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Down on Twos and Fours

INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER John Maxwell was in full logic when he said in one of his public presentations when he came to the Philippines. He said that a leader who is a two in competency range of 1 to 10 will not be able to get or develop leaders who are nines. Nines attrack nines. And there is no cutting short that law of nature.

The dismal performance of public school principals in the recently results of the 2011 National Qualifying Examination for School Heads (NQESH) tells us in bleak terms a good part on the reason while public education in the country is a disgrace. If the third-richest person in the world Warren Buffett insisted that his children get their education from public schools, I wonder if he would change that policy had he been staying in the country.

Of the 11,778 head teachers around the country, only 1,024 passed? I used the question mark at the end of an obvious statement in order to emphasize that something must be wrong in the figure. If the testakers will insist the results are wrong, I could easily think that the testing system must be having an electronic glitz. But that is only conjecture. The fact is, around 92 percent of the head teachers who took the exam failed.

If we will go for the Maxwellian logic, a head teacher who failed in a qualifying exam can most unlikely produce children who can pass a qualifying exam at their level. If a few lucky pupils did pass under this principal, it must be because of the pupil's own natural, or technically hereditary, gifts, and not thanks to the teachers who taught them in school.

It is good that Republic Act 9155 (Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001) came off Congress ten years ago as provided a measure that identifies those who cannot be head teachers from those who will be competent at their job. But a lot of questions must be raised after the fact. After ten years, why is it that nothing effective had been done to ensure that head teachers who failed leave their job, or at least improve the rate of passing. An eight percent passing rate nationwide is disheartening.

Our educational systerm really needs a major overhaul to get our students out of the hole of bad education. Education when done badly does not obviously raise good students, and eventually workers later on. The present administration sees the problem, and is willing to act on it... seriously act on it. And that's the good news.

The K2+12 program can be a good start. But still with teachers in this dismal state of readiness to produce excellent students, even this program is bound to fail.

At the end of the day, the failing teachers, if not pulled out of circulation, will be the ones who will implement the new program. And who are crazy enough to expect better things when that state is beyond the teachers' reach, as far as the NQESH is concerned?
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