19m students troop back to school today

Amid a perennial shortage of classrooms, teachers and textbooks, classes in public and private schools nationwide start today with 19 million students trooping back to school.

The Department of Education (DepEd) has announced for the present school year, there would be 12.1 million elementary pupils in public schools and 4.7 million students in public high schools.

It added for the private schools, there would be 1.3 million high school students and 929,178 elementary pupils. Today's school opening marks the start of implementation of the controversial revised curriculum for public elementary and high schools that has reduced the present eight subjects to five, including core subjects English, Math, Science, Filipino and the introduction of Makabayan (Nationalism).

The subject integrates learning areas on social studies, music and arts, technology and home economics and health education. Information technology and communications will also be integrated in the Makabayan subject.

Raul Roco, the Education Secretary, said the new curriculum is a product of 16 years of study that seeks to address the ailing public education system. One of the major changes is in Maths which has been shifted to the linear sequential approach, where only elementary algebra is taught in 1st year , intermediate algebra in 2nd year and geometry in 3rd year. Under the spiral approach before, sections of each are taught in every year.

"The perspective is integrated and interactive. Integration is the key to basic education. Interaction is important to awaken children's minds. In a world that has shrunk, we can't have children as spectators, being taught with glazed eyes. They must participate. This is accepted worldwide. (U.S. President George W.) Bush and the Asian countries have also focused on the basics," Roco stressed.

However, students trooping back to their classes in public schools have to bear with the shortage of teachers as the department has only been able to hire 15,000 new teachers for this school year despite the need for 37,000 new ones.

The usual picture of 75-100 students cramped in one classroom is also expected today, as the DepEd has admitted a shortage of 6,000 school buildings needed to accommodate the growing number of students in public schools.

School buildings have been increased from 8,000 to 10,000 this year. But still 6,000 more are required. He said however, the DepEd will fast track the construction of additional 3,000-4,000 school buildings.

He also said that despite the required 80 million textbooks to meet the 1:1 textbook-student ratio for this school year, the department has only been able to produce 52 million textbooks.

The department expects to deliver an additional 30 million textbooks in the middle of the school year.

As a result, grades 5-6 pupils and third-fourth year students in public schools will have to bear with the shortage of textbooks with five students sharing one book.

The department allots a total of P800 million ($16 million) budget for textbooks production, while school building construction is P2 billion ($40 million) yearly.