Technologies for public education

FAITH, HOPE CHARITY

Ka Iking Seneres

The problems of public primary and secondary schools today could be explained in terms of the law of supply and demand. The demand for resources is greater than the supply.

           

The officials of the Department of Education would always say that they have a shortage of teachers, textbooks and classrooms. That would be true if they think within the box, but the equation would certainly change if they start thinking out of the box.

           

In my opinion however, the problem is not merely a question of quantity, because more than anything else, it is a question of quality.

On their lucky day, the DepEd could wake up one day with a surplus of teachers, textbooks and classrooms, but that is no guarantee that they could produce quality graduates that would be competitive in the higher levels on one hand, or in the job market, on the other hand.         

Looking at it another way, public education is facing a grave dilemma now, because according to reports, DepEd is sometimes forced to promote their students to the higher levels even if deserve it or not, because it would cause congestion in the lower levels if they are not promoted.

I remember the ongoing debate between two of the leading law schools in the country, on the issue of quality legal education. One law school says that they train their students to become good lawyers. The other says that they train their students to pass the bar. Which is the better law school in the midst of this debate?

Looking at this issue from a long term perspective, I would favor the school that produces good lawyers, because it is implied that they have to pass the bar first before they become lawyers. On the other hand, what good is a lawyer if all he knows is to pass the bar?

Interpreting this debate in the case of public education, the goal should be to teach the students so that they would become more competitive in the higher levels or in the job market, and not simply to promote them to the higher levels whether they are competitive or not, for the shallow purpose of decongesting the student population in the lower grades.

At this point, let us pause to think that if all we are doing is to address supply and demand situation in the public schools, we are missing the point, because what is important instead is to meet the demand for graduates who could be more competitive in the real world.

Instead of teachers, textbooks and classrooms, I am thinking more in terms of hardware, software and connectivity. That is my way of thinking out of the box, but that does not mean that we could dispense with the former in favor of the latter.

Certainly we could not do away with teachers, but information technology would enable us to teach more students, even if we are limited to our present number of teachers. We could possibly do away with textbooks, but in reality, it is always best to combine paper based learning with electronic learning. Of course we could not do away with classrooms, but with information technology, we could maximize the space and complement it with digital content.

Connectivity could either mean a local area network (LAN) within a school, or a means to connect to the internet. If there is already LAN within a school, it would be easier to connect the classrooms to the internet.

Having an internet connection is really more of a premium, because it would give students more access to more content that are more current. Without an internet connection however, the LAN would suffice, on the assumption that the school server could host the content that the students would need, even if these are not necessarily current.

Satellite television is another alternative to an internet connection. This option would deliver content to remote locations, but unfortunately it is not interactive. The good news is, many of the satellite providers are now also offering broadband services.

Even without broadband however, the delivery of video content is good enough, such as the taped lectures of the best teachers. In other words, there could still be a shortage of teachers, but the skills of even a few teachers could be delivered everywhere, thus making up for the shortages in the numbers.

Some students of a few private schools are now enjoying the benefits of using personal tablet devices that are in effect taking the place of textbooks.

Just the same, the students could have access to educational content using these tablets, by way of the internet or through a LAN. Although tablets could be expensive at the outset, these could be cheaper than using books in the long run, because the schools could save on printing costs.

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