THE ROOTS OF EDUCATION ARE ROTTING

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” – Aristotle. As students, we’ve grown used to believing that hardship is simply part of learning. Challenge, we’re told, leads to growth. But what happens when difficulty no longer leads to progress? When it becomes stagnation—or worse, regression?

Written by: Ruanne Tan

Illustrated by: Mic Ezekiel Santiago

June 23, 2025 |  7:37 PM

On June 16, 2025, a new academic year began, marked by the pilot implementation of the revised K-12 curriculum. Under this revision, the number of core subjects in senior high school (SHS) has been reduced from fifteen to five per grade level. The Department of Education (DepEd) claims this streamlining will better equip learners for college or employment.

Yet even before this reform, our schools were crumbling under the weight of unresolved problems. Many of the 841 public and private schools chosen for the pilot program still lack qualified teachers, classrooms, and updated learning materials, especially those aligned with the new curriculum. Education Secretary Sonny Angara admitted this will be a difficult year. The shortage of 165,000 classrooms nationwide is so severe that, at the current rate, it would take over fifty years to eliminate the backlog. And it's not just classrooms. Both students and teachers continue to face chronic shortages of chairs, facilities, and textbooks.

In a June 15, 2025, statement, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers called on Congress to double the education budget. Their demand was urgent, and the numbers support it. In 2024, the Functional Literacy, Education, and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS) revealed that 18.9 million Filipinos aged 10 to 64 are functionally illiterate. This includes people who can read and write—but struggle to understand what they read. This is not just a school issue—it’s a national crisis. As the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) reported, educational funding remains not only insufficient and inefficiently used. Even with budget increases, the country still fails to meet the global recommendation of spending 4% to 6% of the GDP on education. 

The problem isn’t necessarily with the content; it’s with the implementation. When K-12 was first introduced, DepEd scrambled to find qualified educators to staff SHS. Many teachers were hired despite lacking teaching licenses as DepEd rushed to fill gaps, provided that they had to take Licensure Examination for Teachers (LET) within five years. If DepEd wants the reforms to the curriculum to succeed, it must provide proper support. This involves doing several things. Updating and distributing relevant teaching materials, investing in digital infrastructure, training and certifying teachers, and building and maintaining classrooms. Every peso is spent with students' learning in mind.

These are not considered luxuries; rather, they’re the bare minimum required for a functioning education system. It is time to move beyond stopgap measures and empty promises. What Filipino students need, what they deserve, are long-term investments in teachers, schools, and quality education. If we allow the roots of our education system to rot, we risk spoiling every student it bears.