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.

SECONDARY EDUCATION

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the cost per pupil in the median province, Camarines Sur, was P48.29,
and the range among the provinces was from P19.97 in Isabela to
PI72.46 in Zamboanga. While this median figure is but one-tenth the
cost per student in the University of the Philippines, it is double that for
the intermediate school and four times that for the primary school.
Whether this is the wisest disposition of the funds available for education
is a question we shall attempt to answer in a subsequent division of this
report. It needs only to be suggested here that, in view of the limited
economic resources of the Islands and the partial extension of the opportunities of elementary education, such expenditure should be passed
under the most rigorous scrutiny.
Another fact to be considered is that the entire cost of secondary
education is not measured by the instructional charges. As we have
observed in an earlier paragraph, attendance at high school requires
leisure for boys and girls who have reached the age of economic productivity. That free secondary education is much more widely extended
in the United States than in the Philippines, or that the per-pupil cost
in the former is at least four times what it is in the latter, is not sufficient justification of present practice. Children reach the age of economic self-support earlier in Philippine than in American society, yet
the age of first-year high-school pupils is much greater in the one than
in the other. Moreover, the period of productivity, because of the
shorter life span, is appreciably less in the Islands. Thus, in terms of
standard of living, wealth, and labor resources, the burden of support
of secondary education may be greater in the Philippines than in
America.
FUTURE GROWTH
Any discussion of costs should be accompanied by some estimate,
however crude, of the probable growth of the high school in the immediate future. In making such an estimate the assumption must of
course be made that there will be no radical change of policy. Since
the only evidence we have for judging the future is the record from the
past, any calculation of the probable growth of secondary education
in the years ahead must be based upon the increase in enrollment during recent years. Although there are many factors which will enter
into the situation to make the future differ from the past, they can
neither be foreseen nor their strength gauged. All that can be done
is to point out what may be expected, if the rate of growth remains
unchanged. But for shaping educational policy this is precisely what is
needed.
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