Effectiveness of a Country’s Educational Provision Essay

Introduction In the last quarter of the twentieth century, an increasing consensus developed concerning the link between economic prosperity and effectiveness of a country’s educational provision. As globalization gathered pace dramatically in the 1980’s and 199’s, this link became more overt as the comparison and competitiveness between nations inevitably increases. At the heart of the argument for the link, is the need for an educational workforce, without which a country’s economy will not keep pace.1 In the World Conference on Education For All, which assembled Jomtien, Thailand, it was recognized that the current provision of education seriously deficient and that it must be made relevant, qualitatively improve and made universally available to enable every person, child, and adult to meet the basic learning needs. These needs comprise both essential earning tools such as __________________ 1 David Middle Wood and Carlo Cardno, â€Å"Managing Teacher Performance. and the learning content (such as knowledge, skills, values and attitudes) required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop to their full capacities to live and work with dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of lives, to make informed decisions and to continue learning. 2 Education is the vital key to national development. More important is the training and development of human resources of teachers who are the frontiers of our educative pursuit. American may continue to lead the word of science and technology but its record of educating its citizens in those subjects is fairly dismal. An NSF panel has spent 128 months examining the state of Science, Mathematics,  Engineering and Technology (SME) and at the undergraduate level and reviewing hundreds of comments from academic. The overwhelming consensus is that most of the SME courses acts as filters. They screen out all but the promising students- those embarking on __________________ careers, leaving majority of the graduates with litters understanding of how science works. This worries the policy makers because many disgruntled students become teachers with little enthusiasm for the subject perpetuating a cycle of scientific and technological.4 Ana Marie Pamintuan, in her column entitled â€Å"Sketches†, in the December 12, 2000 issue of the Philippines Start stated: â€Å"In a season of bad news, there was one item I found particularly depressing. Filipino first year high school students ranked 36th among 38 countries in the Third International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS). According to result, in the latest TIMSS, Japan ran fifth in Mathematics and fourth in Science. It can be expected that many people will really blame the education system for the Filipino students’ dismal performance. Although the schools along with the curriculum, teacher, supervisor, administrators and other elements that comprise the input components of the school as a social system, should take part of the blame. 5 __________________ 4 National Science Foundation, 1999). 5 Aquino, G. Effective Teaching. EDCOM reports that teacher is poorly trained. Many teachers at all levels do not have the optimum qualification for teaching. The proportion of high school teachers of science and mathematics, for example, do not have even  the minimal preparation for the teaching ranges from 54.6 percent to 5 percent. IN the 1991 DOST test given to both teachers and students in first year of the Second Education Program (SEDP), the total mean percentage score (54.08) of the first year high school teachers was only 8.79 points higher than those of the students (42.29). This deplorable performance can be traced to poor teacher training and the low quality of students enrolled in the teacher training.6 To further upgrade the standard of science education in the Philippines, the Department of science and Technology (DOST), University of the Philippines Science and Mathematics Education (UP-SMED) now National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (NISMED), the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have launched a joint project, the purpose of which is to __________________ 6 (EDOM: 1995). develop human resources which would ultimately enhance and upgrade the capabilities of science and mathematics teachers. The core program was the development of thinking skills through practical work and laboratory experiment.7 These are challenging times for the country’s educational system Cooperative efforts at all levels of instruction are directed towards common goal to improve the quality of education. Much more evident are such efforts aimed at reform in Science Education. Varied approaches and techniques have been pioneered to make classroom filled with fruitful investigations to uncover new and useful informations. A great variety of instructional materials and facts intended for daily classroom instruction have been assembled utilizing the indigenous resources of the community. Innovative procedures of presenting learning tasks have been tried to make every teaching-learning situation, encounter more exciting and hallenging.8 Of the 50 schools tested, ___________________  it was revealed what students from 20 schools did not master the topic taught, 27 schools nearing mastery, and only 1 school reported mastery level.9 The low performance of students in science also became the justification for the formulation and launching of the Science and Technology Education Plan (STEP) with Project RISE (Rescue Initiative for Science Education) as one of its project under the manpower development component. One of the major problems cited in the Accomplishment Report prepared by STEP stated, â€Å"every little was done about following up the trainees on in their use of their acquired skills.10  The problem reported b the STEP, prompted the researcher, being one of the trainors of the program, Project RISE, at the Regional Science and Teaching Center (RSTC-UEP) to assess the accomplishment of Project RISE, as to whether it achieved the goal and objectives set for – the training of science teachers to ___________________ improve their teaching competencies and raise the performance levels of the students in General Science. Statement of the Problem This study will try to assess the effectiveness of Project RISE in the Secondary Schools in the Division of Northern Samar, using the DOST-SET Monitoring and Evaluation Forms from its implantation in 1998. Specifically, this study will try to answer at the following questions. 1. What is the extent of accomplishment of Project RISE in terms of: 1. Objective of the program 2. Course content 3. Participants’ profile 4. Trainers profile 2. What is the status of the processing variables such as the following: 1. Teachers 1. Attitude towards teaching General Science 2. Content knowledge and laboratory skills 3. Classroom management 4. Time management 5. Teaching strategies 6. Skills in the utilization of instructional material 7. Skills maintaining classroom discussion 8. Skills in motivating 2. Administrators 1. Administrative support 3. Student 1. Attitudes towards General Science 3. What is the status of Project RISE on the following: 1. Teaching competencies of the teacher-participants as observed and evaluated by the principal. 2. Teacher’s perception on how the training improved their competencies. 3. Student’s performance in General Science/ Theoretical Framework The framework for the evaluation of Project RISE in the Division of Northern Samar particularly in General Science, will make use of the system theory propounded by Millilin. System theory engages a process of examining a school system or educational system (for a program or project), not by piecemeal approach where every element of the system stand independent of the others, but as an organic group of elements, as a system with interaction subsystems inside the school system (social, economic, cultural, political and technological), a system that contributes to society through its outputs the same society from which the school received its inputs, and  layer on as a system that receive feedbacks from the society as to the defined â€Å"value added† through outputs.11 Moreover, that the system theory gives a holistic view of advocating its internal efficiency as well as its external productivity: it calls for an interdisciplinary approach which mean that I considers how all the various system are interrelated, and it is a _________________  self-connective approach because it considers and profits from feedbacks received from its environs.12 The appraisal process using the system theory is hinged on the input, throughput and output concepts. The input includes the setting of verifiable objectives that become standards: the throughputs refers to the actually performance of the organization that is being evaluated; the outputs include the measuring of performance against standards such as the formal type of comprehensive review. A build in feedback mechanism pinpoint the flaws or errors in program implementation. Then corrective actions for undesirable deviation from standards are formulated. The system of evaluation is cyclical in nature consistent of formulation, implementation, monitoring and feedback pointing to the continuous assessment for program revision and improvement. Whichever is pinpointed as error implementation become the focus corrective decisions and actions and for program revisions. The advantage of the system evaluation concept lie in its ability to correct program errors at their earliest stages. Early direction and correction of ____________________ 12 Ibid. program implementation errors diminish the possibilities of incurring financial losses and unnecessary waste of efforts by the personnel implementing the program.  Therefore, assessing Project RISE, specially those having bearing on its accomplishments and innovations achieved by the teacher trainees in General  Science six year after might be a sound decision. This study is also supported by Bautista’s theory on evaluation, which shed light to the program design, assesses the implementation in terms of results of long effects. It is evaluation that provides timely and realistic feedback to the change agents, making the maximization of fiscal manpower resources possible. Programs are not evaluated attend to maintain a status quo to stagnate subsequently. One type of evaluation is the ex-post evaluation or impact evaluation. This is undertaken to determine whether the program or project merits expansion or replication in other areas and ascertain what aspects can be modified to improve implementation in other area. This study is then called an impact evaluation because it with try to assess the _________________  status of Project RISE teachers’ train on their overall performance as General Science Teachers. Carino’s theory, also sustains that accountability is a central problem of the government. The activities of civil servants and public agencies must follow the will of the people to whom they are ultimately responsible. The public ness of their employment and goals therefore prescribe their behavior and circumscribe their choice. Therefore, all individuals and office continue to have a range of options as to how they would act. The evaluation of whether such action would be within the bounds of their authority is referent to the concepts of accountability. Accountability focuses on the following: 1) regularity of fiscal transactions and the faithful compliance as well as adherence to legal requirements and administrative policies; 2) efficiency and economy in the use of public funds, prosperity manpower and other resources; 3) concerned with the results of government operation; 4) human resources accounting and the __________________  analogies of economics and social impacts of programs, and 5) emphasizes  procedures and methods operation and on the transformation of inputs to outputs.15 This study is an assessment of a project, which derives its finances from government funds, therefore projects implementers and all those involved in it are accountable to the people and the society. Another theory to support other variables identified in this study, such as attitudes and values of teachers, is that one advocated by Thorndike. The connectionist theory or the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) theory. This view was based on the concept that bonds or connections are formed between situations and suppose. Thordike advocates the idea that learning results from translating sense impressions and impulses to action learning occurs through change in connection between particular stimulus and a response, hence, connections are the key to understanding a learning task. ___________________ 15 Carino, Ledevina, â€Å"Administrative Accountability: A Review of the Evolution, Meaning and Operationa-lization of a Key Concept in Public Administration). 16 Gregorio, Hernan, â€Å"Principles and Methods of Teaching†. In the same manner, the personal attitudes and values of the teachers may have much to do with their teaching effectiveness because they could be the basis for their behavior, decisions and choice. This is so because â€Å"values are deep-rooted motivations of behavior. They defined what is important to the individual.16 In this study, it may be stated that the attitudes and values of the General Science teachers will have bearing with their work as teachers. What they believe in and what they consider important will influence their decisions and choices. Conceptual Framework The framework for the evaluation process has three components: inputs, throughputs and outputs. A built-in-feedback mechanism is the place to  derived information for project revision or improvement. Following the evaluation process, the inputs of Project RISE in Region VIII in general and in the Division of Northern Samar in particular are the objective of the program, course content, participants, trainers, and training ___________________  procedures. The actual performance in the implementation of Project RISE will be expresses in terms the throughout or processes. These consists of the teachers’ attitude towards teaching General Science, the General Science content knowledge and skills, classroom management, time management, appropriateness of teaching strategies, skills in the utilization of instructional materials, and skills in maintaining classroom discussions and skill in motivating. It will also include the teachers’ teaching competencies in teaching General Science as perceived by the principles, the teachers’ own perceptions on how the Project RISE training improved the competencies as observes by their principles and the students’ performance in General science as measured by a test in General Science.