Las Piñas pushes school reforms despite lack of funds, teachers

Second of three parts

LAS PIÑAS CITY — When the latest results of the National Achievement Test (NAT) for Grade 6 students came out in June 2007, this southern Metro Manila city got the fourth highest score in the National Capital Region (NCR), adding yet another item in Las Piñas’s growing list of achievements.

An important residential, commercial and industrial city for decades now, Las Piñas enjoys one of the highest per capita income in the NCR and has almost 90 percent of its labor force employed. Its local government has also been recognized for its massive social development projects, and has consistently been a recipient of awards for good governance and excellent city management.

But to officials and education leaders in Las Pinas, the city’s students could have performed better and landed No. 1 in the NAT, which assesses the abilities and skills of Grade 6 pupils in all public and private elementary schools.

And it’s not just because this is a city that is particularly driven to excel. It’s also because a better learning environment for pupils and more efficient working conditions for teachers in the city would have probably yielded higher NAT scores for its students, says Dr. Yolanda Quijano, Bureau of Elementary Education (BEE) chief.

THE Las Piñas city hall. (photo by Angelo Regalado)

Shortage of teachers

Unfortunately, for several years now, Las Piñas has been experiencing severe teacher-and-classroom shortage. This, in turn has consistently earned the city red marks in the Department of Education (DepEd)’s Basic Education Information System (BEIS), and compromised as well the kind of education its public schools have been offering students.

In general, there is greater access to public schools in cities than in provinces. But the quality of education being offered in urban areas may not necessarily be better. In Las Piñas, the ever-growing number of enrollees to its public schools each year has put a strain on a system already suffering from insufficient funding, ensuring that learning conditions here would be poor.

Some of the city’s public schools have even resorted to holding three shifts of classes to accommodate a constant surge in the number of students, who are crammed cheek by jowl into classrooms where teachers are literally up against a wall the whole time.

“It’s noisy when there are many students (in a room),” says Angie San Buenaventura, who will be in fifth grade this June at Talon Elementary School. “It’s hot, too, it makes me want to sleep most of the time.”

“When you should be writing,” says 11-year-old Christian Alimento of Doña Manuela Elementary School, “you just wipe and wipe your sweat.”

Committed, dedicated

Location map of Las Piñas courtesy of Wikipedia

That Las Piñas’s students still managed to score well in the NAT despite these conditions is laudable. According to University of the Philippines College of Education Dean Dr. Vivien Talisayon, much of that achievement could only be because of the teachers’ apparent commitment to their work and the pupils’ determination to learn.

Large class sizes are never good for learning, says Talisayon. The international standard, she says, is 30 students per class, but in local city schools like those in Las Piñas, a class of 60 to 70 has become the norm.

DepEd data show that in schoolyear 2007-2008 alone, the city’s pupil-classroom ratio was 122.76, meaning more than 100 pupils used one classroom each day. This was the highest pupil-room ratio posted in the NCR in that period. Pasig and San Juan had the lowest in the region with 49.76.

Las Piñas also had the worst pupil-teacher ratio in the NCR during the past schoolyear, with 50.54 students to one teacher. By comparison, the national mean ratio is only within 35 to 40.

The teacher-and-classroom shortage plagues many public schools across the country. But the problem is so serious in Metro Manila that it is believed to be among the main reasons why the NCR has trouble keeping children in school — and why the region is helping keep the country from achieving universal primary education by 2015.

The shortage, after all, is not only a matter of students having no elbowroom or having to fight for the teacher’s attention. Says Talisayon: “A teacher has to be very good — top of the line — to handle a large class. If you can’t even know or memorize the names of your students then you’re like strangers there (in the classroom).”

An overcrowded classroom limits the teacher’s ability to deliver lessons effectively and to manage the class properly. “It’s hard to arrange group activities if they can hardly move,” says the education expert. “If the teachers want to see what the students are actually doing, they might need to use a telescope, and they definitely have to project their voice.”

Population growth

Education officials and local government leaders say part of the problem lies in the Philippines’s fast-growing population. Las Piñas alone has an annual population growth rate of 2.93 percent; at last count it already had 578,699 people.

Aside from this, Schools Division Superintendent Dr. Lourdes Victoriano says the high cost of tuition in private schools has driven more students to public schools.

Mayor Vergel ‘Nene’ Aguilar, meanwhile, says officials have also had to deal with the migration of pupils from nearby cities and towns to the city’s public schools. This phenomenon, he adds, is common most especially in schools located on the city’s boundaries.

“Patayo ka nga nang patayo ng buildings, padami naman nang padami ang mga bata (You construct one building after another, but the children keep on multiplying),” remarks Aguilar. This is even as Las Piñas has emerged with the sixth lowest net enrollment ratio — 71 percent — among the NCR’s 16 cities and one town in 2007. This means 29 percent of Las Piñas children who should be in school are not enrolled.

Las Piñas also has the highest dropout rate (1.24 percent) in the NCR, or the highest number of pupils who leave school during the year, as well as those who complete the grade level but fail to enroll the next school year.

Pupils per class

Cramped classrooms may be partly to blame for this. Pamplona Elementary School-Central teacher Amelia Ordoñez says that 10 years ago, she used to handle classes of 40 pupils each. Now it’s up to 66 students per class.

“It’s hard to mold discipline among the pupils if they are too many,” says Ordoñez, who has been teaching for more than three decades now. “It’s also difficult to follow up on them or a do a lesson summary per day because time is very limited.”

She says that in her school, at least five percent of the student population comes from outside Las Piñas.The latest DepEd data indicate that Pamplona Elementary School-Central has a total enrolment of 3,050 with only 17 instructional rooms. An average of 179.41 pupils share one room each day, the highest number posted among Las Piñas’s 20 public elementary schools.

The classroom shortage has led the school to take some drastic measures. For instance, Ordoñez says, students in Grade 1 — save for those in the first section — have been divided into three shifts of four hours each; all shifts have a 10-minute break. Educators say the daily time allotment for learning at Grade 1 level is 320 minutes, or more than five hours.

Comments former education undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz: “If students don’t learn because they have less time in class, that is the crux of the low achievement problem.”

ONE of the 20 public primary schools experiencing teacher and classroom shortage in Las Piñas. (photo courtesy of the Las Piñas City website)

‘Migrant students’

Aguilar reckons that some of the “migrant students” that have helped bloat the population of public schools here simply live nearer to these than those within their own city or town. But he also believes his city has become a victim of its own good press.

He says that families from elsewhere move to Las Piñas because of the many services offered by the local government, such as a city college that offers free education to poor but deserving students. Each certified city resident can also avail of up to P25,000 worth of services a year at accredited hospitals.

The mayor projects pride as he rattled off the benefits Las Piñeros enjoy, but it’s clear he wishes he could be as pleased with Las Piñas’s education statistics. He has thus proposed the full implementation of a comprehensive integrated education program in the city starting in June, which would include the construction of more school buildings.

Official data show that although all of the city’s public elementary schools have been experiencing severe classroom shortage, only eight buildings have been built since 2002, and these were just for seven elementary schools. The construction of four more buildings has been proposed but not yet bidded out.

The city has also been playing catch-up in getting new teachers. From 2003 to early 2007, its public schools hired a total of only 87 new teachers. Last schoolyear, though, the schools took in 97 more. As of February 2008, the DepEd Las Piñas Division hired an additional 118 upon Aguilar’s directive.

More for Manila

Today Las Piñas has 1,290 elementary level teachers (regular and casual), and its pupil-teacher ratio is now estimated to be 45.89 to one. DepEd still considers that as a “moderate teacher shortage,” but it is nevertheless an improvement from previous years.

Aguilar says budgetary constraints have hampered the city’s efforts to keep up with the burgeoning student population, and Dr. Lorna Madrid, DepEd NCR Planning Unit chief, confirms this. For sure, the budget for the elementary level in Las Piñas has generally increased through the years. This has been far outpaced, however, by the rise in the number of school-age children in the city.

There also seems to be a disparity in financing elementary schools in the region. The latest data from DepEd and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) show that while the national government spends P3,761.81 per pupil in Las Piñas, it allots P8,327.76 for each student in Manila.

Ironically, this is because Manila has more teachers, and is in fact categorized by DepEd as having “surplus teacher supervision,” with a teacher handling between 25 to 30 students. More teachers simply mean more money spent on salaries from the national budget, therefore making Manila’s budget per pupil bigger than that of Las Piñas and other places that lack teachers.

Madrid says that the lack in budget has made these areas make do with what they have. She also says, “We don’t just sit here and wait. We tap other sources.”

The private sector is among those sources. So, too, is the Special Education Fund (SEF), which is collected from the additional one percent tax on real property and is allotted by the Local Government Code to the local school boards.

Pupils per class

Cramped classrooms may be partly to blame for this. Pamplona Elementary School-Central teacher Amelia Ordoñez says that 10 years ago, she used to handle classes of 40 pupils each. Now it’s up to 66 students per class.

“It’s hard to mold discipline among the pupils if they are too many,” says Ordoñez, who has been teaching for more than three decades now. “It’s also difficult to follow up on them or a do a lesson summary per day because time is very limited.”

She says that in her school, at least five percent of the student population comes from outside Las Piñas.The latest DepEd data indicate that Pamplona Elementary School-Central has a total enrolment of 3,050 with only 17 instructional rooms. An average of 179.41 pupils share one room each day, the highest number posted among Las Piñas’s 20 public elementary schools.

The classroom shortage has led the school to take some drastic measures. For instance, Ordoñez says, students in Grade 1 — save for those in the first section — have been divided into three shifts of four hours each; all shifts have a 10-minute break. Educators say the daily time allotment for learning at Grade 1 level is 320 minutes, or more than five hours.

Comments former education undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz: “If students don’t learn because they have less time in class, that is the crux of the low achievement problem.”

Big item: Teacher’s pay

Here in Las Piñas, close to 50 percent of the SEF has been spent on “personal services” or teachers’ salaries for the past several years. The latest data show that it is the source of the salaries of 173 locally funded teachers and 193 non-teaching personnel for both elementary and secondary public schools in the city.

For 2008, more than P91 million of the SEF is allocated for personal services, which comprise salaries and wages, allowances, benefits, and financial assistance. This leaves around P40 million for maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) and P17.8 million for capital outlay.

MOOE includes recurrent expenses for travel, communication services, repair and maintenance of government facilities, supplies, materials, desks, rent, water and electricity, maintenance of motor vehicles, and discretionary representation expenses.

Capital outlay, meanwhile, refers to the budget for the acquisition and improvement of sites, including the construction, replacement, and repair of buildings, classrooms, libraries, toilets and other structures, furniture, fixtures, and equipment such as desks and chairs, computers, and books.

Audit queries

The Commission on Audit (COA) has found problems with the Las Piñas school board’s appropriation of a large part of the SEF for personal services, even if the law does not consider these a priority.

The Local Government Code of 1991 (Republic Act 7160) says in part that the annual school board budget shall give priority to the construction, repair, and maintenance of school buildings and other facilities of public elementary and secondary schools; establishment and maintenance of extension classes where necessary; and sports activities.

But Rolando Acosta, bureau director at the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), says that the “establishment and maintenance of extension classes” may “correspond” to the hiring of local teachers. He hints that this only makes sense in areas where there is a shortage of teachers, asking, “How can you operate a school without teachers?”

BEE chief Quijano, for her part, says, “We know that the local government units are really using their SEF for education. What we just want to do is focus on the needs. If they lack teachers, (the) money must be really spent on hiring locally paid teachers.”

Indeed, for all of Las Piñas’s school troubles, DepEd’s Victoriano and Madrid are positive the city could still achieve universal primary education by 2015.

Dean Talisayon also says that reaching the goal in seven years is possible for Las Piñas. But she adds that it is also crucial to keep an eye on the quality of education in the city.

Talisayon notes that elementary education is important because this is where “skills, attitude, basic concepts, values” are developed. “And knowledge is cumulative,” she says. “If the foundation is very weak, then it would be difficult to catch up.”

“It’s a form of social injustice,” says Talisayon, “if students don’t get the education they deserve.”