Parents first in primary education Part 1

Award-winning K-12 educator and international teacher trainer for education for sustainable development, Ilan Enverga noted in an article in a leading Philippine daily that there is only one Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) that has the unique power to enable any society to achieve all 17 SDGs identified by 193 member states of the United Nations. That is SDG 4: Quality Education, in which the Philippines is failing miserably. Enverga identifies the sectors of society that must play an active role if quality education is to be achieved. The first obvious agent is the government, which, according to the 1987 Philippine Constitution, is required to provide free primary education to all Filipino children and youth. This mandate does not extend to the tertiary level and therefore does not justify the unhealthy proliferation of low-quality government colleges and universities (SUCs). Congress would be wise to drastically reduce the budget for SUCs. At the tertiary level, private institutions, whether for-profit or non-profit, can do a better job of providing quality education. At the post-secondary level, the government should respect the principle of subsidiarity and allow the private sector to play a major role in the operation of colleges and universities.

Other stakeholders identified in the task of achieving SDG 4 include businesses, NGOs, civil society and youth, as illustrated by UNESCO’s SDG 4 Youth and Student Network. What is often ignored is the crucial role of parents in achieving whole-person education, which encompasses not only the development of the intellect but also the formation of the will so that each person can exercise his or her freedom to choose good and avoid evil. In a recent column, former NEDA Director General Cielo Habito strongly advocated for the development of “soft skills” to prepare Filipino youth for the challenges of artificial intelligence and the other components of the so-called Industrial Revolution 4.0, such as the Internet of Things, robotics and data science. Dr. Habito defined soft skills as personal attributes and interpersonal skills that enable a person to interact effectively and harmoniously with others. They should be distinguished from the hard skills, which are technical (accounting, information technology, carpentry, plumbing, farming) and task specific. Soft skills have to do with how one works and interacts with others. It is common knowledge in the global environment that despite the poor quality of education of majority of our OFWs, they are singled out for their “soft skills” in the way they interact smoothly with others, their usual cheerful attitude, their caring attitude, etc. These positive traits can be traced back to family upbringing. This brings up the crucial role of parents and other family members at the basic education level.

The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country. It would be illuminating to refer here to what the Catechism of the Catholic Church states as the role and duties of parents in the upbringing of children to emphasize the importance of involving parents – however difficult it may be to implement – in the upbringing of their children, in collaboration with the teachers of the schools they attend. Paragraph 2221 of the Catechism clearly states that “the fruitfulness of marriage cannot be reduced merely to the production of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. The role of parents in upbringing is of such great importance that it is almost impossible to offer an adequate substitute. The right and duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable.

What does this duty to educate children consist of? As stated in Par 2223: “Parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, loyalty and selfless service are the rule. The home is particularly suited to education in virtues. Although it will take great effort to encourage parents and teachers to enter into a continuous dialogue with each other, it is important that the education in values ​​and virtues that forms part of the formation of children in primary education be a joint effort by teachers and parents, with the parents playing the primary role.

As St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, first stated in fidelity to the teachings of the Catholic Church, “First parents, second teachers, and third students.” Students will receive a quality education in the full sense of the word only if we follow this order. Even with regard to what happens in the classroom, parents have the primary responsibility for the education of their children. But they first bear witness to this responsibility by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and selfless service are the rule (par. 2223). The home is the most suitable for education in virtue. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-control—the conditions of all true freedom. Parents, before teachers, are the ones who must teach their children to subordinate the material and instinctive dimensions to the interior and spiritual. Parents have a grave responsibility to set a good example for their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own shortcomings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them.

The family environment is the natural setting for initiating a human being into solidarity and shared responsibilities. Parents should be the first and foremost to protect their children from the compromising and degrading influences that threaten human societies. This is especially true of the moral dangers associated with social media. As recently reported in the Financial Times (18 September 2024), social media platforms have been criticized for doing too little to protect minors using their platforms from harmful or inappropriate content and from child abusers and sexual exploitation. Concerns have also been raised about the perceived negative mental health and addictive effects of the technology. For example, parents should closely monitor certain measures taken by platform providers to prevent children from being harmed by irresponsible platform providers. Recently, Meta made teens’ accounts on its photo-sharing app Instagram private by default. The $1.3 trillion platform announced that teens’ accounts would only be visible to their followers unless they or their parents change their privacy settings. These users will also see less content deemed “sensitive” under the platform’s new “teen accounts” feature.

No matter how busy they are with their professional and/or domestic responsibilities, parents should take the time to learn about ways and means to supervise their children’s use of social media. For example, they should be aware that under the new system being installed by Meta for child protection, parents will be able to see the topics their teenage children are viewing and who they are messaging, but not the messages. They can also add restrictions, such as blocking their child’s access to the app at night. Parental supervision of digital device use should be even stricter for younger children. Parents should seriously consider and seek advice from experts, at what age a child should have access to digital technology, not only from the perspective of mental and moral health, but even physical health. To be continued.