But My Kids Can’t Get an Education in the Philippines
by Philly ~ July 23rd, 2008
One of the issues that stops many families with children from moving to the Philippines is the perception that they can’t get a good education for their children there .
As a matter of opinion I feel that the Philippine public schools are, in most cases, woefully lacking. If you disagree, fine, send your kids there but don’t argue with me.
That certainly doesn’t have to mean that you have to postpone a move until your children have graduated from college.
There are many ways to get a good education for children here. I’ll focus mainly on the ones US readers are most interested in, because, after all, that’s what I know about. I am sure my readers from other countries will help out if there are methods they know abut which I don’t get to cover here.
The first option that’s worthy of consideration is what a number of expat families that I know of do … send you children to private Philippines schools. There are a number of quite good ones. Typically the major universities provide a complete education "package" from pre-school through elementary and high school and on up to graduate programs. Three that are certainly worth looking at are:
(note: Typically I do the Googling for you and put up the links to all sites I mention, but I’m going through several days now of very strange Internet behavior with many sites not resolving or failing to load. It’s likely much faster if you Google thing son your own, sorry for placing the burden on the reader but I figured it was better to get the information out than to wait for a fast ‘Net experience)
- Ateneo
- LaSalle
- Silliman
There are several commercial International Schools as well
- American School Manila
- Brent International
Another option at the high school level many have never looked at are the Science Highs. These are government run schools that are fairly well funded and have a high level of academic achievement. Philippine Science High, with several campuses around the country is the ‘granddaddy’ several cites (Quezon City and Cebu City that I know of) have their own Science Highs which are schools well above most American High schools and have a high percentage of college entrance graduates. The state operated schools, though, are restricted to students who are Filipino Citizens … so if you have a child eligible for dual citizenship (one or both parents were Filipinos at the child’s birth) make sure you keep that citizenship "alive", no sense denying him/her their birthright.
Now my own choice would be either to use an accredited home schooling program, such as:
There are many of those, you can find out about a brad cross-section of them at my friend Tom Nixon’s site. Tom even sells a directory in print form, as well as his useful online list.
With either home school or an online high school I wouldn’t take the whole job on myself. My youngest niece goes to Quezon high and I’ve looked through her books and seen some of her assignments. The math, especially, is way beyond me.
But that’s one of the advantages of the Philippines. There are lots of degreed teachers un-employed or under employed. A little searching should be able to find your own teacher to come to your home on a regular basis and help teach the US-approved curriculum … the best of both worlds.
So, there you go, at least 5 ways to get them through high school.
When it comes to college you might opt for undergrad work here in the Philippines. I know of few problems with students here getting into good US or Australian schools. A lawyer fiend of mine recently came back from Harvard where he completed a quite exclusive international curse with students from all over the world .. competition just to get in was tough bu8t he made it and now has an extra sheep skin’ to hang on the wall with his other impressive degrees.
There are also a lot of online college programs these days as well, so you don’t need to go through packing up John or Joan and sending them off to the US for four years of beer drinking and a little education thrown in along the way. Look over on the right hand side bar, there are several agencies who sponsor us here at PhilFAQS who can help you find the school that meets your standards and suits your budget.
Bottom line? You can do it, no problem.
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July 24th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Hi Philly: A lot of cruising families use home-schooling. I haven’t tried it, nor do I have the patience, but I understand they get all the materials from the schools and the parents supervise the teaching, exams, projects, etc. and send them back for crediting. In fact, we’ve met a lot of American families with children. They sometimes exchange kids between themselves to teach, so the kids are exposed to different teaching styles. The education for their kids didnt stop them from going cruising …
Ellen
July 24th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
@Ellen: Thanks, Ellen. Indeed I’m a firm believer that the traditional school systems, in the US at least, have grown too focused on sports and proms … and phony, inflated grades.
There is certainly no reason a parent can’t provide their own education … the traditional home school programs where you get packages of teaching materials in the mail is greatly improved by the online model where the material (and teacher feedback/assistance) is available on line.
There’s another hidden benefit … if you are outside the US and don’t own property, you don’t pay property tax to support schools you don’t use … in some Eastern states htis can add up to thousands of dollars per year … a non-tivial amount to apply toward alternative schooling prgrams
July 25th, 2008 at 12:14 am
I agree with you, especially after seeing how these kids grew up to become well-adjusted, well-spoken individuals. Very respectful and outgoing as well. We have traveled with 2 alaskan families - both parents are doctors. One has 4 children with them and the other with 2. We’ve seen these children “grow” while traveling together and have listened to them chat on the radio. I really believe they are adults disguised in midget sized bodies.