⌛ Prospects for children in Philippines

Getting back to the original poster....I'd think long and hard about subjecting your kids to the Philippine education system...might be a couple excellent private schools in Manila, one in Cebu I believe, rest are downhill and steeply. My wife was a cheerleader for the quality of Filipino schools - until she put her own kids thru the Australian system, and earned a couple degrees herself here. Has been quiet as a mouse on the Philippines schooling since - and admires what we have here for sure. In fairness, the Filipino teachers work their guts out with what they have, the crap salary doesn't attract the best - or anywhere near it, the whole system is chronically under-resourced, and no one in government really cares enough to fix the problems.
But again, getting back to the original post...if you're retiring (and mind you a lot of people are having to work longer now - including me LOL...) then if you're drawing a bit of superannuation and a pension....maybe get the wife to work? Tons of jobs out there in Perth (I live in the northern suburbs)....and she could easily make $15-20 an hour doing just about anything. Might affect your pension but also make life a bit more comfortable. Your wife can do a decent TAFE course and get qualified for many good jobs in a hurry. Aged care is screaming for people here, and they love Filipinos doing it - they fit right in very well, and the hourly rate for carers is $17-18 an hour (likely to rise soon) - but pretty good shift penalties stretch that out during evenings, weekends, and holidays.
Have a think too about medical care in the Philippines. If you are mid-60's, on the Australian pension, and get a serious illness....you could be out of pocket hundreds of thousands of pesos - even a million or two if you wind up in Makati operated on by real doctors and have an extended treatment program. You can hop on a plane back to Oz but that only works for a while....after a few years out of Oz - Medicare will cross you off the list - and no more free treatment. You can pay full-fare then...
Yes, Perth is bloody expensive - starting to feel like living in Tokyo...but costs can be brought down in several ways. Moving to a rural environment perhaps...and becoming more self-sufficient (and still getting the wife to work..)
Anyway, your life....once we added cost of health insurance in the Philippines, mediocre medical care, general level of aggravation to get anything done, going there a few years older than we originally planned - its less tempting than it was. Still may do it - but a lot of nice rural hobby-farm places within an hour or two of Perth for reasonable prices...why bother..

 

The Philippines is a third world country, let us not forget that. We can not expect it to get first world services, including education. To get good schooling here, you have to be smart or wealthy enough to pay for a good school We don't pay enough taxes to expect good public education.

For those who are smart enough and either from hard work or from wealth good education can be had. Our curriculum is based on the US , so that courses completed in the Philippines are accepted by the US regulatory boards. Of course it is subject to review,but every one goes thru that including US graduates.

Canada and Australia go by the British standard, so they do not accept our degrees.

Those of us who migrated to the US mostly made it good. We felt kind of smug that we did better than those who stayed on. We were wrong! The best and the brightest stayed home and did much better.For the most , either they plodded on or just got by, but that is life

We made our choice to come home and retire here.We know that medical services are inadequate. If we can, we will fly back to the US if we need treatment, if that is not possible we can live with it.

It is an informed decision on our part to do that. The choice is to live with the cold winters, and having to do everything for ourselves forever. We choose a comfortable, easy and stress free life here in Tanjay.We figured that we can not have our life held hostage to making sure that we get excellent medical care.

We live a relaxed life , we are developing one of our ancestral farms make us almost self sufficient in our food supply. We grow organic vegetable and some livestock , not just for ourselves but for our helpers.

All I am saying is that we make our own choices in life. If we live in the Philippines we should be prepared to accept its limitations, if we are not happy here, then why stay? We can do some to change things but only in a limited way. Bitching does not help any.

 

And here we have it in a Nut Shell, bad English to start a sentence with an Adjective but the post demanded it. I am English and have to a degree the " I'm all right jack syndrome" BUT it was my decision to retire (well nearly) in Dumaguete, My daughter IS getting the Grades after 2 school moves but we persevered until we found the right one. 2 privates and now a government one and all I can say is it is working. I do understand all the comments and anti comments made, I think we have to search and find that happy medium where we can. All the moaning, gripping will not change things, we must do what is best for our off springs. Whatever the outcome I commend you all for doing your own thing.:p


For Rhoody!

To say how short a time you have been here, Your English is to be Commended young man. Best of luck to Germany this afternoon. England can only Hope and I too hope for the result too.:o

 

I have always believed, and still do, that education starts and ends at home. Period. School should be thought of mostly as a place for students to socialize, learn to get along with others, and network with persons in the same learning curve. When my son started first grade in the US (20+ years ago) he was already reading and writing 3rd grade level. His math skills were 5th grade level.

Living in the Philippines, one should take this into consideration. Yes, the education system is a mess, so compensate for it. Those who are in denial will never accomplish this, as they think all is fine and dandy. Sorry, it is not. All it takes is an hour or so per day from someone who cares, to make all the difference in the world in the quality of education a child receives.

The only question left that you have to ask yourself is;

Is your child worth it?

Larry

 

Applause, Applause, Applause Larry.
As you no doubt guess My Little one is worth all the effort I can Muster.



Jack P.

 

I am also a australian.if you are planning to retire there like me, then you have made a wise choice. You cannot go far with your super and pension in Australia. Our rent and costs of living is ridiculous unless you prefer eating vegemite sandwiches every day....

You have to come back to Australia once a year to keep your pension or they will cut that off...as for your children, if they like technology, call centre work pays around the 10,000 pesos mark plus bonuses which can add up to 15,000 pesos more per month. My wife's niece works for Accenture who does all the residential support for Telstra in Australia from the Philippines. In 10 years time there might be better options and pat scales will increase by then....

You can always work on the side doing odd jobs if you want to otherwise provide consulting work if you wish........

Anyway, good luck! Oh by the way, your wife should apply for dual citizenship from the embassy in Canberra....

 

I'm going to give my 2 centavos about the education system here in the Philippines, even though my experience is with Manila schools.


I have a few complaints, about the 2 private schools, that I've put kids in, over the last few years.


#1 No one in the Philippines knows what a book locker is. The poor kids have to carry every single book, notebook, pencil box, lunch, water bottle, change of clothes, ect, ect back and forth every day, to school. This amounts to half the child's weight in some instances.

#2 The schools are too freaking nosy. Every year, for each kid I get a form to fill out, that asks about MY religion, income, who, where, what, and why, about the most personal of family business. I never realized how much the separation of church and state meant, until I moved to the Philippines.

(scroll down to #3 if you are not interested in reading a rant)

I'm not Catholic, my wife's not Catholic, and we don't believe in baptizing little kids. In fact, I don't believe in teaching religious dogma at all, in school, (that belongs in the home, or at CHURCH) but to teach it not along side, but in the place of science, in the classroom is just WRONG, in my personal opinion.

But the sad fact of the matter is, if you don't have documentation, in the form of a "Baptismal certificate" or "Dedication certificate" your kid will not be accepted into (most?) schools here. I thought maybe this only applied to private Catholic schools, but learned that public schools also require the same documentation. In fact, public schools can be even more picky about which students they will accept, since there is no profit motivation.

#3 The schools don't use bells to release the students. It's common for students to be held 30-45 min, or longer past the time of scheduled release. This wouldn't be a huge problem, if there was an adequate parking area available. But sadly, parking lots, are much like book lockers at the schools here in Manila.


#4 Dancing...

I thought paying for private school meant the child was going to get a better education, but I'm learning that it means there will be 5 or 6 elaborate dance productions per year in a private school. The school day for a 4th grader in private school is 9.5-10 hours per day. Public school is 6.5-7 hours with no lunch break. I'm pretty sure the extra 3 hours spend in private school is for lunch, and dance practice. While only a small number of kids actually do some of the dance routines, in the upper elementary grades, the rest of the students are still forced to watch the practices.




#5 Books...

The books are all in English, except for one in Tagalog. All the English books are full of grammatical errors, and wrong answers. Even the teachers don't know the right answer much of the time. Both public, and private school books have about the same amount of errors/outright wrong answers. The biggest difference I've found is, someone has to pay for the books at a private school, and they're free in public schools.




#6 The subject of "Christian living" seems to be most important... As in-

Q: How did we come to inhabit the earth?
A: God created the earth, all the plants, animals, and people. Ok, now that everyone knows that... let's sing praises to God, and do a dance practice.




I better shut up now, before I get into another rant

 

Rant on because you are making sense to me, Since this thread started I have been very interested in all comments and It has opened my eyes to a lot of short Comings. Since My daughters School seemed ok at face value I now begin to Question the Core problem. I read with Interest as I follow the thread.

Jack P.