The state education system is seriously under funded (JP Enrile has just made the useful suggestion that the education budget be cut to increasse defence spending...!) teachers are badly paid, class sizes are large, and the curriculum is set nationally and is a boring as hell, with vast tracts of rote learning.

The compulsory paper on Rizal, for example, has the opposite effect t what is intended - it turns students off him. Now we have the brilliant idea that children can be taught in their local language, which will destroy the Philippines one remaining advantage - fluency in English.

It's a mess. But IF the Government can get the taxes in it can improve it.