when approximately 600 teachers, called the Thomasites, arrived and replaced nearly all military teacher positions. By 1902 there were nearly 1,074 Thomasites stationed around the Philippines. Some of the most important colleges were established during the American occupation and still stand as the country’s most prestigious universities. Such schools of higher education include: Philippine Normal School (1901), St. Paul University Dumaguete (1904), the University of the Philippines (1908), the University of Manila (1914), and the Philippine Women's University (1919) (Durban, 2012, p. 63).

 

Many would argue that American education was a successful instrument of colonization. Nonetheless, it progressively disoriented the Filipino sense of national identity because it introduced native populations to an entirely new way of life where they yet again absorbed a different cultural orientation than that of their pre-colonial mentality (Durban, 2012, p. 63). Furthermore, the use of English as medium of instruction widened the divide between the elite and the Filipino masses in many communities. During this time, the Institute of Private Education aimed at observing private schools, was established. “In the early 1940s the student population around the country studying in the 400 private schools reached 10,000 students” (Hardacker, 2013, p. 27). Formal education was not only provided for the young; adult education was also present.

 

Education - Japanese Occupation

 

Once more, the Philippines would encounter a new leadership that would completely change the agendas set out by the United States; the Japanese invaded the Philippines on December 8, 1941, just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Japanese occupation had destroyed the entire public school system, including books and classroom resources, and inclusively stripped Filipino populations of their established social values. With the Americans out of the picture, drastic changes in the education system were implemented in 1942 with Military Order No. 2. This mandate employed a variety of strict objectives including “banning and forgetting the English language entirely and instead adopting Nippongo, and to proliferate primary and vocational education” (Musa, 2012, p. 163). A heavy Japanese military presence throughout the region not only meant a total control of language and education, but complete jurisdiction of transportation, media, communications, food, clothing, oil, and an ample disregard of human rights and rejection of religious and institutional freedoms (Gripaldo).

 

Aside from teaching Nippongo and using entirely pro-Japanese books and materials at all levels of education, the Japanese also showed movies and organized cultural productions in and around schools and town centers. Japanese cultural performers, singers, painters, scholars, and dancers were brought to the Philippines with the intent that Filipinos would acquire “inspiration, love, sympathy, and cooperation among their communities” (Musa, 2012, p.163). The reality of the situation, however, made education into an instrument of war propaganda. The schools became part of a propaganda machine to win the war against the Americans. The Filipino teachers did everything they could to circumvent the ideology introduced by the Japanese and in fact, churned out populations of freedom fighters that joined the ‘Hukbo ng bayan laban sa Hapon’ or People's Army Against the Japanese (Gin, 2004, p. 54).

 

Education – Present Period – Complications

 

Fast forward nearly 80 years from Military Order No.2 to a current educational framework that is crippled with mounting problems. Despite the Department of Education’s agenda to create new standards of education that coincide with strict international structures similar to those of neighboring countries like China, Korea, and Japan, modifications have been slow. Some of the aforementioned issues include a lack of well-trained teachers, insufficient instructional materials and resources for teachers and staff, not to mention extremely low teacher salaries. Unfortunately, many of these issues have forced educators to look for employment in higher paying provinces near the capital cities of Manila and Cebu or in many cases, to go abroad where they are ensured higher wages for teaching. Presently, “Arizona unified school districts have turned to Philippine companies to recruit pools of highly educated and certified teachers from the Philippines to fill nearly 1,000 teacher openings in the Phoenix area alone” (Teachers Hired from PH Filling Shortage in Some Arizona Schools). Furthermore, the Filipino government has been slow to provide quality and harmonious educational standards, policies, and implementation within the provincial locations; rather, the attention remains on primary and secondary schools near Metro Manila (Lapus, 2008). Consequently, educational performances are lowest among students from Mindanao and only slightly better in Visayan Regions. According to the United Nations Department for Social and Economic Affairs, the UN recommends that governments spend at least 6% of their GDP on education, yet the Philippines spends approximately 2.6% of the country’s GDP on education (Briones, 2011, p.3).

 

Solutions      

 

The root causes of these problems vary vastly and there are no uniform solutions that can be applied to patch up today’s currently fractures. Population control, the medium of instruction, and limiting the provisions of private schooling are only a few controversial policies that the Philippines has inactively observed, failing to make guidelines in which to apply them. Many educators and specialists recommend that the Philippines implement a national language that would develop a nationalized awareness, a sense of domestic community and identity, especially in a country divided by nearly than 7,500 islands and more than 171 languages (Philippines Facts, Philippines Flag, National Geographic). “In the context of international assessments, the educational performance of the Philippines still needs a lot of improvement. The need for the curriculum to develop students who are globally competitive is another factor with which the educational sector will have to contend with in the future” (Briones, 2011, 6). Regarding the teacher shortages, government expenditures on education have been limited and these small amounts have been concentrated on basic education. “In 1985, 13.5% of the national budget was spent on education and only one-quarter of this was allocated to tertiary levels” (Musa, 2012, p. 164). Alternatively, the government could reconsider the existing system of expenditures on advancing teacher education trainings, resources for students, and a system to monitor and evaluate curriculum policies and practices.

 

Conclusion

 

In brief, the vast colonial, empirical, and even experiential occupations of various settlers in the Philippines shaped deep cultural, historical, and philosophical roots into the country’s educational foundation. Presently, many of the agendas set during these different periods are reflected in today’s Filipino schools and educational systems. While Spain intended education to act as a tool of effective governance and to maintain its colonial possession, public education in the archipelago actually became more widespread and standardized to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy. “Education as a tool for subjugation turned into a tool for empowerment and the birth of nationalism, mainly because of the shortcomings of the educational development critically perceived by local educated groups” (Hardacker, 2013, p. 24). In short, the contributions of prior generations left a legacy of higher education, intellectually resiliency (particularly during the Japanese occupation), and impressive liberal advances by placing education under government control and bringing literacy to a great many Filipinos.

 

References

 

Alazar-Clemena, Rose Marie. "The Philippines Country Summary of Higher Education." Higher Education Research in the Philippines: Policies, Practices, and Problems. Higher Education in South-East Asia, UNESCO, 2006. Web. 9 Nov. 2015. <http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1121703274255/1439264-1193249163062/Philippines_CountrySummary.pdf>.

 

Briones, Roehlano M. "Assessing Development Strategies to Achieve the MDGs in The Republic of the Philippines." Development Policy an Analysis Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. (2011): 1-43. Print.

 

Durban, Joes M., and Ruby D. Catalan. "Issues and Concerns of Philippine Education Through the Years." Asian Journal of Social Science and Humanities 1.2 (2012): 61-69. Print.

 

Gin, Ooi K. "Introduction." Southeast Asia a Historical Encyclopedia from West Timor to Angkor Wat. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC- Clio, 2004. 54. Print.

 

Gripaldo, Rolando M. (Philippines). “Philosophy and Culture: The Philippine Experience”. Web. 1 Nov. 2015.http://www.crvp.org/conf/Seoul-2008/gripado.htm.

 

Hardacker, Erin P. "The Impact of Spain's 1863 Educational Decree on the Spread of Philippine Public Schools and Language Acquisition." European Education 44.4 (2013): 8-30. Print.

 

Lapus, Jesli A. "The Education System Facing the Challenges Of the 21st Century Country: Republic of the Philippines." (2008): 1-22. Print.

 

Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2015. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Eighteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. http://www.christusrex.org/www1/pater/JPN-tagalog-baybayin.html

 

Musa, Sajid, and Rushan Ziatdinov. "Features and Historical Aspects of the Philippines Educational System." European Journal of Contemporary Education (2012): 155-176. Print.

 

"Philippines Facts, Philippines Flag, National Geographic." National Geographic. National Geographic Atlas of the World, Eighth Edition. Web. 1 Nov. 2015. <http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/philippines-facts/>.

 

"Teachers Hired from PH Filling Shortage in Some Arizona Schools." Inquirer.net US Bureau. Inquirer.net, 6 Aug. 2015. Web. 8 Nov. 2015. <http://globalnation.inquirer.net/126989/teachers-hired-from-ph-filling-shortage-in-some-arizona-schools>.