Mal-education

It was already November, but the Educational Service Contracting (ESC) fund for the private schools in Ilocos Norte had not yet been made available. This naturally caused anxiety among school administrators who were relying on it for their teachers’ salaries. Think of the many angry teachers who had mouths to feed, not only their own. To complicate things, there was actually one – only one – school in all Ilocos Norte that obtained its funding as soon as the ESC fund for the entire Philippines was released around September by the Department of Education but presumably with the go-signal of Malacanang. That needed explanation. It turned out that that school went straight to Manila to withdraw its share. Now, where had the fund been hiding for two months? With all the advancement in today’s banking system – electronic transfers and all that – it was quite easy to get suspicious and cast a doubtful look on the people in-charge of wiring funds.

Last year, the province received approximately 28 million pesos. That’s a huge sum. If it were deposited at a rate of 10% per annum for two months, it could earn as much as close to half a million. And if those people, in fact, deposited the money for that duration, where had the interest money gone? Would it be libelous to state that that interest money had gone to their already fat pockets? Cunning men will always find fat cows to milk, even if they were not their own.

It is Gospel truth and common sense suggests that for a field to produce much, it has to be prepared; it must be plowed, its stones and weeds taken away. In like manner, for a student to be fruitful, his stones and weeds must also be flushed out from his system. Education is the process of removing stones and weeding out in students. The Department of Education ought to be the agency through which this critical process must take place. Now, that this government agency itself needs to submit itself to a thorough stone-removing and weeding out is almost glaringly true. Could it be that those government people, who are supposed to be educated – and enlightened – were mal-educated after all? How bleak the future of students look!