RECENTLY signed into law by President Aquino, Republic Act 10665, or the Open High School System Act, will hopefully give more Filipinos access to a better education.
The purpose of the law, according to Rep. Kimi Cojuangco of Pangasinan, is to “provide equal opportunity for adults and young people of high-school age who are out of school to avail themselves of free open high-school education through the distance learning modality.” Cojuangco, who chairs the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture, was the author of the House version.
The “Open High School System” (OHSS) will be available all over the country under the Department of Education’s (DepEd) alternative secondary education program. This program is designed to allow eligible students—both young people and adults—to learn on their own without necessarily having to attend formal classes. It will be provided without cost to those who qualify.
No matter how noble the intent, and despite ongoing efforts, there are too many Filipinos who simply drop through the cracks of getting even a high-school education. The country is too large with many remote areas. The wealth and income disparity between urban and provincial locations is too wide to ensure that what may work in the metropolitan areas to bring a sound educational system to a target audience will also properly function in the provinces.
The bill is to provide a framework for the DepEd, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, and local government units (LGUs) to each play a critical role in the OHSS. The concept is to provide instructions by whatever means, or what works best or suitable for local conditions. Rather than a traditional classroom environment with a daily schedule, it is envisioned that instruction could be given through print, radio, television and computer-based communications, satellite broadcasts, teleconferences, and other multimedia learning and teaching technologies that allow students to learn on their own.
The problem with these kinds of ideas that tend to look good on paper is that the implementation is bound to be faulty and haphazard. However, a closer reading of the bill shows that Cojuangco and her associates may have shown more than we have come to expect from our legislators at times. The DepEd will have the responsibility to train teachers, teacher advisers and community advisers, in coordination with LGUs and non-governmental organizations concerned, for the OHSS.
That provision provides both a chain of command and a chain of responsibility for the OHSS program. Teachers and support personnel will receive incentives, monetary compensation and honoraria as they are trained in relevant modules of the OHSS.
An individual program like OHSS is not going to solve our educational system’s problems. But each one successfully executed together with other ideas will make a large and better difference for the nation’s future.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano
1 comment
the k-12, alternative learning system (als) and now the open high school system (ohss)..does this really mean that we are a nation of little or no education? or that we are still living in the spanish colonization era?? are we really indolent??