APEC schools’ model undermines education quality
Teachers’ unions call for greater funding of public education, not private
AMID an educational
system “overburdened and underresourced,” the Affordable Private Education
Center (APEC) Schools, a joint venture of international education company
Pearson and Philippine business giant Ayala Corporation, seek to provide
for-profit secondary education through an edu-business model approved by the
Department of Education (DepEd) raising questions on quality and teachers’
rights.
Drawing from his
study supported by Education International (EI), an international federation of
education unions, doctoral student Curtis Riep of the University of Alberta in
Canada exposed the cost-cutting measures APEC implements to allow it to offer
what it has marketed as “world class education,” at the Forum on Education Corporatisation and Privatisation in the Philippines
held at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.
With over 10,000
students in Grades 7 to 9 and Grade 11, the education chain now operates
schools in 29 sites in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. APEC aims to
establish 500 schools in 10 years enrolling up to 250,000 students.
Through an
agreement signed in 2013, DepEd has in effect waived its existing regulations
for private schools in basic education in favor of APEC and its “market-based
solutions in order to grow more private schooling ... , instead of building
more government schools.”
APEC has been
renting unused office spaces in commercial buildings instead of constructing
school facilities on purchased land, a practice which would have been in
violation of DepEd regulations on size, location and accessibility of school buildings,
Riep’s research revealed. Other facilities such as science laboratories,
libraries, and gymnasiums are either inexistent, not fully equipped, or shared
among APEC schools.
Riep’s study also
found that up to 70 percent of APEC’s teachers are not licensed. The teachers are
then paid low wages and asked to stick to standardized lesson plans.
In an earlier
statement, the Alliance of
Concerned Teachers (ACT) called on DepEd to repeal its agreement with APEC and
for the government to divert to the public education system the P12 billion
fund now being allocated to vouchers, which are given to students to attend
private schools like APEC.
“P12 billion could
have built around 30,000 classrooms and could have catered to more than one
million students. Solving the problems of public education is not through
privatization schemes. The voucher system is designed to shift money away from
public schools and to private schools including for-profit schools such as APEC,
making education highly profitable in the Philippines,” said Raymond Basilio,
ACT national secretary-general.
He added that APEC’s
non-compliance with DepEd requirements for private schools shows how APEC
values profiting from students and the voucher system, putting profit before
the well-being of Filipino youth.
In the DepEd budget hearing at the House of Representatives on September 2, Education Secretary Leonor
Briones said that APEC’s agreement with the department has not been renewed for
the present school year and is under review.
Other previous research by EI and
Riep has also expressed concern over the growth in countries such as Kenya and
Uganda of private for-profit school chains employing unqualified teachers,
providing scripted lessons and using unsuitable environments for learning to
drive down costs.
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