The ways out of learning poverty —Dr. Karol Yee, education expert

Surprisingly, the pandemic did not worsen student performance, according to data cited by Dr. Karol Mark Yee, executive director of the Education Commission II, a government body that recommends legislation. “But we’re still at the bottom” among many countries, Yee is quick to add.

After years of research on learning poverty, Yee says the government’s priorities should be nutrition and education in early childhood. He also recommends unburdening teachers of an array of non-teaching responsibilities so they can focus on teaching.

He cites recent improvements by the Department of Education, overlooked amid all the political distractions under former DepEd Secretary, Vice President Sara Duterte.

Yee also talks about his own failures as a student before his personal journey to his PhD from the University of Cambridge in the UK, one of the world’s leading universities.

HOWIE: Magandang araw, podmates. Howie Severino muli na nagpapaalala na nakakatalino ang mahabang attention span.

Ang guest natin ngayon ay si Dr. Karol Mark Yee na isang PhD holder sa education. Sinusuri niya ang state of education sa ating bansa at malungkot ang kaniyang mga natutuklasan tungkol sa tinatawag na learning poverty. Dr. Karol Yee, magandang araw sa iyo.

KAROL: Hi, magandang araw, Howie, saka sa lahat ng nakikinig. Glad to be here.

HOWIE: Karol, before we talk about what's wrong with Philippine education, I want to say that you yourself apparently did not suffer from learning poverty, 'yung ating buzzwords. UP graduate ka, magna cum laude, with a master's degree from Harvard and a fairly new PhD from the University of Cambridge, one of the UK's top universities.

So I have a serious question, Karol. How to be you? There are many trajectories for a Filipino student, many ending up with learning poverty. But there are also many Filipinos like you who did well in school. So is it mostly a matter of economic class, 'yung determining trajectories for Filipino students now? Or is learning poverty correlated with income class?

KAROL: So I think I'll unpack that statement a bit. So one, I'll clarify that in terms of the PISA data that we found in 2018, even our top 25% of learners are not doing very well. Our top 25%, or arguably the best Filipino learners, are just equivalent to the best learners maybe in Indonesia and Cambodia, but equivalent to the worst learners in Singapore.

So when we say that it is determined by socio-economic class, yes, there is truth to that but the data shows that they do not escape learning poverty because it affects everyone.

And there's reason for that because the basic education system at least for most private schools rely on the inflow coming from the public education. And also, most of their teachers are graduates of teacher education in our schools and most of those are public institutions, public higher education institutions and even private ones.

HOWIE: I'll just pause there, Karol. Kasi, you know, that's a lot of information already. But 'yung first statement mo, basically, you're saying, you know, we're far behind...

KAROL: We are.

HOWIE: ...our neighbors... We're far behind. That's the bottom line there. Pero nabanggit mo 'yung PISA, can you explain what that is? I know that's often cited data to show that, you know, we do have learning poverty, that we are behind, we rank low globally, et cetera.

But dini-dispute din ang PISA by some people at the Department of the Education, in the past, et cetera. How did we determine this and what is PISA?

KAROL: So to be fair, PISA naman is really one of the few or one of several international assessments that really check on how learning is happening in countries.

HOWIE: So hold on. So PISA is Programme for International Student Assessment, tama ba 'yun?

KAROL: Yes. It was run by OECD initially for countries that are members of OECD but it has since expanded to other countries that intend to participate. So it's one of the many or several international assessments out there.

HOWIE: So they survey a lot of countries and then, they end up ranking pa, 'di ba?

KAROL: Yes. Based on student performance.

HOWIE: What's the point of ranking anyway? Nagkakaroon tuloy tayo ng inferiority complex. And then, you know, we get depressed about it. Does it help to be ranking countries according to education? Or can you just say that, "Look, we have a learning crisis. We have learning poverty. We need to improve."

KAROL: To be honest, and this is my personal opinion, not representing anyone else in our organization, is that, I feel that datas help. Kasi when we found out that we were at the bottom of PISA, it actually was one of the triggers for the creation of our EDCOM 2 or the Second Congressional Commission because then we realized how badly we were doing and how we had to take it seriously to address it.

So I think it is good to have that urgency and without a sense of where we were standing or how we were faring, we may not have taken it as seriously. In fact, even if we ranked at the bottom, imagine that happened in 2018, the results came out in 2019, it's now 2024, and we're still only in the process of getting our act together to really resolve the learning crisis. So I think, on one hand, it is important.

HOWIE: Okay. We're gonna be dissecting that a little bit. But first, again, I want to clarify for our listeners. You mentioned EDCOM. They're seeing the logo right now behind you. It's Education Commission 2. That's a very important commission in this context we're talking about. So, it's a government institution. You do a lot of research. I mean, you have a doctorate. You're leading this effort, 'no? So just in a nutshell, ano ba 'yung EDCOM? What does it do? And why are you saying these things?

KAROL: So the first EDCOM was in the 1990s. It was the one that recommended that let's separate DECS to create DepEd, CHED, and TESDA. It said, "Let us have Licensure Examination for Teachers." It said, "Let us prioritize early childhood. Let's create teacher education council." So in the education community, it's one of those pivotal moments in our history that showed that we had, we resolved to act with conviction in reforming or changing how things work. And so, when...

HOWIE: How far back was this education commission?

KAROL: 1991.

HOWIE: So based on a lot of research, it recommended policy changes na tinupad. You're not just a...

KAROL: Na tinupad by law.

HOWIE: You're created by Congress. So your findings, your research findings are fed directly to lawmakers so that they can legislate. Kasi unlike other academics, parang you can recommend, minsan hindi pinakikinggan, but kayo, nakaupo kayo mismo riyan sa lion's den, kumbaga.

KAROL: That is really a critical part of our positioning, that we're not just an independent body that does research. We are doing research specifically to inform policy-making. And the members of EDCOM are the committee chairs of education of both houses. So instantaneous 'yung reaction. And instantaneous 'yung that they will take it on towards the legislation. Whether it is in terms of filing a bill, amending a current bill, calling on agencies to address problems in their implementation or in budgeting.

So it is so important that it is like that because many naman can do studies, but the positioning and the ability of it to inform policy is so unique to EDCOM. Kaya nga when they realized that the situation was so dire, they said, "Maybe it's time to revive EDCOM."

So ang joke nga namin, 30 years after, there's a 2nd EDCOM. Sana 30 years from now, there's no EDCOM 3 because we will find ourselves in the same situation as we are now. So hopefully that's not the case.

HOWIE: Okay. So 'yung EDCOM 1, it proposed these kind of game-changing changes na from I remember DECS when I was starting out as a reporter, DECS 'yan. Department of Education, Culture, and Sports, 'di ba? 'Yung sports nasa ilalim ng DECS. Ngayon, hiniwalay na 'yung the others. So nakatutok ngayon sa education as Department of Education lang, 'no? But, so ano 'yung, what are you proposing? I mean, granted, all of these, we have all of these problems in education, what's the game changer that you're studying now and recommending?

KAROL: So I think there are many differences between the first EDCOM and the second. The first EDCOM kasi, it was still institution building. So it said create this, create that, create this, create that. I think for the most part, what we are seeing now is implementation challenges and connecting a system that has many new parts together in a way that allows it to continuously succeed.

Kasi what we're seeing is, yes, the institutions were created. But they acted so independently of one another that things did not come together. So I cite many examples of this, but I think our main issues or the main tasks that lie ahead for us is really one — prioritizing learning.

Creating institutions does not mean you will fix learning. And we find that the biggest problem we have now is that students are not learning even if our participation rates are so high.

The second is to prioritize. Kasi you have problems from early childhood all the way to university. What we are seeing now is we kind of neglected the most important part which is nutrition in the early years as well as early childhood education.

Those are two things that have come out in the past decade that's being so critical so that students don't drop out and so that students succeed in school. We need to do better there.

And third is the governance structures. Kasi yes, you created it but EDCOM 1 did not say, "Do this and everything will be perfect, that it will solve all problems." Obviously, there was a process of continuously refining our governance structures in a way that works. And I think doon tayo kailangan mag-improve pa. So I think directionally, those are the three big buckets that would be considered as the EDCOM 2 responsibilities to refine.

HOWIE: Okay. Karol, we've also come across findings from EDCOM 2. And then, also the Philippine Institute for Development Studies apparently is saying the same thing about the lost teaching days naman. Kasi, of course, the interaction, the face-to-face interaction between students and teachers is crucial in education.

And 'yung isang tinitingnan na cause for our poor performance or poor performances of students in the Philippines is the number of teaching days that we're losing every year and recently because of school closures due to most recently the heat wave. But every year, laging may bagyo and in some parts of the country, may giyera, et cetera. There's a targeted number of teaching days where there's contact between the teachers and the students. Nawawala 'yun.

You've also cited other reasons, 'yung mga non-teaching responsibility na dinadagdag sa teaching tasks ng mga teacher. Okay, so how significant is that, 'yung the number of teaching days lost? Kasi of the reasons that you're citing for the poor performance of students, parang hindi ko narinig 'yung the loss of teaching days. You cited nutrition. Of course, all of those other factors are important.

But this past summer, when there was class, kinansela 'yung klase. But parang bumalik tayo sa pandemic mode where it became online, I don't know, maybe some places became modular, and then the parents had to become teachers again or whatever. Pero you're saying that that's not very effective. Kailangan talaga nasa loob ng classroom 'yung mga estudyante.

KAROL: Well, to be honest naman, so in the study that we released, 53 teaching days, the largest chunk of it was really climate change issues, like the heat index and possibly typhoons. And then the second one, 12 days, is about admin tasks of teachers.

For the first one, I think, siyempre, it's... how could you avoid it? It's really going to happen. Whether or not you move the school calendar, either you're avoiding the heat wave or you're avoiding typhoons. So at a certain point, you will lose days or in-person days of teaching because of calamities or natural disasters. But I think there are ways to creatively address that.

So on one hand, in private schools, for example, and you cited earlier, Howie, so I went to a private school, obviously, for basic education. And in private schools, you catch up on lost days and other days, either Saturday classes, or you do activities at home to make up for it or there's homework. Also we just need to be more proactive in acknowledging that there will be days that might be lost because of calamities. And therefore, we have ready alternatives to make sure that it does not become lost days for learning.

The other side of it also is, in the pandemic nga, we were test-driven in terms of using of modules. And that's not a bad thing. Parang it's not perfect, yes, but it is not bad if only we make sure that one, we have quality materials that are accessible to students. And second, that parents know how to actually support their kids in going through it.

Of course, the needs of students will vary if you're a Grade 1 student versus a Grade 7, Grade 10 kid. And so we could tailor fit whatever interventions we are doing to save lost teaching days or instruction days in a way that conforms to the level of the learner. So that's one.
 
The second, when it comes to admin tasks, totoong napakalaking problema 'yan. And in fact, if you read siguro all of the reports from the Monroe survey in 1925 all the way to today, it is one of the biggest problems of Philippine education.

Why is that? Because it goes back to our history. We had little funds. We wanted to run public, we wanted to establish a public education system under the Commonwealth.

Of course, when you have few funds, you want to reach a lot, you just prioritize. Oh, teacher, student, teacher, student. And we kept expanding, expanding, expanding, expanding. And everything else became a First World problem. So all the other tasks, no one is doing. IT coordinator, registrar, gulayan sa paaralan, school canteen manager, disaster risk reduction officer, supplementary based feeding program coordinator. So school based feeding program, Oplan Timbang, everything else. At the end of the day, no one was going to do it except the teacher because the bulk of schools only have teachers.

We always cite nga several high schools in Quezon City, 560 teachers, four non-teaching personnel. I mean, who's gonna do the job? And they have about 17,000 students. Imagine if you have 17,000 students and only four who are not teachers, who will address all of their other needs?

And we know that in private schools, you have librarians, you have guidance counselors for each grade level, you have all of these type of personnel. That is non-existent and it is not a First World problem.

We know for a fact that these professionals are so needed in a school because a school is not just composed of teachers. And in fact, this is reflected in our College of Education institutions. If you see all of our schools of education, they're all teacher institutions. Most of the programs we're offering are teachers. None of the other specializations are really given as much attention.

In fact, when we mapped out guidance counseling, there are several regions without offerings in guidance counseling. Entire regions, like Region 8. Not a single provider of guidance counseling for an entire region. So it really shows you how we've continuously just built on this system in the early 1900s without really improving how we did things.

So that's what we're working on now with DepEd to update the school staffing standards to identify what are necessary non-teaching personnel in a school for it to actually function without adding burdens to teachers.

HOWIE: Okay, what you just said, Karol, it doesn't really sound like it requires a huge analytical power to say that, well, one problem of the school system is the teachers are doing so many things, 'di ba, na important things also.

KAROL: They cannot teach.

HOWIE: Yeah. Aside from teaching, you and I and many know that a big problem now is mental health of students. And then you're saying, walang guidance counselors. Who's doing the guidance counseling? A big part of the problem of many students may not even be academic. It's really mental health, especially after the pandemic.

So ang tanong diyan is sabi mo nga, US colonial period pa 'yung problema na 'yan. Ang daming dinadagdag na responsibilidad sa teachers. So why? I mean, sila rin 'yung election monitor, 'di ba? Sa mga election, sila 'yung go-to.

Department of Education already gets the biggest budget. So is it simply that? Despite the biggest budget, kulang pa rin 'yung budget? Or is the Department of Education or government spending the money on the wrong things, wrong priorities? Because obviously, to say that teachers need to teach more, I mean, that's just common sense.

KAROL: It's a given. Yeah, it's a given. Maybe I'll cite three and this might get into some government speak.

It goes with a lot of housekeeping. So what we've done in the past months with DepEd is to look at all of the roster of positions approved for DepEd. And in fact, DepEd, our partners in DepEd, found some positions that existed in the 1980s and 1970s, which should have been obliterated already, making room for new positions.

So when they cleaned it up, you know how much money was going to be saved because we have obsolete positions? P500 million. So a lot of things in a huge, huge system that is quite unwieldy, things just get overlooked or you don't have the time for spring cleaning every time. So what happens is you don't get to really rationalize things in the most optimal way.

The second is, if you understand how government works, there's personnel hired through plantilla positions and personnel hired through MOOE or what we call operational expenses so contract of service.

So we've been kind of inclined in the past decades to continuously add and add and add programs but only put it under MOOE without any personnel involved. So what happens is DepEd now needs to run a new program but then hire all contract of service so it's not sustainable and neither is it systematic. So whether or not it is the most optimal use of government resources, that's a question mark because you have so many contract of service, day in and day out, mawawala. Tapos, wala naman talagang staffing na nadadagdag sa schools.

So those are the two, I think, things that are most critical.

And the third is really money talaga. Because you know what? If we give the schools now all of the positions that they need, I think it will take us several years, maybe a decade, to actually fund all of it. We have 47,000 schools. If you say that now, increase from 4 people to 15 people, that's 15 x 47,000 x benefits of people, you know, for all of these people, for 12 months each year.

So it will amount to billions and billions of funds. And to be honest, you have to go back naman to our history also. When did we start having resources to address shortages in education? It was only maybe in the past decade or maybe 15 years. So we're also just in the process of really cleaning things up and making sure shortages are filled. So that's where we are.

HOWIE: Okay. So 'yung budget, I mean, that's the perennial problem of a lot of departments and national priorities kung sa budget. But how about just basic policy-making and decision-making? You're aware that the Philippines of course had one of the longest school shutdowns in the world during the pandemic. I don't know, in the UK, shortly after the pandemic was declared by the World Health Organization, schools might have reopened within months. I know that in parts of Scandinavia, after six weeks, parang bukas na 'yung mga school. The Philippines insisted on keeping schools closed. I remember doing an interview for this podcast with DepEd Sec. Leonor Briones. And she was in favor, I think this was even after months of the pandemic already, she was in favor of reopening schools selectively. Kasi hindi naman lahat ng probinsya mataas ang COVID, e, 'di ba?

Okay, we can understand Quezon City, certain parts of Cebu, maybe, okay, let's keep all the students at home to be safe. But, you know, there are places like Batanes, in small island communities, mountain villages, Sagada, na halos walang COVID, et cetera. Why don't we open the schools there? The teachers are already there. They're from there. Wala naman turista ngayon, et cetera.

And sabi ni Secretary Briones, ayaw ni President Duterte. So in hindsight, was that a bad decision? And could that have been a large contributory factor to our situation now?

KAROL: So ironically, this is funny because there are two PISAs, one in 2018 and 2022. In between that was a pandemic, right? So what was actually surprising is that we were better off after the pandemic.

So people were actually saying, are schools the problem? Are students better off at home, just learning on their own? Because we fared quite better, actually. We improved our performance in several subjects, although we didn't jump in terms of rank. We actually improved in terms of performance, despite the pandemic happening.

So I could not necessarily relate it to the lockdown or the shutdown of schools. But it is, it is a problem because you know that we unnecessarily lost some days when we didn't have to for some students, but it also speaks of, I'm not sure if it is our societal nature or DepEd itself, of a very centralized regime where what happens is everything needs to be dictated from the top, whether it is the president or whether it is the secretary.

And I think what we really need to do is to decentralize. And my God, if you attend our EDCOM meetings, it's always, everyone is talking about decentralization because at the end of the day, there is no one-size-fits-all. And in education, context is so important.

For example, the problems of a learner, for example, in Masbate, would be different from Catanduanes. So you can't have one-size-fits-all programs being brought down from central office and then applied everywhere when teachers assuming that they are well equipped and they are well resourced are in the best position to respond to the students right in front of them because iba-iba naman ng challenges na hinaharap ng bawat bata.

So 'yun 'yung pinag-uusapan. How do we make sure that decision making moving forward is decentralized and that people on the ground are empowered enough both by the authority and the resources to actually do what is best for their students? That is a long journey.

HOWIE: You said that your findings or the PISA findings, the international assessment findings showed that the pandemic apparently did not have much of an impact on the performance of students in the Philippines. Tama ba 'yun? I mean...

KAROL: It did not worsen. What we're saying is that it did not worsen.

HOWIE: Yeah.

KAROL: But we're still at the bottom.

HOWIE: Yeah, yeah. But in other words, the pandemic did not seem to worsen the performance based on the data. Which seems counterintuitive, right? I think, most educators will agree that it's better for students to have this face-to-face interaction.

That actually contradicts the point made earlier about the lost teaching days. Kasi basically, sinasabi mo, the lost teaching days are crucial because the students are not interacting face-to-face in the classroom with their teachers. But during the heat wave, we went back to pandemic mode nga.

KAROL: Even if we had the pandemic and even if we had the lockdowns and we were not able to go to school, actually, it wasn't any different or not significantly different from what was a regular school year because apparently, we lost so many days anyway regularly.

So it was pretty much the same deal. So I guess what's important to us is not the number of school days or not the number of teaching days, but the number of days that students are actually learning. And that is what is most important to us. So 'yun, I think that's what's critical.

HOWIE: So in other words, learning from a screen on Zoom can be just as effective as learning inside the classroom. Is that what you're saying?

KAROL: Arguably, except that we know the context of most Filipino learners. That access to technology is very low, electricity is not accessible in most, and also because most don't have learning resources at home. That they are better off in school, presumably that schools would have all of these resources, which we know is also a question mark. Because what we've seen also from the data in the EDCOM Year 1 report is that of all textbooks since 2012, only Grade 5 and 6 were actually successfully delivered for all subjects.

Not even talking about are there books in the libraries, are there other learning resources that the schools should have? So it is always working with the assumption that the schools, you're better off in school because one, the teacher is in front of you and can teach. Second, you have learning resources that are available around you. And third, you have services or access to services such as guidance counseling, which you need because you have other concerns apart from learning.

So it comes with these three assumptions, which we are seeing now is not always the case in many Filipino schools because of our inability to deliver them cohesively.

HOWIE: Okay. I need to ask you now, Karol, because you're quite clear in explaining all of the problems that constitute this learning crisis in the Philippines that apparently has persisted through the years. But on top of all of these issues, the budget and all the burdens on teachers, all their responsibilities, et cetera, DepEd has become embroiled in all of this politics pa.

'Yung Vice President Sara Duterte was made secretary of the Department of Education, and frankly, during that time, I rarely heard her talk about these issues, 'no? Maybe because it's media's fault, it wasn't highlighting what she was saying about these concerns, but ang naha-highlight 'yung intelligence funds na gusto niya for the Department of Education which created you know this friction within the two political dynasties that you know united for the election.

And then ngayon, you know, she left in kind of an abrupt fashion and parang it's just become one big distraction, 'no? I can imagine how teachers are feeling. Ang dami-dami nilang problema and then what people are talking about, even more interested in maybe is like you know, the political future of the Secretary of the Department of Education.

I mean, how big a factor was that in the performance of students, in the improvement of services of the Department of Education? Or deadma lang lahat doon?

KAROL: Now, in terms of the political, you know, to be fair, and of course, this is quite a sensitive topic to discuss naturally, because I work in government and I am part of a congressional commission, I would say a few things.

One, having the Vice President there, I feel, personally, put a spotlight on DepEd a lot.

Yes, there were times when it was the spotlight was not always on the learning crisis, but sometimes on the confidential fund issue. But as you said, I think it is more of the media attention placed into it and it was nitpicked, scrutinized, compared to the learning crisis. Parang I heard more about the confidential funds than learning poverty, to be honest.

Second, I have not interacted directly with the Vice President. So, I mean, apart from a photo op, I did not engage with her personally in my work. But at least for her team that I worked with, they actually were able to resolve a good number of issues that perennially have been there.

Two things I would like to commend them for is, one, textbooks, most of the textbooks for Grades 4 and 7 learners, for the first time, will be delivered within the first three months of this year. That is a commendable achievement.

The second is, 'yung AOs, administrative officer positions that were hired throughout March all the way till now to unburden tasks of teachers, they did in record time across many, many schools. And that is really unheard of given government bureaucracy space. Yes, there were distractions because of the political aspect of it. But in terms of the team lang that she worked with that I know personally, at least there were those who really performed and really were able to deliver naman. Yeah, so at least that's all I could say about the DepEd leadership.

HOWIE: Okay, understood. So she's gone and then there's a new secretary now, si Sen. Sonny Angara. And I do know that you had once worked for Senator Angara's father.

KAROL: How do you know that? I was going to say, full disclosure, I did. Yes, I did.

HOWIE: Yeah, I know. We saw your credentials naman, Karol, earlier in your career. So you have a long history then of studying education issues, including K-12. You were with the Commission on Higher Education, et cetera. So do you know Sec. Sonny Angara? Have you ever worked with him?

KAROL: Yes, yes, yes.

HOWIE: What should we expect?

KAROL: So I've known him since he was congressman and I was working for the father in the Senate because we would always work hand in hand on filing counterpart measures on education. I think at that point, he was also the committee chair for higher education in the House of Representatives.

So I've known him for the past 10 years. He was one of the people actually who asked me to come home to work with EDCOM. So I know him personally and we've worked closely on education issues. So I do know that he's a very hands-on leader. He is no nonsense. He takes things very seriously in terms of targets and making sure that we are delivering on time.

And he's very focused when it comes to learners. So actually, the first question he asked in the strategic planning was, "How do we form eager and curious learners?" Sabi ko, okay, I've read so many studies and I've done this all my life and crunched all of the data. But parang just how he's able to center in on the learner is something that is important as a reminder even to me as a policy wonk or as a technocrat who would think of all of the regressions instead and who would think of all of these other things that need to be fixed.

So I think he is a good leader to have in DepEd. He has been chair of the Committee on Finance in the Senate for the past five years. And DepEd has the largest budget in government. About P30 billion still underutilized. So ang dami pang puwedeng gawin. And he understands the issues well and he will be able to get it to shape, I hope.

HOWIE: And what should he be focusing on right away? Ano dapat ang priorities niya?

KAROL: Obviously, learning recovery. That's first and foremost. Because today, we still know that...

HOWIE: Sorry, what do you mean by that? What do you mean by learning recovery?

KAROL: By learning recovery, we are saying na ang daming batang Pilipino ngayon nasa classroom, araw-araw papasok simula sa July 29, pero kahit nakaupo sa harap ng classroom, kahit na 'yung teacher nandiyan man, hindi natututo kasi hindi literate and numerate. Kasi alam natin na they can understand words maybe, but could not string them together and comprehend what it means. And this is not just Grade 1, Grades 2, Grade 3.

We know for a fact that there are many, many graduates or many, many students in different grade levels who were able to get promoted but did not have foundational skills. That is so critical because you could not build on anything or you could not learn more complex lessons if you don't have these foundational competencies. So it is so critical to address them at the soonest possible time. That is urgent.

The second urgent thing also is teachers talaga. They could not teach. You need to reduce administrative burdens of teachers so they could focus on teaching. So 'yan 'yung mga bagay. And then the other inputs, we need to decongest classrooms because we still have a good number of triple shift and double shift classrooms. We need to be able to deliver on the learning resources such as textbooks completely until the end of Matatag curriculum.

We need to make sure that teachers have the support that they need. Alam mo 'yung mga teacher natin, we were counting it. It takes about, if I'm not mistaken, about 15 years before they get promoted from Teacher 1 to Teacher 3. Fifteen years. So 15 years from salary Grade 11 to salary Grade 13, and most people retire at Teacher 3.

So this is really unjust because a lot of our teachers get the credentials, are actually eligible to get promoted but because there are no positions, could not get promoted at all. So there are no incentives to performing well in school. So we need to fix all of these factors to really address this learning crisis that we're facing. And I hope and I think Senator Sonny will deal with this as soon as he takes office on Friday.

When we started this interview, you asked about my own journey as a student.

As a student, I actually failed so many subjects. I was bagsak in Grade 5, in Grade 6, in Grade 7, in Math, in Science, in Chinese.

What made a difference to me was teachers who were willing to stay extra hours to tutor me to give me feedback, to help me through, books that I could study. So I would study weeks in advance for certain lessons and read and reread and reread at home.

And that there were assessments that teachers told my parents, "Oh, based on his assessment, he can actually do so much better because of his IQ and all of these assessment tests. And therefore, we know he can fulfill his potential better."

So resources, teachers who actually have time, and assessment. So those are so critical.

And we know that teachers cannot teach because they have so many tasks. 'Yung teacher to student ratio natin, 1:60, 1:70 in some schools. Triple shift, double shift, napakaraming schools. How will they tutor anyone even if they were failing?

Second, there are no textbooks, no resources in schools. And third, assessments are not administered, if at all administered two years late. So those are critical. So I'm saying that's important.

Personally, in my own journey, I know what helps. Because I've gone through the same and I improved because of the support from teachers.

HOWIE: We want to get your take lang in a nutshell on several kind of hot button issues these days. During the near the height of the heat wave, nu'ng kina-cancel 'yung mga klase, President Marcos said, "Kailangan tayong bumalik doon sa dating school calendar." Anong take mo riyan?

KAROL: I think it was already decided that we will already go back in phases. This year, one month earlier, and next year, back to June.

HOWIE: Okay, so policy na 'an?

KAROL: Yes, policy na 'yan. To be honest, based on the feedback, because again, I was not here when this happened, when this shift happened, they're saying that it's because of the pandemic. They adjusted it because at that point, it was the earliest point we could reopen the classes because we closed down nga for so long. So I don't think it was necessarily because of climate change.

Maybe that was a secondary reason but the primary one was that we were wanting to reopen as soon as possible but it has passed. The June date has passed, which is why we started late. Yeah, so that's it.

But personally, I feel that yes, we should. We should move back to the old school calendar but also be vigilant in counting or monitoring how many lost teaching days we might have as a result of the move, and then reassess.

HOWIE: Okay, Karol. Mother tongue. How do you feel about that? Has that been effective instruction in the mother tongues of students?

KAROL: So mother tongue is good in theory if implemented well. But to be honest, we don't have the capacity to implement it. In fact, most of the literature on mother tongue says it is effective if you have a late exit. And late exit is Grade 6. Our exit is Grade 3 and then you transition by Grade 4. So to begin with, there is no substantial evidence to prove that an early exit is as effective in improving learning outcomes.

Second, in terms of we're able to implement it in an archipelago and in a country that is so linguistically diverse, and with so much internal migration, I really doubt that we will be able to implement it in a way that does better for learners instead of harms more. So I think we cannot implement it well. So we might need to find a middle ground when it comes to mother tongue. So yes.

HOWIE: Okay. K-12.

KAROL: There are many components to K-12. First is kinder. I think kinder should stay. And we did so well by adding kinder as an integral part of the enhanced basic education system. That needs to stay. The decongesting that apparently should have happened prior is happening now with the Matatag. So that is good progress.

Second, you had spiral progression. And there is so much feedback on the ground that it is difficult to implement and it does not align with how we actually train our teachers. So there are problems there.
And then mother tongue.

So kinder, okay. Decongesting, could have been improved, is being improved. Mother tongue, impossible to implement. Spiral progression, difficulties on the ground, we might need to recalibrate.

Senior high school, a lot of good intentions, but we need to really assess our capacity to do it properly because what we know on the ground is, 'yung intended na may mga track or strand, what happened was because of limited capacity from the side of DepEd, naging general academic strand din naman kaysa may accounting and business management, may humanities and social science, may STEM.

What happened was, in many schools, it was just general academic strand. So it was lumped anyway together.

We also know that TVL has many problems because when we implemented TechVoc, what they made available was what they could make available, not what was needed by communities, and not one that we were able to properly equip in terms of facilities. And we know that for Techvoc, it's hands-on. So you cannot do it theoretically.

So unless we're able to deliver it and make sure that there are equipment to be used by students to actually learn it, then it's not really as effective as it should be. So a lot of imperfections there that really need to be reviewed. DepEd is supposed to be releasing their assessment of the senior high school curriculum and its effectivity this month. And there is also discussion now in the House on how to revise or revamp senior high school.

So that needs to be done because what we know for sure is that senior high school had good ambitions. It was a good aspiration for us to do. But whether or not we were able to implement it properly, we need to rethink.

HOWIE: Okay, nabanggit mo kanina 'yung textbooks. Sometimes there are issues that come out about the accuracy of textbooks. But how prevalent are the problems related to textbooks?

KAROL: So I think, to be honest, as a layman, I was more higher ed person because I was working in CHED. So I thought, "Ah, textbooks, the problem was 'yung maling content."

But actually, I was so surprised to find out nga that there were to begin with very few textbooks. So I have to actually confirm, 'yung mga errors ba in textbooks, were those the ones that were procured by DepEd itself? Kasi 'pag LGU ka na may pera, mayaman kayo because of your Special Education Fund, you could buy textbooks.

And it could get delivered in public schools. So I could not pinpoint exactly if the problems that we know from media would be the textbooks that were actually procured by DepEd or actually procured by local schools and by LGUs, or, you know, another iteration altogether. So I have to check that. Because for me, the bigger problem is that there are no textbooks to begin with, except for Grades 5 and 6.

HOWIE: Okay, Karol, I interviewed a big city mayor recently and he was very proud of the fact that he was claiming, at least, that every student in his, or public school student in his city was issued their own laptop.

KAROL: It's definitely a huge feat, given the cost of the laptops. Second, we do know that in some countries including in some schools in the Philippines, they perform better in the PISA because their students were used to using technologies and could use laptops. So that helped a lot.

Third is we know of course that having access to technology with the coletilla that you know how to use it properly really allows you to access so much more information than what books could provide you on its own. Especially when you have a dearth of textbooks, it gives you access to so much technology. So yes, I think it's valuable. But it's not a replacement to anything if it's not used properly and the teachers are not equipped to use it well. So, yeah, pros and cons, but more good than bad.

HOWIE: Okay. In the curriculum and textbooks in particular, there's not as much history being taught now as before. And of course, some are saying that there are political repercussions of that. People will tend to believe more 'yung mga false narrative about the past which also affect elections.

But do you buy that argument? And do you think we don't teach enough history?

KAROL: So we didn't really study this extensively as a priority area of EDCOM, but my team did look into it. So when we checked it and you compare curricula from the Revised Basic Education Curriculum, which is pre-K-12 and then K-12, and then MELCS during the pandemic and then the MATATAG, so actually, the movement happened between the previous curriculum, the RBEC, and K-12.

So in the decongestion of competencies, minove lang 'yung mga subject that used to be in high school and then kept it in Grades 5, 6, 7, I believe, or 4, 5, 6. So it is still taught there. What happened before was that it was repeated again in high school.

So the question, I think, if I understand it correctly, is whether or not we should repeat history lessons in high school for what assuredly has been taught in basic education already or in lower grades.

So if that is the question, then if I am conscious about decongesting the curriculum, my answer is no. But I guess the question is was it taught at the right age in a way that a student can actually imbibe what lessons were being taught and that could actually form character or forms part of his consciousness as a civic-minded person in a country? That is the question mark.

Whether you could achieve that as young as Grade 5 or Grade 6, or whether you are better taught that in high school, maybe is the question we should ask instead of repeating the same content twice. Because, again, when we repeat the same content twice, it's students naman who complain about it na, "We studied this now, why am I studying this again?"

So I went through that. I studied Philippine history. I studied it in basic ed, in elementary, studied it again in high school, and in fact, when I went back to college, studied it again in CAS 1. So studied history thrice. So is the repetition critical in ensuring that we remember it or is it timing or is it us just really taking it to heart? So I guess those are questions that we should ask.

HOWIE: Okay, ROTC. Should that be reintroduced in schools?

KAROL: So to be honest, I don't have an informed opinion on ROTC except for my own experience. Kasi, I mean, I have to admit of all the issues  in education, that is one that I haven't really made time to study because there's so many concerns.

Personally, I did ROTC in high school, I did NSTP in college. I guess, I would go back to the question of "What is the objective ba? If it is to instill love of country, then I think there are different ways of achieving that. If it is supporting national defense, that's another question altogether. So I think it goes back to the core intention.

And what is it? And therefore, what is the right solution?

HOWIE: Okay. Karol, I'll just wind down now by going back to what you said about your own personal journey. As you recall, I opened the interview by asking you about how to be you. You have a doctorate from the University of Cambridge. So I think those, our listeners will find it inspiring that you actually talked about failing subjects and you had to receive like some special attention from tutors and teachers.

So that's hopeful, you know, kasi hindi naman lahat ng mga successful student start out successful. And there are maybe failing students now after listening to you saying, "Hoy, may pag-asa pa pala ako," et cetera. But you also cited, you know, a supportive family, you went to a private school, so maybe not exactly that replicable. I mean, to what extent would you have succeeded if you didn't have those
advantages?

KAROL: So the other thing Howie is also that I was at least for UP and also for all of my graduate studies, it was scholarships all the way. I did not pay anything personally because I was able to get scholarships and even in my private school. So I went to Xavier and Xavier has a grant-in-aid program And so there were times when my family could not afford the tuition, that we would actually ask for help or support from the school to shoulder the tuition or to waive the tuition fee cost. So it was not an easy ride.

Definitely, there were advantages, and there were also supports. And that is so critical na I was actually able only to get through all of this because there were supports along the way, because contrary to what you said, my family wasn't able to just pay for all of it like that so easily. So there were a lot of sacrifices involved also.

So scholar, I mean my PhD topic is education and social mobility. And in social mobility, it is so critical. Scholarships play such an important role because people from disadvantaged families are able to access good quality education and if there is enough mechanisms for the advantages of the rich to rub off on the scholars, they actually gain the social networks, gain so much advantages that they otherwise wouldn't have achieved and achieve things that otherwise they wouldn't have been able to do just in a regular school.

So I think there's a lot to be said of scholarships and also financial assistance programs for disadvantaged learners that I think we should talk more about and give attention to.

HOWIE: Okay, you've given us a lot of insights already, Karol. Thank you. We want to thank you. It's good to know that someone like you is focused on helping solve the learning crisis.

KAROL: Thank you.

HOWIE: Thank you for your service. Thank you for your service, Dr. Karol Mark Yee, executive director of the Second Congressional Commission on Education or EDCOM 2. Mabuhay ka.

KAROL: Thank you, thank you, Howie. Thank you, everyone. Salamat po.