WINDOWS
Gabriel L. Cardinoza
 
 
BY the time this paper hits the newsstands, classes in public schools all over the country shall have already opened for the new schoolyear.
 
But as excitement fills students’ faces, education officials’ facial expressions are in the opposite: they look exhausted, worried and harassed.
 
Who won’t get exhausted following up requests for additional educational materials only to be told the supply has run out? Who won’t get worried when you have a hundred students in one double shift class and you will have to hold your class under the mango tree? Who won’t get harassed with the way President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo reacts to reports on classroom shortages?

Every schoolyear, the same old problems plague the country’s public schools system. And sadly, there seems to be no immediate solution in sight. Despite the education department’s getting the lion’s share in the national budget every year, the amount doesn’t seem sufficient to address these problems.
 
What is frightening is the adverse effect that this educational environment will have on our children and teachers. Haven’t we been complaining about the deteriorating quality of our graduates from public schools?         
 
Without sacrificing other basic services that the government should deliver to our people, education should now be given a special attention. The government should now seriously consider investing more resources in education to ensure that our young people get the  quality education that they deserve.
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There has to be also a serious effort in ridding the education department of corrupt and incompetent officials and teachers. In the last two decades, DepEd has been considered as one of the most corrupt agencies in the country.
 
To cite some instances, we need not go far. Right in the province, there have been reports about education officials selling teaching positions to applicants. There have also been some teachers who falsified their licenses and even transcript of records to make it appear that they met the educational qualifications for their positions. Then there were those who got promoted just because some influential politician endorsed him or her, even if he or she didn’t actually qualify for it.
 
I am a proud product of the public school system. But back then, even if they did not have master’s degrees, teachers were the most respected persons in the community. Parents would want their children to be teachers because it was an honorable profession. Teachers were really second parents because they have a big role in molding a community’s young people into responsible members of society. Can’t say the same thing today.
 
*****
 
Last Friday, I was invited to attend a waste management and power generation seminar hosted by third district Rep. Gener Tulagan.
 
The short time I was at the Pangasinan Regency Hotel, I figured out that the presentor, a ranking official of a United Kingdom-based company, was actually talking about the conversion of garbage into power that can light up a whole community.
 
Everybody was intently listening as he presented slides detailing the power plant construction and the amount of power that would be generated vis-à-vis the amount of garbage needed for that power output.
 
I left the meeting while the open forum was going on. I just wonder if  there were takers of the proposal.