Prior to Philippine independence, the country's public education system was modeled after that of Spain and the United States. In Asia, the Philippines was among the first to have access to modern, free public education accessible to every Filipino regardless of race, sex or social class. However, after independence, its quality has gradually fallen behind and is eclipsed by neighboring countries.
Accessibility of public education in Spanish Philippines
In 1857, modern public school education was introduced in Spain through the Moyano Act. This is the first specific law on public education that establishes an organizational implementation of public education in Spain. This was a pioneering project and one of the first of its kind in Europe. It was years before France (1882) and Great Britain (1870).
The Spanish Philippines gained access to free modern public education from Spain in 1863 through the Decreto de Educación de 1863, signed by Queen Isabella II, making it the first of its kind in Asia. In the pioneering framework of the Decreto de Educación, primary education was made free and the teaching of Spanish was compulsory. Compared to the United States at the time, Filipino public education was ahead of most of the United States, where in 1900 only 34 states had some type of compulsory education requiring attendance until the age of 14 years old. As a result, the average American at the time was less educated than the average Filipino, which was especially true of troops fighting in the Philippine-American War since most soldiers generally came from modest social backgrounds. Likewise, in 1866, the Philippines had a higher literacy rate than Spain. The total school attendance was 150,000 out of 5 million people and 1 out of 35 active people, higher than some European countries at the time.
In contrast to the anti-Spanish propaganda that was rife during those times and to the Philippine Commission Reports that education was privileged only to the ilustrados or the rich and the mestizos, the Spanish public education system was open to all natives regardless of sex or financial means. This observation is corroborated by several observers, including former President Manuel L. Quezon, who in his speech to the Philippine Assembly at the United States Congress in October 1914 stated that;
...there were public schools in the Philippines long before the American occupation, and, in fact, I have been educated in one of these schools, even though my hometown is such a small town, isolated in the mountains of the Northeastern part of the island of Luzon.
...as long ago as 1866 when the total population of the Philippine Islands was only 4,411,261 souls, and when the total number of municipalities in the archipelago was 900, the total public schools was 841 for boys and 833 for girls and the total number of children attending these schools was 135,098 for boys and 95,260 for girls. And these schools were real buildings and the pupils alert, intelligent, living human beings. In 1892, the number of schools had increased to 2,137, of which 1,087 were for boys and 1,050 for girls. I have seen with my own eyes many of these schools and thousands of these pupils. They were not religious schools, but schools created, supported, and maintained by the Government (Spanish).
Quality of Public Education in Spanish Philippines
Foreign observers attest to the quality of education available to the Philippines, where, according to the Swedish Noble Prize winner for economy Gunnar Myrdal; Japan and the Spanish Philippines had exceptional free public education in 19th century Asia.
Curriculum wise in the Colegios (today’s equivalent of senior high schools), John Foreman notes in his book, The Philippine Islands, that the subjects offered to the students were very advanced, of which the subjects include Algebra, Agriculture, Arithmetic, Chemistry, Commerce, English, French, Geography, Geometry, Greek, History, Latin, Mechanics, Natural History, Painting, philosophy, Physics, Rhetoric and poetry, Spanish Classics, Spanish Composition, Topography, and Trigonometry, among other subjects.
In a different observation, this time in Philippine Higher Education, by educator John N. Schumacher pointed out:
Philippines was not far behind, or, under certain aspects, was even superior to the general level of higher education in Spain, at least outside Madrid. Perhaps the best testimony for this is the fact that such larger numbers of Filipino students were able to move without apparent difficulty from educational institutions at home to those in the Peninsula and establish honorable records for themselves there.
This explains why at the Malolos Congress of 1898, the young Philippine republic had 40 lawyers, 16 doctors, five pharmacists, two engineers, a priest and a pack of businessmen.
With the head start the Philippines had in establishing their education sector, it seems clear that the country should have taken the lead in education in general, at least in the local region. Unfortunately this is not the case. In recent decades, starting with the post-WWII Philippines, much of the progress made at nearly every level of the education sector appears to have been lost, with the exception of a few elite schools. This is then reflected in various global education rankings and surveys where the Philippines trail behind neighboring countries in terms of average research output, reading comprehension levels, and science-mathematical skills.
Download Further Reading: Features and Historical Aspects of the Philippines Educational System
VERY GOOD AND FACTUAL INFORMATIONS.!!!
These are wonderful pictures of our country's past. Also, a great write up! I noticed in some pictures that majority are actually native Filipinos and the mestizo students are a minority. May I know where I can get a hold of the book online where this images came from? Thanks so much.