Epic Fail... Philippines Educational System

[Curley]

Hi Tatoosh, Many thanks for your comprehensive reply, I'm from the UK but have lived in the Spanish Canary Islands (Tenerife) for 25 years. My girlfriend is from Zamboanga city and trained at the university which is combined with the Lantaka hotel (owned by the local priest) she tells me that her qualifications are a degree, perhaps I have the wrong time scale for the further studies,Bachelors and Masters. I do not wish to live in Zamboanga and she fears for my safety there. When we discussed living in Davao or Cebu and her continuing uni in one of those places she said that she thought her degree might not be recognised by the unis there and she may have to start again.My plan is to retire this year as soon as I can sell my business and come to live in the Philippines to live with her in a "trial marriage", if this works out I would like to be able to marry her and have the option to take her to the UK and perhaps to return to the Canary Islands to live, her native tongue is Chavacano which is very similar to Spanish, no problem for either of us and she also speaks excellent English.This business of not being able to find out what degrees would be recognisable in other countries is typical of Spanish red tape, "apply and we'll tell you".What is your wife studying? Any suggestions or recommendations for good degrees?

[Tatoosh]

I also would be leery of living in Zamboanga though I hear it is beautiful. Davao or Cebu should be fine. Cebu I've been to and my wife is from there, so I have a soft spot for it. There are some good schools in Cebu and that would likely be my choice, particularly if staying away from Manila was part of the plan. University of the Philippines is one of the most prestigious schools here. Philippine Normal is another and there is a branch in Cebu. I"m not sure that PNU is open to the public, it may be only by scholarship from high school. I'll ask my wife, but we are going to be traveling for a couple of days, so it may be a bit before I can reply.My wife is working on her masters in Special Education, which is one of the few fields in the USA that seems not to be hit so hard by the downturn. Even school systems that are laying off staff left and right are looking for Special Education teachers. That wasn't something we planned, just a lucky circumstance based on her degree and a job opportunity here where she worked in a special ed school for awhile and like it. Not everyone's cup of tea though. That said, if your wife enjoys the HRM field, good to go where her enthusiasm is. As for a British or Spanish equivalency, I'm not sure how that will work. I know some Filipinas that have worked in Ireland and Scotland in the HRM field. Others in the teaching field that worked in Sweden. So those degrees must have some weight, but how much, I can't say. She may have to do some extra university work after arriving in Europe, but if she has gone to one of the better schools here, it shouldn't be quite so much and/or such a surprise in terms of the level of academic effort. Since her English is good, I imagine she'll have little problem adapting.

[sjp52]

I personally feel that education isn't really a priority in the RP because it is a good way to stay in power. If you have an educated well fed population they have more time to look at the situation and get more involved the system. Think about it, would a well educated population even consider electing a popular boxer who has no education or qualifications whatsoever to a responsible government position? For the wealthy few who control most of the money in the country and are well connected and have family members in government positions, its all about maintaining that hold on the country and the way to maintain that hold is to keep the masses hungry and uneducated. Doug

I think these people lived in a 3rd world country and got elected :lol: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan Jesse Ventura Sonny Bono

[sjp52]

My self if I had a son or daughter in the Philippines I would enroll them in a business course so that they could start some kind of business when they were done ( only if they were staying in the Philippines ) If they were going to work out side of the Philippines I would take them back to my country and educate them. The problem with these schools is they don,t emphisize enough on the English language. The better a Filipino can speak english the better chances they have of working outside of their country.We wonder why things don,t go so smooth here in business and its because of the education of the people. When some one is doing poorly in a certain subject you can always pay money to have their marks improved and thats at any grade.I was in a shop in SM and paying for a couple items and the prices were 40 pesos and 80 pesos and the girl at the counter had to take out a calculater to figure out the total. I was amazed, so I asked her what education she had and she told me proudly she had a BA in something I,m not sure what it was. I just told her that its a shame to be working in a store with such a high education and wished her luck in the future.My wifes daughter came home from school one day with a note from school asking if all parents wanted to contribute a few pesos so they could buy a fan for the class room. The same daughter ( grade 6 ) knows about 6 English words. I,m am trying to correct that.We have to remember that the schools in our 1st world countries are a lot better because we have a lot more money to invest in them with the taxes we all pay and yes most if not all the money collected goes to the schools but I wonder about here in the Philippines. There is corruption in all countries but in the Philippines it seems that there is corruption in all levels of society.Its kind of funny all the things that we foreigners complain about. If they were all fixed we would not be able to afford to live here and the women would stick with Filipinos.

[Tatoosh]

I agree with you sjp52, for the most part. Public schools can be okay (but lacking most resources) or terrible (totally inadequate in both resource and personnel). Grades are not all that are for sale. Teachers buy their credentials and positions in many school systems. How can they not rob their students when they are simply not competent to qualify for their positions. That is not true everywhere, but it is in many places. No public school here is likely to turn out competent English speaker because they simpy do not have enough quality material to do that, even if many classes are conducted in English.But some private schools do have excellent English classes and require English spoken at all times (except for requried Filipino language courses). You have to pay the pennies if you want the outcome. One private school here has a money making scheme to penalize any student not speaking English with a 10 peso penalty every time they speak Tagalog or Ilocano (the locally spoken dialect). The kids there do speak pretty decent English, maybe not US/Canadian standard, but you could have a pretty good conversation with them.For the calculator, even if she could do the math in her head, her boss may require the use of calculator. If I owned a business here, I sure would. Lots of cashiers and as you noted, math ability varies. My parents were teachers and school administrators in the USA, so I am fairly aware of the educational system there (or how it used to be anyway), plus with my wife's experience, it gives me a pretty good view of the school systems here. Also, I have one brother-n-law I am helping through college in Baguio and younger sister-n-law that is doing elementary school. I think a fair to good education can be had here in most areas, but not in a public school. In Baguio City, you'd have to budget between $1000 to $1500 and get the kid into a better private school. If you had really big bucks, there are a couple of schools that are easily the equivalent of any good US or Canadian school but bring thousands and thousands of dollars. Far beyond what most of us here have to spend. If you think the English is bad or their math, try getting out a globe or map of the world. For a country with an amazing OFW culture, their knowledge of geography is abysmal. My wife is now campaigning for globe so both she and her siblings can get up to speed on just where places are. So next month will be geography month at my house.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Tatoosh

[Old55]

There are some good K-12 schools that I know of in Cebu City. One Jesuit School is very good equal or betters most schools here in the States at about $2,000.00 + a year.I'm thinking the calculator use was required.

[Old55]

Another example why "they" just don't get it.In 2011, Cebu City ranked second from the bottom in the Central Visayas achievement test for elementary and high school.From today's Freeman;http://www.philstar....rticleId=766863

Edited January 11, 2012 by Old55

[Ashanti]

Hi Tatoosh, Many thanks for your comprehensive reply, I'm from the UK but have lived in the Spanish Canary Islands (Tenerife) for 25 years. My girlfriend is from Zamboanga city and trained at the university which is combined with the Lantaka hotel (owned by the local priest) she tells me that her qualifications are a degree, perhaps I have the wrong time scale for the further studies,Bachelors and Masters.I do not wish to live in Zamboanga and she fears for my safety there. When we discussed living in Davao or Cebu and her continuing uni in one of those places she said that she thought her degree might not be recognised by the unis there and she may have to start again.My plan is to retire this year as soon as I can sell my business and come to live in the Philippines to live with her in a "trial marriage", if this works out I would like to be able to marry her and have the option to take her to the UK and perhaps to return to the Canary Islands to live, her native tongue is Chavacano which is very similar to Spanish, no problem for either of us and she also speaks excellent English.This business of not being able to find out what degrees would be recognisable in other countries is typical of Spanish red tape, "apply and we'll tell you".What is your wife studying? Any suggestions or recommendations for good degrees?

I think you are confusing honours degree in UK and an honour student in PI. The two are although in a way means the same but the destinations are not.In UK, when you study for a degree, depending on your field of study, the universities would stipulate degrees that can be both a degree and an honours degree or obtainable on honours degree only and therefore would need a higher entrance qualifications and course works. So if you go for a UK honours degree, right from the start you are working on an honours degree and whether you finish the whole course work or not, you still have the gravitas that you have been studying for an honours degree.In PI, you do not have an honours degree as it follows the US educational system up to a point. The university would have standard entrance qualifications across the board rather than specific to the field of study like in UK. So when you study for a degree, you are assessed throughout of the full course of the 4x year (average) bachelor’s degree. And if you do well, in each year, you become a Deans’ Lister or an honour student only NOT an honour qualification. At the end of your study, if you are a consistent honour student then you would get the honour qualifications depending on the grades which would be like the US, cum laude, magna cum laude and the summa cum laude which in effect is the UKs equivalent of honours degree.As to the question of your gfs degree being accepted at other universities – that again is in grey area as each university has their own criteria for qualifications. Regardless, it doesn’t mean she have to start from scratch. It just means that some subjects needs updating or she has to take some additional subject to finish off her degree qualifications.All she got to do is contact the university concerned and asked them to validate her degree as she wish to push for masteral. She may or may not be asked to take some more subjects before she can take a master’s degree depending on the universities procedure. Unless you approach the university, you will never know – and word of mouth in PI is lethal. If you want to know something in PI – its always wise to go to source!As to the question of her PI degree being recognised in UK – sadly they are not. There are only 3x universities in PI that are recognised in UK and all three are in Manila. i only remember 2x which are UP and UST. But that is more than 20x year’s info. UK might have updated their assessment and included some more Unis or drop them all together. Do not believe the hype of a PI Unis being a PAASCU accredited as they are not worth the paper they are written on in UK.PI degrees are NOT transferable in UK. You need to have the subjects you had passed in PI validated in UK depending on the field of study. If you obtain the degree/passed your subjects 2x years or more – you will be ask to resit the UK exam on every subjects going. Spain being part of EEC, I would assume would have similar guidelines. But please don’t quote me on that – as im just guessing.

[billten]

My wife and I home school my kids and am very proud of the progress they have made in the last 3 years. We use a UK based curriculum (math, science and English) and are pretty strict on the work ethic and enforce good English and such. Prior to starting home school my kids 'learned' everything by rote. Sure they knew their times tables, but ask them how much 6 kilo's of mangos would cost at P60 a kilo, duh... Since being on the UK courses they have moved to a problem solving style of education and learning their tables by rote has gone out the window.Anyhow, we had a Filipina RN at the house the other week and my kids were studying their science for their end of year exams. My 10 year old daughter started asking her questions about helpful and harmful microbes (from her course work) and the look of fear on the visitors face was sad to see. I honestly believe that not only has there got to be a complete change in the way kids are educated here but also in the way teachers are educated too...

[Curley]

Hi Tatoosh, Many thanks for your comprehensive reply, I'm from the UK but have lived in the Spanish Canary Islands (Tenerife) for 25 years. My girlfriend is from Zamboanga city and trained at the university which is combined with the Lantaka hotel (owned by the local priest) she tells me that her qualifications are a degree, perhaps I have the wrong time scale for the further studies,Bachelors and Masters.I do not wish to live in Zamboanga and she fears for my safety there. When we discussed living in Davao or Cebu and her continuing uni in one of those places she said that she thought her degree might not be recognised by the unis there and she may have to start again.My plan is to retire this year as soon as I can sell my business and come to live in the Philippines to live with her in a "trial marriage", if this works out I would like to be able to marry her and have the option to take her to the UK and perhaps to return to the Canary Islands to live, her native tongue is Chavacano which is very similar to Spanish, no problem for either of us and she also speaks excellent English.This business of not being able to find out what degrees would be recognisable in other countries is typical of Spanish red tape, "apply and we'll tell you".What is your wife studying? Any suggestions or recommendations for good degrees?

I think you are confusing honours degree in UK and an honour student in PI. The two are although in a way means the same but the destinations are not.In UK, when you study for a degree, depending on your field of study, the universities would stipulate degrees that can be both a degree and an honours degree or obtainable on honours degree only and therefore would need a higher entrance qualifications and course works. So if you go for a UK honours degree, right from the start you are working on an honours degree and whether you finish the whole course work or not, you still have the gravitas that you have been studying for an honours degree.In PI, you do not have an honours degree as it follows the US educational system up to a point. The university would have standard entrance qualifications across the board rather than specific to the field of study like in UK. So when you study for a degree, you are assessed throughout of the full course of the 4x year (average) bachelor’s degree. And if you do well, in each year, you become a Deans’ Lister or an honour student only NOT an honour qualification. At the end of your study, if you are a consistent honour student then you would get the honour qualifications depending on the grades which would be like the US, cum laude, magna cum laude and the summa cum laude which in effect is the UKs equivalent of honours degree.As to the question of your gfs degree being accepted at other universities – that again is in grey area as each university has their own criteria for qualifications. Regardless, it doesn’t mean she have to start from scratch. It just means that some subjects needs updating or she has to take some additional subject to finish off her degree qualifications.All she got to do is contact the university concerned and asked them to validate her degree as she wish to push for masteral. She may or may not be asked to take some more subjects before she can take a master’s degree depending on the universities procedure. Unless you approach the university, you will never know – and word of mouth in PI is lethal. If you want to know something in PI – its always wise to go to source!As to the question of her PI degree being recognised in UK – sadly they are not. There are only 3x universities in PI that are recognised in UK and all three are in Manila. i only remember 2x which are UP and UST. But that is more than 20x year’s info. UK might have updated their assessment and included some more Unis or drop them all together. Do not believe the hype of a PI Unis being a PAASCU accredited as they are not worth the paper they are written on in UK.PI degrees are NOT transferable in UK. You need to have the subjects you had passed in PI validated in UK depending on the field of study. If you obtain the degree/passed your subjects 2x years or more – you will be ask to resit the UK exam on every subjects going. Spain being part of EEC, I would assume would have similar guidelines. But please don’t quote me on that – as im just guessing.

Hi Ashanti, Thank you very much for the very informative post.