Vice President and Secretary Sara Duterte tendered her resignation as Department of Education (DepEd) Chief last Wednesday, 19 June 2024, the same day the report of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) went viral in social media.
While VP Duterte’s resignation as Cabinet member of the Marcos Jr. Administration has nothing to do with the newly released PISA report, it is important to note how the impact of the former would affect the latter in the years to come.
Filipino students ranked second to the last in creative thinking, according to this 2022 global assessment which tested how well 15-year-old students can use their imagination and creativity to generate original and diverse ideas and improve such ideas.
We only beat Albania among the 64 countries and economies that participated in the study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) last 2022.
Assessing students’ creativity and imagination is important especially since we live in a changing world where innovation is becoming more of a necessity as artificial intelligence (AI) replaces so-called routine tasks. (See 04 June 2024 column, Ethical AI Governance)
Thinking outside the box is surely becoming a norm in the workplace.
Having a creative mind, therefore, is crucial to the future of our economy.
Thus, whoever succeeds outgoing Secretary Duterte in the Cabinet is in the nation’s best interest.
While President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. may think outside the box in his choice of the new Secretary, and we respect such presidential prerogative, we earnestly hope the one to be chosen is someone who is passionate about education or dedicated his or her life to education.
The Filipino students as well as their parents deserve no less.
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Dennis Ting is a former director at the Department of Budget and Management.
