School choice vs. government dictation

Nowadays, one of the growing sectors in the Philippines and other poorer economies is business outsourcing (call centers, medical transcription, software development, other IT sub-contracting and related fields). Employers and entrepreneurs in this field will naturally look for staff and recruits who have good command of the English language, both written and spoken. When employers notice a deterioration in the quality of many Filipino applicants' command of English, even among university graduates, the issue goes back to the lack of use of English as medium of instruction in Philippine schools, both public and private, from elementary to tertiary levels.

Many sectors in the country though, launch relentless opposition to the use and strengthening of English as medium of instruction in the classrooms. They insist that Filipino, or other major regional languages, the vernacular, should be used, and the policy should be applied to all schools, both public and private.

Choice of education, like choice of what food to eat, what juice to drink, what shoes and clothes to wear, what vehicle to ride, what book or magazine to read, what music to play and listen, etc., are personal and parental options and prerogatives, not government.

If parents, say expats or diplomats working in Manila, want a school that uses Arabic or French or Mandarin or Japanese or Greek language as medium of instruction, they can't have it, because the Department of Education, Congress, Malacanang, some media and nationalist groups and individuals would gang up on them and insist that Filipino or English should be the ONLY language of instruction in all schools in the country. If this is so, where is personal and parental choice? Where is individual freedom?

People like diversity. That is why Nike, Adidas, Fila, Puma, New Balance, and other sports brands have hundreds of designs for running shoes alone; another hundred designs for tennis and basketball shoes alone, and so on. Food chains and shops also have dozens of varieties of pizza, dozens of varieties of pasta, dozens of varieties of hamburgers, dozens of varieties of "pulutan" and appetizers, and so on. Clothing designers and manufacturers also have hundreds of designs for t-shirts without collar, another hundred designs for t-shirts with collar, for jeans and shorts, etc. Even the lowly tricycles, there are dozens of designs for the sidecars which usually vary across provinces and municipalities.

But when it comes to education, or anything that government heavily regulates, standards and quality should approach monotony as much as possible. To hell with choice and options, uniformity (as defined by the incumbent politicians and government bureaucrats) is the single important thing to consider. And so, people debate among themselves trying to convince, even coerce, the other parties that English or Filipino (or Cebuano or Ilocano or other regional languages) should be the medium of instruction in the classrooms, at least in the respective provinces and regions, and at least up to grade 6, if not up to high school.

Why can't we have school choice? Some parents would want their children to be good in the arts and theater as early as elementary level, so they would seek elementary schools that focus on the arts and theater. Some parents would want their children to be fully guided by their religious beliefs (catholic, born again, protestant, islamic, etc.), so they would seeks those elementary schools, whether the medium of instruction is Engish or Filipino or Arabic or Russian.

School choice would also mean more private schools, less government schools. This would also mean less taxes, so parents will have plenty of family savings for their kids' education and other family needs. Supply -- from schools to hamburger to tricycles -- almost always respond to demand, by parents, by individuals, or by communities.

Although there will be opposition by many politicians and bureaucrats for this "school choice" track. Corrupt politicians and bureaucrats always make lots of money from commissions and over-charging of the cost of public schools, the books, laboratories and instructional materials used, etc. Also, they feel like "God" when they dictate and decide what subjects to be taught, how they should be taught, what language to be used, who should teach, who should be the school principals and district superintendents, and other decisions where they have the powers and arbitrary prerogatives to wield.