I have had all those same thoughts, and even was a little more selfish because I wanted to have more freedom in my retirement to go and do things I could not do before. But now that I have children I will never abandon my responsibility to them. I have thought about these problems a lot and now that the political and economic situation here seems to going south, I am considering the move back to a more civilized country. Living here alone is one thing but living here with children seems to be a ever growing bad idea.
And the prospects are not too good for kids after they have finished uni or college either especially when you need one of these educations just to work in a mall or call center for crap wages. But I suppose if they have never experienced anything else it would be the norm but as you say Steve the majority want the best for our kids.
Our 6 year old son has started first grade. We had him in Dumaguete Agape Chinese Christian Academy for kindergarten, which was a great school and he did very well. We moved to Siquijor and put him in another kindergarten there....it was terrible. We took him out and put him in another....it was terrible also with all the dancing and other BS. We ended up doing a home schooling course. We hired a young lady to "teach" him as the curriculum is already made out and CDs with world class teachers. He is doing great although we are currently in US taking care of business. He is reading at a fourth grade level, he is learning fractions, multiplication and division. We are using A Beka. I do not want to raise him to be an employee like I was for many years before becoming an entrepreneur. Academic achievements are overrated as many times they do not result in a better life for those achieving higher learning. I do want him to learn a strong work ethic, integrity, humility along with creativity and diligence, none of which can be taught in school. I do want him to question everything and then come up with a better way of doing things and know how to, and have the boldness to implement those ideas.
fantastic !!!! you take the reins, don't hand them over to some Jesus loving three day a weekers .......question question question everything
I paid 84k upfront for all three terms together. Higher classes will probably be more expensive so your number may still be correct for older kids. He's in a group of 6 with two teachers (one British, one local). I'd have to pay about the same or more for public kindergarten in Germany (fees depend on income), and get a much worse teacher / student number, so I have nothing to complain about. For sure it's a steep price compared to the other options here, but I figured that especially in the very young age it's a great investment. So easy to give the kids a big advantage later on. Also like the fact that the school appears to be unbiased when it comes to religion.
Great if you can keep them in that school for their whole schooling as it is a very good school. But at any time you pull them out and put back into any other school it will be tough on the kid as they will be far more advanced. It is also a great advantage for the kid to be there for their future as long as you get them a German passport and they can leave the country!
For the 5 years my daughter attended school in Dumaguete, I was extremely frustrated with the number of "holidays/festivals" and the amount of time spent on non-learning (dances, etc...) Believe me, I understand that teaching their culture is important, but they do go a little overboard. The teachers/schools there are also extremely disorganized, waiting until the last minute to send 200 students to National Bookstore/Cangs (many times, due to after-school activities, the stores would be closed) for supplies for the next day. It is no wonder these kids spend so much time in college catching up on things they should have been taught before getting there. Not sure the k-12 is going to accomplish much, as I hear they are expecting the kids to take even more classes, and I am sure they are still teaching the dances, etc. When we moved back to the states, even my daughter was relieved to get back into "normal" school routines.
Do your kids a favor and send them back to the West for a proper education. The shittiest inner city public school is going to be a far better education than anything available in the Philippines.
That is correct, they do not have enough teachers to cover all that is needed so the Kids are forever at the School Mine is there from 7am until it suits the School to say OH! OH! Teachers had enough
In the district of switzerland, where I live, the goverment plans to reduce the expenses into education by a huge amount. The result is 2 lessons per day (!) less in the primary (= elementary) and 1 to 3 lessons less in the secondary school (= high school) level per week. That will be a hart hit to the education system. Therefore we are fighting against this reduction of education.
