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The Deeper Crisis—and Higher Hope—of Philippine EducationInvestiture Speech of Dr. Ben S.
Malayang III, I accept the presidency of Silliman University with both troubled thoughts and hope about the state of education in the Philippines. Many say that Philippine education has lost its quality. People talk of teachers that do not teach, of schools that do not educate, of school administrators who do not understand education, and of students who end up shortchanged by our schools. The problem, it is said, is money. People assume that if only government or the general Filipino public were to pour more money into our schools, if parents were only willing to pay higher tuition, then Philippine education would improve. More money, they say, will allow us to teach better, better mathematics, better arts and humanities, better language skills, better English and better professional and entrepreneurial aptitudes: key competencies that will help the Filipino compete in today’s world. Money, they say, is the energy that fuels Philippine education.
I do not dispute the importance of a good financial base. But this proposition disturbs me in its simplicity. I do not believe that money can buy what it takes to achieve quality education. First, it seeks to cover too much but digging too little. It seeks to stack up too many things for students to learn as if education were a warehousing of knowledge—and that to be educated is to know it all. It is preoccupied with piling up information that, it seems to me, it has left little room for critical scrutiny and interrogation of claimed truths. Second, our education institutions seem to seek to comfort than to disturb. Philippine education seems preoccupied with making students—and society at large—feel secure about their future, raising expectations of immediate employment abroad. It seeks to hone its curriculum to what it perceives other people elsewhere to need from Filipino labor. Too little is placed on raising consciousness—we don’t disturb our students, nor do we want them to question why they are disturbed—about the present circumstances of our people. I think we miss promoting a tension of the mind, spurning creative anxiety in favor of comforting opportunities. It has yet to squarely address Constantino’s disturbing thesis that our educational system lacks nationalist anchors. Rather than educate, it is “mis-educating” the Filipino youth. And third, Philippine education seems less concerned that it should be with nurturing thinking skills. Instead, its goal is for the young to believe what the school teaches. Student performance is measured on their being able to challenge the things teachers say, rather than on how they are able to challenge the things teachers say. Sadly, there is very little sense of providing possible contexts of learning. We would rather make sure that our students have the key information necessary to pass the board exams, rather than equip them to make substantial impact on their communities, their country and their world. Something is fundamentally wrong with the education architecture of the Philippines. And for as long as this architecture presents only a façade of colorful information, instead of an internal complex that reflects a culture of scrutiny and of critical thinking, we have a serious problem. For facades, however impressive, can never cover up the empty shells inside. It is what occurs inside buildings, not what they look like from the outside, that ultimately provides, their functional utility and substantive value. But there is hope. On the surface, we have a society that continues to put value on education. We have a government that places education among its top budget priorities. And we have educators that continue to search for better ways of educating our people, more effective ways to achieve true learning. And while these efforts might still fall short of what it will take to upgrade Philippine education, for as long as these commitments are there, critical foundations exist for continuing the struggle to improve the way we educate. Hope for Philippine education is provided by many institutions of learning in our community, and many educators, who remain bothered, disturbed and worried by the deeper crisis of our educational system. These are the schools and educators who refuse to settle for only dishing out information and shaping passable and immediately employable skills and competence. We still have schools—Silliman among them, and too, the schools represented here today—that believe in and aim for producing Filipinos for competence, character and faith, who will not simply be professionals, but will be leaders of professions, who do not only appreciate the value of virtues and morals, but who will strive to live the best of these, and who do not only have the knowledge of what faith can do to shape a sense of self, but who will actually live a life anchored on the deeper powers of the divine. We still have schools that take on the regular challenges of mustering the inner strength of character among members of their communities, that seek to mold persons into individuals that get truly scared and bothered by failures of virtue, individuals who know the power of faith and who appreciate the beauty and wonder of the human mind, body and soul. We have a higher hope for Philippine education because we still have schools—Silliman among them—and among them the schools represented here today—that, over the years, against many odds, have continued to commit to shaping the full range of humanity in each human being, schools that aim to educate—and to shape our wondering youth into persons that appreciate the good and the beautiful, and who are not timid in differentiating these from the bad and the ugly. I am proud to take the mantle of leadership and final accountability at Silliman. I will not expect that all would be well in what lies ahead, but I pledge to do my part, and trust that beyond me, Silliman has built a strong foundation—a tradition—to fulfill the inner, deeper, educational aspirations of our people. I am confident that Silliman, however besieged by challenges, is on track to address the deeper purposes of education; to add substance and content to Philippine education. And because Silliman, with many other schools in the Philippines, continues to be committed to an education that fuses into each person the triune virtues of competence, character and faith, it indeed becomes an honor for me to be accorded this unique opportunity to be its president. This investiture is not about me. It is about the continuity of Silliman’s commitment to a ministry of holistic and wholesome education. It is not about affirming what I might be able to do at Silliman, but about Silliman being a collective ministry of its faculty, staff, students and alumni. I spoke of troubled thoughts, and I know that I face many obstacles. But it is with real pleasure that I once more become part of Silliman. It is an honor and a privilege to be in an institution that has acquired dignity for its continuing commitment to a complete human education, and whose men and women toiling in its vineyard continue to believe in what this university can do for the Filipino.
My heart is full. I know I’ve come home to a Silliman that
will continue to be a great institution of learning. |
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