"The Department of Education no right to feel insulted, much less to demand an apology from the World Bank."
"The Department of Education no right to feel insulted, much less to demand an apology from the World Bank."
During the entire 76-year relationship between this country and the World Bank (WB,) there has never been an instance when the Philippine government demanded a public apology from this country’s No. 1 development-financing source for a perceived offence committed against the Philippines. Never, that is, until a few weeks ago.
The perceived offense was the WB’s allegedly having released to the public a highly derogatory report on the Philippine educational system without prior discussion. The Secretary of Education huffed and puffed and demanded an apology from the world’s largest development financing institution. Just to put a quick end to the situation, the World Bank obliged, issuing an apology to Secretary Leonor Briones and taking the contentious report down from its website temporarily.
What was in the WB report that caused Secretary Briones to become apoplectic? Many bad things about this country’s educational system.
For starters, there was this shocker of a statement: “Eighty percent of Filipino students don’t know what they should know.” Reading that statement must have been a ground-shaking experience for Secretary Briones and the Department of Education, which under the Constitution must receive the largest slice of the annual GAA (General Appropriation Act).
This is followed by another shocking statement: “Overall, your performance across grades and subjects is deeply rooted in Filipino students’ limited proficiency in the language of instruction.” Poor performance across grades and subjects and limited proficiency in the use of the language of instruction: These are jarring observations indeed.
The WB report went on to note that across the three global assessment systems – PISA, TIMSS and SEA-PLM – only 10 to 12 percent of Filipino students in Grades 4,5, and 6 “posted scores at or above minimum proficiency.” Stated otherwise, around 90 percent of Filipino students posted below-minimum-proficiency scores in those global assessment tests.
The WB report also discussed what the WB termed the “low growth mindset” of Filipino students. It stated that a low growth mindset is prevalent among Filipino students compared to students in other countries. The report said this: “Only a third of students in the Philippines believe that they can become more intelligent and develop abilities and intelligence over time.” In contrast, the WB noted 63 percent of students in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries believe that with education their intelligence can be changed.
The WB report discussed, further, the poor health and nutrition conditions of Filipino students. “One in three children under the age of 5 is stunted, which is a principal marker of malnutrition,” stated the report. A “silent pandemic” is what it is called. Childhood stunting in the Philippines due to malnutrition.
To be sure, the WB has painted a highly unflattering picture of this country’s educational system and Secretary Briones and her people have every reason to feel anguished. But they have no right to feel insulted, much less to demand an apology from the World Bank.
Secretary Briones has stated that the WB report contains factual errors and is therefore unfair. Improvements and corrections have in fact taken place in the Philippine educational system during the five years that the Duterte administration has been in office, she said.
On the other hand, the WB maintains that there were extensive discussions with the Department of Education prior to the writing of its report and that the report was based entirely on official data.
This brings us back to the title of this column. An apology was demanded of the WB and the apology has been delivered. Now, what?
