Reaction Paper: Chapter 8.

State and Education

The State and education was the topic of last week report. The chapter discussed the relationship
between Politics and Education, democracy and equality of opportunities of poor and rich people
towards high quality education.
The government of the state has one common responsibility and goal to provide free and
affordable education to poor Filipino people. The chapter discusses vital role of the government
as the main source of budget in order to main world class education. Politicians have great
contribution to maintain and implement laws that provides free and low cost tuition fee in public
and private schools. High quality and equal access of education for all Filipino people must be
provided. However, based on my experience and observation with our schools today, it seems
that government have less contribution and concern towards young Filipino students because
tuitions fees keep on rising every year which is unacceptable.
I would imagine most students will not be able to continue college and will choose to work
instead of pursuing bachelors degree because the matriculation fee is expensive and its going to
be pain on parents wallet. Where is now the so called equality and democracy in education.
Equality defined as having the same access to high quality education whether you are with upper
class and lower class family. But I guess its not what is happening today. I dont feel the
presence of our government to help provide no cost education. I personally feel bad because
many of the poor Filipino parents who really have hard times sending their children to school
especially when the K-12 just implemented this year but there is no enough financial support
from the government. I would say that it is very good idea to implement such program to be
competitive to the first world country but the system itself is not yet ready for change because
many Filipino parents will not be able to afford paying their childrens education. The state must
protect the basic Filipino rights to free education and health care to fully equip them in the field
of science and technology, economic, cultural and social life of this country. Politicians must
refrained from stealing tax payers money and make use them or spend to create more class
rooms with computers and trained more teachers to ensure the quality of they provided to
students. That is why State and educational institutions must help each other to maintain solid
relationship so that the problem of the people will be addressed because the democracy should be
a power of the Filipino people to demand free education not government privatized all some state
universities because it will violate the so called Equality
To summarize the relationship of state and education, in terms of political level, senate and
congress should pass a law or bill to prioritize more budget allocation on education by creating
more class rooms, computerize laboratory and hire more teachers as well as provide better
benefits and compensation. At the school level, DepEd and CHED must implement those laws
created and properly hired and trained well-qualified teachers to enhance and maintain high
quality educations to current and future generations.









Reaction Paper: Chapter 9: Contemporary Issues in Education
The impact Liberalization of education was one of my concerns with last week report. Because I
believed that, Education systems in the Philippines at present are very complex systems in the
sense that some schools are not align because of lack of facilities especially some public schools.

Based on my understanding from the reports last week, liberalization is a process of sharing of
practices in terms information and technology between two parties. First, at the educational level,
there is so called Open University or distance learning wherein you just need to have your own
computer to study while at home. You can study anywhere through self-paced learning and you
will get diploma from the courses offered and it is accessible through internet at home or
anywhere as long as you have laptop/computer. I believed PUP and UP have Open University
courses. Unfortunately, here in Philippines, not all schools offered courses through online
because it is very costly and only upper class or rich people can afford because the internet
service is at high prices and the speed is too slow. Second, at the economic level, there is free-
trade of products and services between countries like US BPO services outsourced to
Philippines, call center agents providing services to US customers and exchanging import and
export products such as mangoes, apple, bananas, etc. Third, at the political level, we accept
exchange programs from other countries. We sent professors, politicians and other government
personnel for training and enhancement purposes.
In my own point of view, I agree that there will be a loss of democracy and democratic
accountability on liberalization of education through K-12 programs because teachers will be
force to follow the standard educational system influenced by Australia and United states and I
believed that Filipinos are not yet ready financially because the said program would be very
costly to all parents sending children to schools which could probably result to more drop outs.
That is why the role of our government is very vital in providing affordable education to all.
Unfortunately, free education is taken away little by little.
Privatization of higher education is part of the central governments public sector
fiscal reduction plan by divesting to the private sector the responsibility of
providing provisions for higher education. In the 1900s, private non-sectarian
HEIs were established as part of a democratization movement in search of state
and religious influence-free HEIs. In recent decades, however, private non-
sectarian HEIsdriven by global economic pressures, higher education trends,
multi-lateral, and national policy advocacies have become economic enterprises
while the higher education gap left by the public sector. Globalization, shifting
patterns of production, and the advent of the human capital/knowledge-based
driven economy discourses pressured higher education systems worldwide to
increase access, equity, and its economic relevance, without necessaril y increasing
public expenditures. Higher education was viewed by the global development
community as inferior to primary and secondary education in terms of its rate of
return to the nation and until the earl y 2000s; multilateral agencies have been
calling for reduced public investment in higher education. UNESCOs Education
for All, advocating basic education for all worldwide, have also contributed to the
decreasing interest and funding in higher education, while ironicall y increasing
higher education demand multilateral agencies policy recommendations such as
cost recovery (e. g. tuition fees), deregulation, privatization, and shifting costs to
its consumers (e. g. students and industry) provided leverage for national policy
makers to augment its tightening fiscal budget creating a vacuum willingl y (but
selectivel y) filled up by the private higher education sector. Education, especiall y
higher education, has always been seen by the Filipinos as the key to povert y
alleviation and social mobility. As such, the Filipinos make substantial effor ts to
send their children to the best HEIs possible. SUCs and quality private HEIs
admission criteria, however, are skewed to the financiall y privileged and the
academically adept leaving out majority of the secondary school graduates from
the inferior public education system. Furthermore, there vocation of tuition fee
hike caps on February2007 onl y increased the financial barriers of those planning
to attend private Higher Education institution. Privatization as a vehicle to reduce
public sector burden on higher education is limited to its economic feasibility
especiall y for the private for profit HEIs that has been proliferating since the post -
independence period. Gaps filled by private HEIs are selective based on economic
considerations, leaving the non-profitable gaps filled by SUCs and LUCs as
supported by the above empirical data. Increasing an inefficient public higher
education sector is not only irrational, but leads to the reversal of earlier gains
from privatization. Furthermore, it reflects how national and local political
dynamics exploits loopholes within the system, and used to strengthen
local/national level support for their own personal political ambitions.
In summary, there are changes at the economic, political, and cultural levels of
societ y that tend to promote and reinforce a more global perspective on social
policy. At an economic level, these factors include changes in trade relations
(groups such as GATT, or G-7, that promote the reduction of import taxes, tariffs,
and regulations; and the formation of "free trade" regions ); changes in banking
and credit processes (world credit systems such as Visa, ATMs, currency
exchange, and capital flow and financial markets that are truly globalized); the
presence of international lending agencies (such as the IMF and World Bank);
changes in the factors of production that have led to the rise of new "Post -Fordist"
industries (the knowledge economy, the service sector, tourism, and culture
industries); the presence of global corporations not tied t o (or loyal to) any
national base or boundary; the mobilit y of labor and the mobility of companies,
which have thrown labor unions on the defensive; new technologies (for the
transmission of data, capital, and advertising); and new patterns of consumption
(sometimes termed the "McDonaldization" of taste -- fast, standardized, and
oriented to convenience over qualit y), along with new advertising and marketing
strategies that promote what George Ritzer calls the "means of consumption"
(shopping malls, television buying channels, on-line purchasing, and easy credit).
At the political level, the nation-state survives as a medial institution, far from powerless, but
constrained by trying to balance four imperatives: (1) responses to transnational capital; (2)
responses to global political structures (for example, the United Nations) and other
nongovernmental organizations; (3) responses to domestic pressures and demands, in order to
maintain its own political legitimacy; and (4) responses to its own internal needs and self-
interests. Most policy initiatives, including educational policies, are formed in the matrix of these
four pressures, centered on the nation-state conceived no longer as a sovereign agent, but as an
arbiter attempting to balance a range of internal and external pressures and constraints.
Economic factors, such as external debt, the fiscal crisis of the state, or the creation of regional
entities such as the European Union are having profound political-economic implications. In this
context, the pressures on the nation-state have sharpened a long-standing question of political
theory: Is the state a pluralist sphere for the contest of competing interest groups, or is it a non-
neutral terrain, reflecting a set of constraints and preoccupations that give special weight to the
demands of specific social interests? It is clear to us that there has been a pronounced shift in the
terms of such a question, moving beyond purely statist views of politics to include a focus on
new terrains of political contestation, new political actors, such as global social movements.
Finally, in cultural terms, changes in global media (cable, satellite, CNN, the Internet);
commercial culture (McDonalds, Nike, the colors of Benneton); increased mobility, with vastly
enlarged travel and tourism sectors; changes in communications technologies; worldwide
distribution of film, television, and music products; an increased presence and visibility of global
religions that change local rituals into transnational ones; or the global world of sports, both in
terms of competitive events (and spectacles) like the Olympics or World Cup, but also, and non-
trivially, in terms of sports marketing (apparel, footwear, equipment), sponsorship/advertising,
and global betting and gambling, all show the challenges that confront societies attempting to
reconcile their own local and traditional values with the growing globalization of cultures not of
their making.
There are current issues needs to be consider by the government in terms of privatization, and
globalization of education because it may threat the peace and stability of the people in the
Philippines due to many less fortunate Filipinos that cannot afford higher education that will
result to higher unemployment and no job security. Many will suffer from poverty and
starvation. Therefore, Government must focus on affordable education and allot more budgets to
create more classrooms, provide good compensation and benefits to teachers, and provide full
scholarship program and partners to private sectors by providing OJTs. In this way, Peace and
providing high quality education will be preserved to current and future generations.

Created by:
Ronald A. Sato
MASciED