Living in Cebu

In early 2006 I will be moving to Cebu, Philippines with the entire family.

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Concerns about education in the Philippines

We have now selected a date for the big move. The plan is to first pick up the mother-in-law and maybe a niece and then take the family to Puerto Galera and book them into a nice resort. We will then return to Manila for a week to cath up with some people before going to Cebu. When we arrive in Cebu we will again find a nice resort and leave the family there while the wife and myself search for a house.

I still need to research schools. Education is our major concern in finding accommodation. My eldest son spent a year at a Filipino High School last year. It was meant to be on of the better private schools. Compared to the government High School he currently attends this private school was a total dump.

What is more of a concern is the standard of education. The Filipino seem to place a lot of emphasis on learning thing by rote. Conceptional understanding does not seem to be important. Being able to memorise and repeat things verbatim seems to be the primary focus.

A few years ago I supported the wife’s sister through two years of AMA Computer College in the Philippines. She passed all her exams and seemed to be doing well according to the results. I sponsored her to come out on a student visa and enrolled her in a basic computer certificate course. She struggled with this and it soon became apparent she was basically computer illiterate. She needed to format a floppy disk and asked me about it. I said they must of taught her about that and she was addiment they had not.

I then asked to see her notebooks from AMA college. I soon found a page of instructions on how to format a floppy disk in her own handwriting. It transpired that she was basically told in each lesson to transcribe notes off a blackboard without any real instruction on what they meant. I had to pull her out of the computer course and enrol her in a basic English course instead.

I remember another niece my brother-in-law was supporting through secretary school. When we arrived for a visit she was preparing for some sort of gradation in decorum. This was to be some social event where they would demonstrate the skills in personal grooming and presentation. There seemed to be a huge emphasis on this as if it was the primary focus of the course. I asked her how many word per minute she could type and it was as if I was speaking Chinese to her. I tried to explain my self further and eventually gave up. The answer presented itself a few days later when I walked in to see her in front of a PC typing something. There she was using the universal two finger typing method at a blinding speed of perhaps 5 WPM (it was that slow).

So in general I do not place a high value on the education system in the Philippines and any qualifications issued.

I remember reading a biography on the National Hero Jose Rizal and his criticisms of the Filipino educational system of more than 100 years ago. This included his frustration that when the teachers did not know something they would make it up rather than loose face (Hiya) in front of the class. That they would blatantly play favourites and discriminate against students they did not like. That a student’s grade had much more to do with their relationship to the teacher than the work you did, and if a student did not do any work they could still get a good grade by making financial contributions.

What I found amazing was that my son related the same observations to me and he has not read that biography. It would seem that little has changed in 100 years.

Finding a good school for our kids will be our number one priority.

Posted: Wednesday 21st December 2005, 5:01 AM


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