This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 11, April 24-30, 2005
SPECIAL REPORT
Maids Work to Teach,
Teachers Work as Maids
(First of three parts)
By Carl Marc Ramota In the Philippines, Teacher
Education is the second most popular college program. Every school year, more
than 400,000 college hopefuls aspire to become teachers. Yet the education sector
suffers from a severe shortage of teachers. This year alone, the country lacked
some 38,535 teachers. And the figure is projected to reach 49,699 in the coming
school year. And of the more than
100,000 who graduate, only a few pass the licensure exams. The 2003 Licensure
Examinations for Teachers (LET) only registered a 26 percent passing rate – or
conservatively, 26,000 - in both elementary and secondary education. This is a
far cry from the number of those who enroll every year (at least 400,000); it
represents only 25 percent of those who graduate. But this is where the
bigger frustration arises: Many of those who manage to pass the LET do not
actually teach in the country. Some of them eventually abandon their profession
in favor of jobs that are available here or abroad. This makes the education
sector one of the major professions severely hit by the decades-old brain drain
in the country. Reports show that of the current crop of teachers, the best and
the brightest are now teaching abroad. Many of them are also leaving to work as
domestics in other countries. Domestics Previous administrations
and education department officials attest to the fact that a big number of
licensed teachers are working abroad as domestics. In 1998, for instance, then
President Fidel Ramos launched a program to lure back teachers who had become
domestic helpers promising to improve their pay scales. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s
first education secretary, Raul Roco, went to Hong Kong to convince about 300
overseas workers, mostly domestics, to return to their old teaching jobs in the
Philippines. Only a few may
have taken the bait, making government efforts pointless. The worsening
employment scenario, stagnant salary and other economic woes are even more
pushing some 2,800 Filipinos farther away and fly abroad everyday, among them
teachers destined to work as househelp or domestics. © 2004 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Teachers who are supposed to supply the brain – so to speak – for the
country’s youth are themselves part of the brain drain. The country produces
enough of these professionals to arrest the worsening teaching shortage but more
and more of them go abroad – or stay in the country – to work as housemaids.
Bulatlat
Teachers who are supposed to supply the brain – so to speak – for the country’s
youth are themselves part of the brain drain. The country produces enough of
these professionals to arrest the worsening teaching shortage but more and more
of them go abroad – or stay in the country – to work as housemaids.
Practically almost all tertiary or college level institutions in the country
offer a degree in Teacher Education. From school years 1994-1995 to 2001-2002,
enrolment for Education and Teacher Training went up by 46.20 percent –
numbering 439,549 in 2001.
However, records of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) show that only
a fraction among the thousands who flock to Teacher Education are able to attain
their dream profession. Specifically, only a little more than a 100,000
education students reach the fourth year.
Bigger pains
Those who cannot leave – including many from the provinces who are LET
qualifiers – end up working as maids in Metro Manila households.
Teachers going abroad
Lack of attractive job opportunities in the country make many teachers
vulnerable to piracy abroad. Labor officials admitted that in 2002 many teachers
from Cebu were recruited to teach in schools in Compton in Los Angeles, southern
California. San Bernardino, also in Los Angeles, hired 41 Philippine teachers;
Inglewood had 50 and Compton, 58.
Another destination is Texas where, for the last three years many schoolteachers
from Metro Manila who have master's degrees, have been sent to teach.
Each year, U.S. school districts need to hire around 200,000 teachers. So high
is the demand that private recruiters plan to place at least a million foreign
teachers in American classrooms until 2007.
This is not the whole picture however as far as Filipino teachers are
concerned. More strikingly is that a bigger number of them are giving up their
jobs and prestige in the Philippines in order to work as housemaids abroad.
Reports by Migrante International show that some 20 percent of the estimated
160,000 Filipinos working as domestics in Hong Kong, Singapore and countries in
the Middle East, were former teachers or at least had a teaching background
before going abroad.
Still, the long, tedious and costly application process and tighter policies
governing foreign contract workers in other countries have prevented many
Filipino teachers from working overseas. Some Teacher Education graduates
especially from the provinces would just have to be contented working as
housemaids in their own country. Bulatlat