Unfortunately Mr. Juan Miguel Cruz seems to approach our country's educational problem indifferently and unrealisticaly. Yes you proposed such budget coming from corruption as if that could be easily realized just like when our BIR always missed their target collections. You provided figures as if that figure would not increase when you put additional burden to those middle class parents who might consider transfering their kids to public schools when you inconsiderately put more stress in their budgets. You should be aware that our gradeschool students performs well when intoduced to study in those foreign schools. Why not look at their curriculums, they spend a great deal on time on sports and leisure. Yes its unfortunate that our students grew with more stress but on the other hand that is taking reality as it is. Its hard to deny that their parents were struggling just to keep them going to school, its hard to deny that parents expect them to finish their studies soon so that they may help send their younger siblings to school. Mr. Cruz should look at the whole picture and not be confined to what other countries were doing. Yes learning calculus would be great but its not enough grounds to say that a student who knows how to do calculus would do better in bussiness or in other fields compared to those who lack them. If you boast of Philippine science, your not representing the majority of the students who are average and yet even if they remain average has the ability to succeed. Again, prolonging the chick in the egg does not produce a smart chicken, the same thing if you say if a baby had an extended stay in her mothers womb would eventually end up more intelligent than those babies delivered on their expected date of births. Yes your right about one thing, those unecessary general subjects in colleges considered as minor ones should be reduced or some should even be eliminated. Thats a waste of resources and time, instead of focusing towards the intended career they put nuissance and distractions that is irrelevant to their chosen field. Why not focus, put on the job trainings, more exposures, more hands on instead of dwelling with those minor subjects wherein at that age, some self study would suffice for them to learn.
Dwell on the problem directly, quality is the problem. Raise the standard for teachers, and ensure those standard were implemented in the classrooms. We may have quality teachers but if you give them an enormous number of students then Im sure you'll get a not so favorable outcome. Ensure that students gets the necessary support, books are essential ...even if you extend time in school but you lack the necessary resources for learning, your just like teaching a child to speak minus any sound or voice coming out from you. The teacher would be forced to spend more time writing in the black boards for all to see...there goes your additional two years, wasted.
Nutrition is important for brain development as the ad says, have you even considered that area contributing to a poor quality? Students going to school on an empty stomach compared to those kids your comparing abroad that even the school had a program that monitors this area. Adding two years would force this students to seek any type of work early thus adding more numbers in our child labor, drivers, waiters and others.
I would suggest that we improve the standard and make sure their implemented. Upgrade the teaching prowess of our teachers, equipt them on how to handle such ratio of students in their class or if possible follow a more reasonable teacher to student ratio. Provide adeaquate support like updated books, nutrition and relevant curruclums. Then for those who intend to seek further studies abroad perhaps a separate school like the Phillipne science could open up to fill those needed gaps instead of trying to make it compulsory to all.