What We Are Doing in the Philippines Just Now

What We are Doing in the Philippines Just Now

There’s this relatively well-known poster agreeing with what US writer and humorist Mark Twain quipped,”I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” It gives Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and other wealthy and famous people in the modern world as examples – of college dropouts who made it big, despite initial doubts. Well, I sure am glad our Filipino students don’t take their example, no matter how overwhelming the urge. Probably because in a country like ours, there is a next-to-impossible chance of making it big like Jobs, Gates and Zuckerberg if you are a college dropout, and even if you have exceptional skills.

Or less plausibly but forcefully true, the DepEd could actually be hitting the nail square in the head. With a 3,000% zero dropout rate increase, the Department of Education could finally be delivering the promise of quality education, one that doesn’t drive away students. The intensified campaign and continuous interventions developed by the Department of Education to reduce the number of high school students quitting school registered a remarkable increase with nearly 2,000 schools nationwide registering a zero drop-out rate compared to last year’s numbers totaling to 56 secondary schools. And Region 8, with 127 high schools with no report of dropouts, is second only to CARAGA which has 187.

Various interventions under the Drop-out Reduction Program (DORP) of the department seem to bear good results. Already, 46,000 students have been saved from dropping out and counting. Luistro said the program is effective because the alternative delivery mode for students who are at risk of dropping out (SARDO) is being tailored fit to meet the learners’ unique educational requirement. “We first check the SARDOs circumstances, then come up with alternatives that respond to their specific learning needs,” he added.

With programs like the Open High School Program (OHSP), a distance education program with unique features like self- directed learning and acceleration by learning area or by year level and which allows working students or previously out-of-school-youth (OSY) to continue studying using specialized learning modules, and the Schools Initiated Interventions (SII), which allows the school to design the kind of help a student needs according to his unique circumstances and which enables schools to determine, based on interview, specific problems of students or the real causes for dropping out, the DepEd finally offersa menu of  alternative delivery modes that aim to keep students in school and finish their basic education.

As Luistro explains, the DepEd is finally realizing that, “There are many learners who face difficult social and economic situations and they too need government intervention.” It’s about time too. Students are dropping out of the rolls mainly because of financial problems, peace and order issues, and physical handicap, family and health concerns, among others, and not because they simply aren’t interested. In a country like ours, truancy is more often a bigger, more society-concerned and economically-caused condition rather than just a lack of interest on the learner’s part.

And although it is quite disappointing that the DepEd has only realized that now, it is quite commendable that they are making up for lost years of inaction by a marked effort of bringing about change.