TONGressman Belmonte recently came up with a list of sectors to be made less restrictive. Media and education wasn’t in the list. Filipino TONGressmen and SenaTONGS obviously wanted to keep the media and education industries under Filipino monopolies. This reminds me of Philippine-style liberalization – you can wear any color as long as it is yellow.
The Footprint of Protectionism in Philippine Education
The Philippine government has many excuses for the failure of the Philippine educational system. As far as am concerned – there is only one excuse – government intervention in the education market. What sort of intervention? The footprint of protectionism is unmistakable – here they are:
1. Keeping foreign investments out of the education market – and retaining the same old Filipino schools that churn out morons.
2. More public spending in education – that churns out morons – and awards government contracts to cronies.
3. Keeping foreign professionals from being employed locally. (In contrast the PHL’s education professionals are allowed by other countries to work in their schools).
4. Keeping out foreign owned firms who can employ the graduates – and undergraduates - and pay better rates, have better processes, have a clean work area – with complete benefits, timely pay – instead of being “endo”.
5. The continuing migration of the countries professionals.
Dismal Outcomes of Protectionism in Philippine Education
And what have the Filipinos got to show for this “educational welfare” policies?
1. Job-industry mismatch. Filipino schools have teachers who don’t have exposure in the different industries that drive the economy. A classic case of the blind leading the blind. Thus you have students being taught with antiquated perspectives – and who, like their teachers – have a snowflake’s chance in hell, of getting jobs.
2. Diploma mills that churn out unemployable graduates. Filipino schools churn out graduates by the thousands. The skillsets of their graduates however, are attuned to the industries of the 1950s – not the 21st century. Filipino-owned schools are able to get away with it because there are no competitors who can provide alternatives to Filipino students. Heck, there are lots of diploma mills owned by politicians – who then have “scholars”, who in turn become their future voters – pulpol na, nakasangla pa ang boto.
3. Underemployed College graduates – The graduates who are able to land a job have jobs that are unrelated to their degrees. Four years of learning cost accounting, balance sheets, income statements, financial ratios – only to land a job as shoe store clerk, waiter, security guard, and janitor.
Knowledge has no boundaries
This misguided fixation on nationalism has led to an expansion of the dumbing down of Filipinos.
In the first place, what makes the SenaTONGs and TONGressmen believe that only education provided by Filipino schools will benefit Filipino consumers of education services? Last time I checked – knowledge knows no boundaries.
Filipino owned schools are teaching curricula that fail to land jobs for graduates. Why should education consumers (the parents who pay for their children’s tuition) be limited in their choices between one lousy school and a lousi-er school.
The nationalist ruse is that we shoud support Filipino-owned schools. Support is a two-way street you know. Sure, I will support Filipino-owned schools if they can deliver value. Schools that don’t deliver value – should not be supported – whether local or foreign.
Scamming the Education Consumers
The biggest scam however is that in order to improve the Philippine educational system there should be more public spending on education – or more subsidies for Philippine schools. The math is not in our favor.
Considering that there are limited taxes that can be used to provide for public education to a high number of education consumers, what the CHED will wind up doing is providing wider access to inferior education. And that’s not even including the extreme inefficiency of highly regulated public schools to meet the demands of the volatile economy.
How to Improve Education in the Philippines?
The best way to improve Philippine education is not through more welfare spending on education but by opening the education market. Allow foreign investors to operate schools and provide education content to Filipino students. In doing so, we gain access to the knowledge that’s already out there.
Instead of sending UP palamunin professors to study in the top schools overseas – and regurgitating the knowledge – we ought to allow the schools from overseas to operate in the Philippines and have Filipino students access the knowledge direct and without having any concepts lost in translation.
Picture this. The UP palamunin professor goes overseas to study for a year or two. Then he/she returns to the Philippines. Upon his/her return they have to deliberate the modification to the curricula with the CHED. Then the CHED has to go through its own round of consultations. By the time the government decides to upgrade the curricula – the situations has changed, new industries needing new skillsets have been created. Meanwhile, the PHL has spent huge sums of money on obsolete curricula – which leads to unemployable graduates.
With the entry of foreign owned schools – Filipinos get access to the most modern content, pedagogy, certification programs and the like. We also get access to best practices worldwide instead of the same o same o bullsyet of UP, Ateneo, DLSU, and UST.
Expecting New Outcomes From Same Old Protectionist Policy in Education?
When the Philippine media talks about Philippine education – they focus on the status of the Filipino schools (down in the bottom barrel) – and don’t focus on their impact to the Filipino students.
Nor do they talk about the economics – particularly, the supply side of the education market. Not surprising because the Philippine government and its cronies wants to monopolize the education market – at consumers’ expense.
The Philippines misses out what needs protection – it’s not the schools that need protection – it’s the consumer choices which need protection.
Restrict access to knowledge at your own peril – after all, “Knowledge is power”, when you are deprived of knowledge, you are deprived of power.
If anything – we ought to look at the products of the Philippine Educational System – a government full of thieves, con men, clowns, and thugs – from barangay captain to president, from kagawad to TONGressman to senaTONG, all voted into power by a public consisting of palamunin morons .
It’s not just about Filipino schools - it’s about Filipino education consumers having access to content - regardless of the nationality of the owners.
No comments:
Post a Comment