With the coming of the K+12 Program and the ever increasing population of students in the country, there is not only the dearth of classrooms and physical facilities that is the challenge to Philippine education. There is a need to look into the quality of teachers that is the main pillar of the educational system.
There has been the unbridled proliferation of Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) which has been the source of barely qualified teachers. According to a World Bank study, most of the TEIs graduates do not pass the Licensure Education for Teachers (LET). There has been an increase in the numbers of TEIs between 1996 and 1998 that resulted in low-quality programs that failed to meet the minimum standards of accreditation and only less than 30 percent complied with the minimum standards set by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). During the two-year period, the number of new TEIs reached more than 800 nationwide.
Based on a study conducted by the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) on the LET performance of all TEIs in the country for nine (9) instances of LET from October, 2009 to September 2013, the national passing rate was only 54 percent.
The PBEd study also showed that only eight out of 16 graduates who are first time takers pass the LET, while the other eight repeaters have an average passing rate of only 16 percent.
While there are top TEIs, the study found it also alarming that there are more than 100 TEIs that perform below the national passing rate and are considered ‘worse performing schools’ because only less than 20 percent of their graduates pass the LET, while 17 TEIs were considered ‘worst performing schools’ for having zero passers in the LET since October 2009 for both first-time takers and repeaters, based on data from the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).
PRC records showed that only 35.74 percent or 23,301 elementary teachers out of 70,786 examinees, and only 34.40 percent or 26, 767 secondary teachers out of 77,803 examinees passed the August 17, 2014 LET. In 2015 it was 31 percent and 41 percent respectively.
Given these data, there is a need to upgrade the state of teacher-education to improve the delivery of quality education in the country. To a large extent, the quality of education depends on the qualifications and competence of teachers.
Source: Readings from PRC and other relevant websites.
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