PRESS STATEMENT
Reference: Antonio L. Tinio (0920-9220817)
      ACT Chairperson

Arroyo’s neoliberal policies further exacerbate the education crisis

On January 31-February 1, the country’s top education bureaucrats, owners and administrators of leading private education institutions, various leaders of industry, and representatives from so-called civil society will gather for a “National Consultation on Philippine Education and Progress Report of the Presidential Task Force for Education.” Organized by the Presidential Task Force on Education (PTFE), it will be held at the Manila Hotel Tent City , with Pres. Gloria Arroyo delivering the keynote address.

The PTFE, formed by Pres. Arroyo in August 2007, is chaired by Ateneo de Manila University president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, S.J., and co-chaired by Commission on Higher Education chairman Romulo Neri. It is mandated to review the government’s education sector policies and make recommendations for reform. It organized the upcoming education summit as a venue for presenting its progress report on education, consulting with education “stakeholders” on various issues and concerns, and formulating an action plan to be submitted to Pres. Arroyo.

As the select few gather at Malacañang’s behest to talk once more about the education crisis, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers takes this opportunity to point out that it is the  Arroyo administration’ s neoliberal, market-oriented policies that have gravely exacerbated the crisis in education in its seven years’ tenure in Malacañang.

By education crisis, we refer to the government’s historic and continuing failure to provide the Filipino people with quality education that will develop national consciousness, instill a scientific outlook, and foster democratic values that are crucial in our pursuit of genuine national development.

The Arroyo administration’ s dutiful pursuit of “fiscal discipline” in accordance with the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank has resulted in the implementation of a regime of reduced real spending on education in the last seven years. Real spending on basic education has been falling, while more of the burden of actual costs is passed on to students, parents and teachers. The budgets of State Universities and Colleges have been cut drastically, even as commercialization of these institutions is aggressively promoted, highlighted by the forthcoming ratification of a new neoliberal charter for the University of the Philippines, the country’s premiere state university. 
Meanwhile, deregulation of private tertiary education institutions has led to the skyrocketing of tuition and other fees. All these have resulted in an unprecedented number of youth being pushed out of schools at all levels, an alarming decline in the quality of public education, and the proliferation of profit-oriented diploma mills in the private sector.

At the same time, the Arroyo administration has been vigorous in its efforts to subordinate the educational system to the demands of the global market at the expense of genuine national development. Instead of pursuing national industrialization and the modernization of agriculture, the Arroyo administration is bent on developing the Philippines as an exporter of cheap labor as well as a “service hub,” focusing on Business Process Outsourcing, tourism, and the like. Hence, its emphasis on the use of the English language in schools and its promotion of “marketable” courses such as nursing, caregiving, and vocational-technica l education. Meanwhile, the development of research scientists and engineers, which is key to any industrialization effort, is sorely neglected.

Further aggravating the situation, the rapacious ruling clique has not spared the education sector from numerous schemes to plunder already scarce education resources. The Arroyo administration is bent on pushing through with the tainted Cyber Education Project. Numerous anomalies have been uncovered at the Commission on Higher Education such as those involving a call center project as well as the supply of textbooks.

Resistance to the Arroyo administration’ s neoliberal agenda has been met with brutal political repression on a scale not seen since Martial Law. Among the over 1,000 victims of extrajudicial killings and involuntary disappearances charged to the state security forces, ten are teachers, four of whom were officers of ACT. Progressive or activist teachers and students are routinely harassed and intimidated in the conduct of counterinsurgency operations in the countryside. In Metro Manila, military units have begun conducting propaganda operations in college campuses and public high schools, giving “lectures” in which progressive teacher and student organizations are vilified as communist front organizations.

The Arroyo administration’ s neoliberal, market-oriented education policies has exacerbated the education crisis, hindered genuine economic progress, and led to a worsening of poverty and inequality in our society.

Unfortunately, if the composition of the participants, coupled with the glaring exclusion of genuine teacher and student organizations as well as representatives from the basic sectors is any indication, we can only expect more of the same from Malacañang’s education summit. Nothing less than a repudiation of these policies is needed to resolve the crisis in education.

We recognize that the solution to the country’s deep-rooted education problems are inextricably linked to the unfinished tasks of achieving genuine political and economic sovereignty, resolving rural poverty through land reform, and establishing a government that truly represents the interests of the majority of the people.
We put forward the following 8-point education reform agenda, drafted in consultation with progressive youth and student organizations, to point the way forward towards fulfilling our people’s aspirations for nationalist, scientific, and democratic education. #