'Educational elitism' in the Philippines
By Lachlan Malloch
SYDNEY = Arnel Casanova spoke on the struggle against privatisation of education in the Philippines at Macquarie University on September 11.
Casanova is a left-wing member of the student council at the University of the Philippines. He is in Australia as part of a student exchange program between Macquarie University and UP.
Casanova outlined the history of formal education in the Philippines, explaining that the post-Marcos constitution of 1987 provided for public secondary education for the first time. But there is a big gap in quality between public and private educational institutions, and public education is not free.
Poor students have no choice but to work virtually full time while they are studying. The poor are almost completely marginalised from tertiary education due to its prohibitive cost. Some 80% of the education sector is privately owned.
The main focus for left activists on campus recently has been the campaign against the Fidel Ramos government's privatisation policies.
At UP, which is seen as a privatisation "prototype", the students have won at least a partial victory by forcing the university's governing council to delay a profit-generating private development which promised skyscrapers and shopping malls on campus.
Casanova laid the blame for the privatisation push at the feet of global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. When we talk about development, he said, "are we looking at corporate profitability or the lives of all the people of the nation? ... We have to live together, exist together, support each other — that's my concept of development".