Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom

Education in the Philippines

The following page describes and provides information about the general education system in the Philippines. :

Academic Year

The school year begins in June and ends in March or April depending on the school.

Core Academic Areas

Languages,
Literature,
Communication,
Mathematics,
Philosophy,
Natural sciences and
Social sciences.

Language of instruction

The two primary languages used in instruction among schools are Filipino and English, although English still dominates due to a shortage of Filipino-language materials and Filipino-speaking teachers.

Types of Schools

Two types of schools in Philippine are public schools and private schools.

School Years by age

The school grade levels are divided by the following:

Elementary school (kindergarten–grade 6),
Junior high school (grades 7–10), and
Senior high school (grades 11–12)

Overall Literacy Level

The overall literacy rate in the Philippines is 94.6%

Gender Distribution

In the Philippines, generally there are equal males and females at the school level. Though there have been accounts of higher male dropouts in secondary and higher education because they are expected to work for their families while females are allowed to pursue further education.

Inequalities

In the past decade, strong disparities have continued to exist between different regions and socioeconomic classes in the Phillipines. There has been very little evidence on the inequalities in the system. Research suggests, 81 percent of elgible children from the wealthiest 20 percent of households attend high school in 2013, only 53 percent of children from the poorest households attended high school.

The perennial problems in the country’s educational system include the following:

Shortage of classrooms, books, libraries; indeed, there is inadequate supply of books and study materials for students.
Shortage of teachers, with such shortage extending to the competence and quality of teachers.
Decline in the quality of education in the elementary and high school levels, particularly in areas of science and mathematics, and thus, the need to manage the transition to the K-12 program, with these in mind.
The affordability and seeming commercialization of education as tuition fees in private schools become more and more expensive. This underscores two related challenges: to produce high quality and competent college graduates; and to provide adequate scholarship and financial assistance programs to poor but deserving students.
Drop-out rates at all levels are uneconomical and create other social and other equity issues for the long term.