A survey of the educational system of the Philippine islands by the Board of educational survey, created under acts 3162 and 3196 of the Philippine Legislature.

220 EDUCATIONAL SURVEY OF THE PHILIPPINES

Half of the elementary-school principals of the Islands have had less
than six years' experience. The personnel of the teaching staff is young;
the principalships are filled by young people. The entire school system
below the division superintendent is manned by young people. This
characteristic of youth, provided it is paralleled by adequate training,
is, no doubt, a fortunate one for school efficiency and progressiveness.
But therein is the great need of the schools. The principals of the system
are not only young and of relatively limited experience but they are
almost totally untrained for their work. More than half of them have
had less than two full years of high-school training. Only 12 per cent
of them have attended normal schools or courses. There are not only
no university graduates; there are none in the list reported to the
Survey who have even attended a university. Not one-third are highschool graduates.
It is very clear, therefore, that classroom instruction in the Islands is
without adequate supervision and guidance. Because of the lack of
trained personnel this is necessary. The critical appraisal of instruction demands not only the mastery of the technique of observing and
of evaluating the work of the teacher. Sound evaluation is contingent
upon insight into how children learn. Skillful teaching is based upon
a clear grasp of the psychology of learning. Thanks to three decades
of scientific work in the laboratory and classroom a large body of
objective information is at hand concerning the learning of the elementary-school subjects. Especially fundamental and of practical
value is the knowledge of the reading process. We have already
shown the crucial importance of improving markedly the teaching of
reading all over the Islands. Is there hope that the elementary-school
principals can immediately take a leading role in that process? There is
not, for the simple reason that they lack knowledge of the very
foundations of teaching. They even lack adequate knowledge of the
subject matter of the school subjects themselves. Their training barely
exceeds that of the teachers of whom they have been given guidance.
But there is a second and more potent reason for the lack of professional leadership in the elementary schools. The principal has been
so loaded down with teaching and clerical routine that he has had no
time or energy for supervision or guidance of the teaching of others.
The principalship has been made into a clerical position by the requirements of the system. Documentary evidence of this appears clearly
in the Service Manual. In that basic document the duties and responsibilities of principals are stated in paragraph X, "Principals of schools
are generally directly responsible to the supervising teacher for the
proper conduct of their schools including the work of their classroom
teacher." In the index of the Service Manual on pages 339 and