September post - School!
For this month, proudofthefish asked me to write about what school is like in the Philippines.
I should probably start off by saying that I can only talk about what private local school is like in the Philippines. The quality of education varies widely, especially across income brackets, so my experiences would differ from most other people's.
There are also some substantial changes going on right now that are trying to make school in the Philippines a little more like the rest of the world. I'll try to say something about those, too.
The school year. The easiest difference to start with is the timing of the school year. Back in my day *rocking chair creaks* the school year was from June to March. I'm not sure why this came about, but it might have something to do with farming? Or April and May being the hottest months of the year? I really have no idea. Anyway, obviously the academic year here was out of sync with the rest of the world, making it difficult for foreign students to transfer to local schools and vice versa. Recently, the school year was shifted to synchronize with the rest of the world so that should soon be a problem of the past.
One thing this reschedule does not solve is the possibility of classes being called off due to rain. As many of my LJ friends would know, the Philippines gets a lot of heavy rains and typhoons. Once upon a time, the worst storms were in July-August, with the occasional straggler in September, but climate change has made the weather more unpredictable and can bring rains/typhoons in the later months of the year. I've been stranded in school and schlepped through my fair share of floodwaters - it still happens even now that I'm working, actually. However, decision-makers have now learned to suspend classes as a precaution rather than wait for things to get so bad that students can't go home even after class suspensions, so I guess that's some improvement there. They have also gotten into the habit of holding classes on Saturdays if there is a need to make up for the time lost due to class suspensions. It's only right that they do that, but I'm glad they didn't think about that when I was a student :-p
The school day. When I was a kid, classes were half-day (morning or afternoon) from pre-school to Grade 3, then whole day from 7:45 AM-4:30 PM from Grade 4 to high school. Again, though, this is what it was like in private school. What I have heard about public school is that there isn't enough space for all the students, so students are split up into morning, afternoon, and evening sessions. They spend less time a day in school, teachers are grossly overworked (+ underpaid), and I imagine that it can be dangerous especially for the people who have to be out and about very early in the morning or late at night.
Elementary school. Besides the timing, another big difference was the number of years you had to attend. Again, back in my day, primary-level education for most Filipinos was from Grades 1-6 only. Private schools offer at least one mandatory level of pre-school, and most of them also had age limits for entering pre-school or Grade 1. (The school I attended didn't set that age limit until after I had already entered, so from pre-school to university, I was 1-2 years younger than almost all my classmates.) Almost all private schools offered Grade 7, too, but it was possible to skip it and go on to high school (as I did) if you were in the gifted class or could pass the high school entrance exam.
As far as I know, you couldn't skip any other grade. Conversely, though, you could be left back in any grade or year of high school. Maybe even more than once.
(Side note: The international schools that I knew of seemed to follow the US system, so students attending those schools would attend Grade 8. They might have followed a September-May/June academic year, too. However, these were mostly super-rich local kids or foreign expats' kids, so a very small fraction of the school-age population.)
Moving on to high school. Unlike public schools, which I think are exclusively elementary or high schools, private schools offered at least pre-school, elementary, and high school. (The bigger ones offered college/university, too, so I know people who spent their entire academic careers in the same school system, or even in the same campus.) I guess this is what made it possible to skip Grade 7 - the school would have its own standards for high school, and all you needed to do was to prove that you could meet those standards.
If you wanted to go to high school elsewhere, there was a chance that the new school would require you to go through (or repeat) Grade 7 despite qualifying for high school in your old school, especially if you were younger than average for your grade level. This is reportedly what other schools told my mom when she inquired about transferring me to a private school closer to our house, and since I had worked hard to skip Grade 7 I ended up not transferring for high school.
High school and college/university. We also have 4 years of high school (more if you need to repeat) and at least 4 years of college (more if you end up in a 5-year major or take "the scenic route"). Most colleges/universities are co-ed, but Catholic private schools are usually single-sex from pre-school to high school. My school was all girls, which I think had its benefits, but at the same time I think I never learned to not be awkward around guys :-p
Another big change going on in Philippine education nowadays is the plan (?) to implement a K-12 system. This is so that students would spend more years in school and be more prepared for higher education and/or enter the workforce, especially if they want to study or work abroad. The question mark is because while I know that many schools have already adopted the K-12 system (adding "junior high school" levels), but there are groups pushing that implementation be suspended. Among other reasons, they're arguing that there aren't enough funds for the transition and because of the labor implications on high school teachers. (I can understand the first one, but the second???) I tried Googling it, but am not clear on whether the case has progressed.
I think those are the main points in a (very big) nutshell :) proudofthefish< I hope that was what you had in mind when you asked what school was like in the Philippines! If you're curious about anything else, just ask!
I should probably start off by saying that I can only talk about what private local school is like in the Philippines. The quality of education varies widely, especially across income brackets, so my experiences would differ from most other people's.
There are also some substantial changes going on right now that are trying to make school in the Philippines a little more like the rest of the world. I'll try to say something about those, too.
The school year. The easiest difference to start with is the timing of the school year. Back in my day *rocking chair creaks* the school year was from June to March. I'm not sure why this came about, but it might have something to do with farming? Or April and May being the hottest months of the year? I really have no idea. Anyway, obviously the academic year here was out of sync with the rest of the world, making it difficult for foreign students to transfer to local schools and vice versa. Recently, the school year was shifted to synchronize with the rest of the world so that should soon be a problem of the past.
One thing this reschedule does not solve is the possibility of classes being called off due to rain. As many of my LJ friends would know, the Philippines gets a lot of heavy rains and typhoons. Once upon a time, the worst storms were in July-August, with the occasional straggler in September, but climate change has made the weather more unpredictable and can bring rains/typhoons in the later months of the year. I've been stranded in school and schlepped through my fair share of floodwaters - it still happens even now that I'm working, actually. However, decision-makers have now learned to suspend classes as a precaution rather than wait for things to get so bad that students can't go home even after class suspensions, so I guess that's some improvement there. They have also gotten into the habit of holding classes on Saturdays if there is a need to make up for the time lost due to class suspensions. It's only right that they do that, but I'm glad they didn't think about that when I was a student :-p
The school day. When I was a kid, classes were half-day (morning or afternoon) from pre-school to Grade 3, then whole day from 7:45 AM-4:30 PM from Grade 4 to high school. Again, though, this is what it was like in private school. What I have heard about public school is that there isn't enough space for all the students, so students are split up into morning, afternoon, and evening sessions. They spend less time a day in school, teachers are grossly overworked (+ underpaid), and I imagine that it can be dangerous especially for the people who have to be out and about very early in the morning or late at night.
Elementary school. Besides the timing, another big difference was the number of years you had to attend. Again, back in my day, primary-level education for most Filipinos was from Grades 1-6 only. Private schools offer at least one mandatory level of pre-school, and most of them also had age limits for entering pre-school or Grade 1. (The school I attended didn't set that age limit until after I had already entered, so from pre-school to university, I was 1-2 years younger than almost all my classmates.) Almost all private schools offered Grade 7, too, but it was possible to skip it and go on to high school (as I did) if you were in the gifted class or could pass the high school entrance exam.
As far as I know, you couldn't skip any other grade. Conversely, though, you could be left back in any grade or year of high school. Maybe even more than once.
(Side note: The international schools that I knew of seemed to follow the US system, so students attending those schools would attend Grade 8. They might have followed a September-May/June academic year, too. However, these were mostly super-rich local kids or foreign expats' kids, so a very small fraction of the school-age population.)
Moving on to high school. Unlike public schools, which I think are exclusively elementary or high schools, private schools offered at least pre-school, elementary, and high school. (The bigger ones offered college/university, too, so I know people who spent their entire academic careers in the same school system, or even in the same campus.) I guess this is what made it possible to skip Grade 7 - the school would have its own standards for high school, and all you needed to do was to prove that you could meet those standards.
If you wanted to go to high school elsewhere, there was a chance that the new school would require you to go through (or repeat) Grade 7 despite qualifying for high school in your old school, especially if you were younger than average for your grade level. This is reportedly what other schools told my mom when she inquired about transferring me to a private school closer to our house, and since I had worked hard to skip Grade 7 I ended up not transferring for high school.
High school and college/university. We also have 4 years of high school (more if you need to repeat) and at least 4 years of college (more if you end up in a 5-year major or take "the scenic route"). Most colleges/universities are co-ed, but Catholic private schools are usually single-sex from pre-school to high school. My school was all girls, which I think had its benefits, but at the same time I think I never learned to not be awkward around guys :-p
Another big change going on in Philippine education nowadays is the plan (?) to implement a K-12 system. This is so that students would spend more years in school and be more prepared for higher education and/or enter the workforce, especially if they want to study or work abroad. The question mark is because while I know that many schools have already adopted the K-12 system (adding "junior high school" levels), but there are groups pushing that implementation be suspended. Among other reasons, they're arguing that there aren't enough funds for the transition and because of the labor implications on high school teachers. (I can understand the first one, but the second???) I tried Googling it, but am not clear on whether the case has progressed.
I think those are the main points in a (very big) nutshell :) proudofthefish< I hope that was what you had in mind when you asked what school was like in the Philippines! If you're curious about anything else, just ask!