The Aims of supervision and regulation of schools

Title

Creator

V. G. S.

Year

1968

Subject

School rules and regulations.

Philippines. Constitutions

Philippines. Department of Education

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

From Philippine Weekly Review, Dec. 27, 1963.

Fulltext

THE AIMS OF SUPERVISION AND REGULATION OF SCHOOLS There is a provision in our Constitution which states that “all educational institu tions shall be under the su pervision of and subject to regulation by the State.” The meaning and purpose of this provision should be obvious: The government is vested with the power to see that the schools of the country perform their educational work. It cannot refer to the power to prescribe specific curricula, or one particular method, or one definite way of teaching. If that were so, then the initiative of an insti tution and its heads would be usurped by the govern ment, and their freedom to think and to act would there by be suppressed. It is an ad mitted fact that there is more than one way of teach ing, more than one way of discovering the truth, more than one way of improving the mind, more than one way of stimulating the intelligence, more than one way of dis covering new ideas. For these reasons freedom of edu cation is indispensable. Our 'Constitution recognizes this right when in another place it provides that the natural right and duty of parents to rear their children for civic efficiency should receive the aid and support of the gov ernment. Civic efficiency is positively produced by edu cation which is largely ac quired in the school and only to some extent in the home. Government supervi sion and regulation, there fore, must of necessity be so exercised as to respect this freedom. It should go even farther. The government should encourage the use of this freedom. By so doing the government would be aiding parents in the exercise of their natural right and duty 22 Panorama to rear their children for civic efficiency. This is the posi tive side of supervision and regulation. The negative side of this function is preventive in nature and purpose. Its aim is to correct and restrain the acts of an educational institution which defeat the basic purpose of the freedom of education itself. Among such acts are the following: 1. The non-observance of order and discipline in the school caused by its teachers not appearing regularly at scheduled hours and days. 2. Failure to give courses of study for which students have been led to enroll and pay. 3. Employment of teachers who are obviously ignorant of the subject matter they are assigned to teach. 4. ‘ Teaching students to violate the laws of the coun try, to conduct a propaganda campaign against the author ities, to promote causes patently immoral or illegal. 5. Granting diplomas and degrees to persons who mere ly paid for them. 6. Immorality ,or gross neg ligence on the part of the school administrators or teachers. Supervision and regulation should be confined to the prevention of these and simi lar acts of deception, mis representation, negligence, immorality, and obvious in competence to perform the function of giving education to those enrolled as students. Supervision and regulation by definition refer to the act of overseeing what is being done, how a right is being exercised, and whether posi tive or negative regulations are faithfully carried out. This power presupposes the existence of acts and condi tions created by others, not by those who exercise super vision and regulation. In education this means that the initiative should not be as sumed to any considerable extent by the supervisor and the regulatory authority. Otherwise, education would cease to be free but straightjacketed and regimented. That would be not only con trary to a democratic way of life but detrimental to a wholesome educational dev elopment. That could also expose education to another and even more serious dan ger — the danger of being March 1968 23 used as an instrument for vi cious, corrupt, or one-sided, though subtle, propaganda. A judge in a court of law need to understand the na ture and purpose of educa tion and to realize the evils of dictation to educational institutions as a policy of the government. He need to be reminded of the constitution al provision on freedom of education. Unless he is fully aware of these matters, he could not intelligently decide a complaint against misuse or abuse of the governmental power of supervision and re gulation of schools. The very idea of control over col leges and universities is ab horrent in a democratic country. Its implications could easily include such practices as brainwashing and1 thought control. A bureaucratic approach on the question of education, which implies rigidity and uniformity of rules to their minutest details, is bound to distort the concept of educa tion. Instead of improving the work of schools and ad vancing educational progress, it could prevent the gradual growth of sound educational programs. It could hinder experimentation in new ideas, practices, or procedures. The development of college and university education in the United States has been the result of the absencq of restrictive uniformity im posed upon the higher insti tutions of learning. Variety and free enterprise are the main factors which charac terize the life and condition of American education in much the same way that free enterprise has characterized its economic system. The provision in our Cons titution on government super vision and regulation over schools is by no means the basis of the right of private persons to organize and main tain schools. This is a consti tutional right distinctly pro tected by other parts of our fundamental law. Govern ment supervision over it need not be rigid, and regulation should not require uniform ity of content and method, disregarding differences of conditions, practices, and methods. These functions, properly exercised could en courage variety of education al methods and curricula so ^4 Panorama that out of the resulting com petition, which would take place, stronger institutions would rise and weaker ones may be forced to improve themselves. The present statutes on private secondary and higher education are not sufficiently adequate. They should be improved by amendments. But even as they are, they provide enough room for the administrators of the Depart ment of Education to adopt regulations which could give encouragement to the initia tive and imaginative faculty of Filipino educational lead ers in the development of the colleges and universities of our country. The provision in our Cons titution on the supervision and. regulation of school should not be divorced from the provision on freedom of education. The later is a fundamental principle. If our courts cannot see the ab solute necessity of reading these two provisions of our Constitution together and to give to one a meaning which does not cancel but rather support the other, then it is high time that our Congress be requested to set the cor rect constitutional? their right and duty to protect the basic principle of freedom of edu cation in positive terms. But in the meantime our officials in the Department of Education could exercise the discretionary authority they now possess to introduce more flexible rules intended to foster variety among our institutions of learning. One way to accomplish thjs would be to adopt general, instead of particular, re quirements on curriculum matters and to reduce to the basic essentials the subjects or fields of study within the scope of the required curri culum. The result would be a wider opportunity for every enlightened and com petent institution of learning to devise its own particular method of imparting educa tion and its own system of attaining its educational or academic objectives. The required variety for whole some growth may thus be es tablished in our educational system. — V.G.S., Philippine Weekly Review, Dec. 27, 1963. M.vrch 1968 25

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