One of the rare times I agreed with Connie

Connie Veneracion, on our population growth problem:

There are, of course, many approaches to answer the why. But there is one factor that plays a big role in the failure of our educational system that seems to be treated as something totally unrelated to the issue—population growth and a simple case of supply and demand. The population grows at such a tremendous rate that additional classrooms and school buildings, and a larger cut in the national budget every year, cannot meet the demands. Even if government builds a thousand classrooms every year, it will never be able to catch up. It’s simple math really. That is why when I hear the complaints of today’s parents and public school teachers, I know that the situation they are describing is not peculiar to this generation but an offshoot of a much older problem. The problem has reached these proportions because no administration has been brave enough to really tackle the population issue. While we had to live with half-day shifts back then, it has gotten much worse with the suggestion to cut shifts down to four hours so that three shifts can be accommodated in the day session. Susme, how much can a child manage to learn for four hours in an overcrowded classroom?

It is in this sense that the policies of the Arroyo administration become contradictory. The administration says it is doing its best to address the classroom shortage epidemic, and the general sad state of Philippine education, yet it continues to bow down to the dictates of the Catholic Church in birth control issues. It’s like trying to please two masters both hell-bent on destroying each other. That’s why every move becomes illusory and self-defeating. Keep building more and more classrooms that government cannot maintain without taking steps to check the population growth and what have we got? Everything just falls into a vicious cycle.

But didn't you hear Connie, according to your president's statistics, "population growth is down" raw.

Previous:
- Arroyo's ultra-concervative and retarded policy on Family planning
- How the Arroyo admin came up with their population numbers
- Sen. Biazon finds Arroyo admin's population data questionable

Read this too on the Classrooms controversy:

- Ellen Tordesillas on how the Arroyo administration manipulates it's numbers and statistics to mislead the public.

- DepEd Secretary Fe Hidalgo's big mistake: She told the truth to someone who can't handle the truth