LESSON 8 RIZAL AND HIS THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION

Introduction
Education is an important value that we Filipinos have. While it is practical and enhances a
person’s intellect and give him opportunities to pursue careers and occupations, it brings a person
to a respectable social status. However, Filipinos at the time of Rizal did not have the same
educational system that we have now. Our system today, respects academic freedom, allows free
intellectual growth and coupled with good facilities. Institutions follow uniform standards. All
Filipinos, rich and poor alike, have opportunities to go to school. During the hero’s time, they did
not have the same privileges that we have. The system was poorly managed, and the government
could not provide enough facilities. In this part of the course, we will try to see how important
education is for the society.

What was the condition of education during the 19th century Philippines under Spain?
1. There was inadequate educational system.
2. The poor system caused intellectual decadence.
3. There were no uniform education curricula; schools impose their own curricula; or the
curricula were limited.
4. Religion was over-emphasized.
5. There were inadequate facilities: No classrooms, No books and materials.
6. School use obsolete teaching methods.
7. There was no government supervision of school.
8. Students did not enjoy academic freedom.
9. Friars control schools.
10. Teachers were not qualified.
11. Overemphasis on religion and obedience to the friars promoted a society where
Filipinos are inferior to the Spaniards.

The Right to Education

Seeing the condition of the people made Rizal conclude that education should be top priority.
Unless education was wrested away from the friars, the school, instead of becoming an instrument
of liberation, will continue to be used as an instrument of enslavement.
Education was the primordial concern of Jose Rizal. It had been his lifelong concern in preparation
for the attainment of independence. John Schumacher aptly puts it: “Education is the key to
understanding much of Rizal’s career, for his whole career was bound up with education – his own
education and the education of his own people.”
In El Filibusterismo, Rizal stated: “With Spain or without Spain, they would always be the same,
and perhaps worse! Why independence, if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? And
that they will be such is not to be doubted, for he who submits to tyranny loves it.” Rizal believed
in the effectivity of education as a solution to the social, political, and economic problems of the
country. He was convinced that reforms were possible through education and liberty.
One of the significant contributions of Rizal to the cause of human rights is his defense of the right
of the Filipinos to quality education.

In defending the right of the Filipinos to education, Rizal appealed to the good sense of the Spanish
authorities not to begrudge the education of the Filipinos. Since some day or other, wrote Rizal,
“he will become enlightened, whether the government likes it or not, let his enlightenment be as a
gift given to him and not as a spoil of war.

Rizal expressed his desire to found a school to carry out his aspirations for the Filipinos.

The right to education is now enshrined in the historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights to
which the Philippines is one of the 48 original signatories.
The declaration guarantees that education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental
stages; elementary education shall be compulsory; technical and professional education shall be
made generally available; and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of
merit.

It also declares that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality
and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote
understanding, tolerance, and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall
further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims the value of the human person and the right
to education that would enable him to develop his creative powers to the full benefit of all and in
the cause of progress.

EDUCATION for the MASSES

Rizal wished the education for the masses. He shared his educational views with Blumetritt. On
one occasion he told the German scholar about his dream of establishing a school in Calamba,
Laguna, to carry out his aspiration of educating his people.

Mass education is therefore a must in a free society. Rizal emphatically expressed this idea in the
Noli when he said: “The school is the basis of society; the school is the book in which is written
the future of the nation! Show us the school of the people and we shall show you what the people
are.”
RIZAL’s SCHOOL

Rizal advocated education as a necessary condition in a free society, necessary in the pursuance of
liberty.

THE ADMISSION TEST

Rizal’s school, like any school today, devised an admission test each applicant had to hurdle.
However, this entrance exam was unique. Toward dusk Rizal would take the applicant for a walk
in the woods, and when he could do so without the student noticing it, leave his walking stick
behind, perhaps propped against a tree.

Before nightfall, the two would return to the school grounds, and when it was completely dark,
Rizal would casually mention that his cane was missing. Remembering where he had left it, he
would send the boy to fetch it. By this time, the older students, in collusion with Rizal, were already
hiding in the forest, waiting for the initiate to come by. As soon as the unsuspecting boy was deep
in the woods, they would make strange sounds and swing their lanterns to cast eerie spots of light.
Frightened applicants returned to the house saying he could not find the cane. Although Rizal
would reassure him it was not important, the following day, he would send the boy home with a
note of regret telling his parents that the class was full. Only those boys who came back with the
stick were admitted to the school.

What was the purpose of this activity, we might ask, besides being an exercise in male bonding or
perhaps wanton sadism? In fact, it had everything to do with Rizal’s concept of education. He
wanted to teach the whole man. Rizal’s concept of whole man must not only be mentally and
physically fit, he must also have the courage, the self-reliance to cope with, to quote James Royce,
“the reality of experience.” It was the outside the safe confines of the classroom, in the
unpredictable world, where intelligence was needed most.

THE CURRICULUM

When Rizal put up his school in Dapitan, he envisioned a course of study beyond the conventional
wisdom. He designed a curriculum that would teach students to “behave like men.”

1. Primary Education – Rizal batted for primary education. Primary education is fundamental
in the education of the masses. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that
education should be free in the elementary and fundamental stages. Rizal realized the
importance of primary education as stated in his reply to the letter of the Politico Comander
of Dapitan, Ricardo Carcinero. When he asked Rizal about the reforms, he would like the
Spanish to introduce to the Philippines, Rizal said: “Encourage primary education.”

2. Vocational Education – Rizal was interested in vocational education, too. During his stay
in Barcelona, he visited a clay, glass, and porcelain factory. He wrote to his parents and
brother his desire to study practical mechanics, trade, agriculture, and science. When asked
 by Carcinero for another reform he would like to see in the Philippines, Rizal suggested:
“Create schools of arts and trades in provincial capitals of more than 16,000 inhabitants.”

3. College Education – As a keen observer of educational progress in European countries,

Rizal prepared a plan for a college to be established in Hong Kong. It included a
progressive curriculum offering subjects which would provide for physical, academic,
vocational, aesthetic, and moral development.

The curriculum of the college he planned to established in Hong Kong would have given emphasis
on the study of science and technology. The European educational system taught him that science
was the key to industrial progress. In addition to science, academic and cultural subjects, the
curriculum would offer subjects on health and physical education to develop the students’ physical
fitness, courses that would develop their artistic talents and aesthetic sense, courses on etiquette to
refine their manners and social behavior, and vocational subjects to prepare them for gainful
occupation.

To complement this well-balanced curriculum, Rizal prepared a schedule of students’ daily

activities to train them to be useful and effective. The schedule specified time for study, recreation,
class work, and leisure. He even specified the type of recreation the students should participate in
at certain hours of the day.

Rizal’s curriculum also included the following features:

o Academic Freedom – Aware of the defective methods of instruction prevailing at the time,
Rizal opted for a school that would respect academic freedom. In a letter to his parents
about the expulsion of Dr. Miguel Morayta from the Universidad Central de Madrid
because of his speech on the academic freedom of the professor, Rizal said: “Knowledge
ought to be free and the professor as well.”
o The school curriculum would develop the potentials of the students.
o The curriculum would promote the dignity of the individual and thus no corporal
punishment would be inflicted.
o The curriculum would inspire learning by encouraging a wholesome class competition.
o The curriculum would emphasize the great importance of personal discipline.
o The curriculum would emphasize the “science of life” or learn to live with others by
respecting the rights of others.
o The curriculum would stimulate arts and letters.
o The curriculum would meet the demands of modern times.

RIZAL AS A TEACHER

Throughout his life, whatever activity he was engaged in, Rizal first and foremost was an educator,
a teacher. Even at the early age of 16, at the Ateneo, Rizal already wrote a poem on education
entitled “Por La Educacion.”

Rizal advocated education as a necessary in a free society. And in his poem, “El Amor Patrio,”
Rizal urged Filipinos to seek progress through education, to be proud of being Filipinos.
It is not generally known that Rizal himself was a qualified and professional trained teacher, having
obtained a professor’s title in Spain. He thus had his own ideas of the desirable qualities of a
teacher, from his qualification, training, and preparation, selection, professional growth, tenure,
even his salary. As summarized by Esteban A. Ocampo, Rizal stressed that:

1. A teacher should pass the appropriate competitive examination

2. He must have mastery of his subject matter
3. He must have initiative and resourcefulness.
4. He must be kind and “cultivate in the children confidence, assurance, and some personal
pride.”
5. He must grow professionally and love his profession, for “any kind of work done in disgust
and shame is a kind of martyrdom”
6. And “in order to be heeded and to maintain his authority, the teacher needs prestige,
reputation, moral strength, and some kind of freedom of action.

Better yet, Rizal wanted teachers to be more secure in their positions and be adequately
compensated. Most of all, Rizal believed, the teacher must be what he desires the student to be,
since a man teaches most by what he is. Thus, good examples are better than precepts.

THE INNOVATIONS AND CHALLENGES TO THE PRESENT HIGHER EDUCATION

IN THE PHILIPPINES.

Pablo S. Trillana III discusses the following implications of Rizal’s concept of education for higher
education. “It is now time to consider other paradigms and concepts on which our educational
system should be anchored. And we don’t have look far for those paradigms and concepts. Jose
Rizal spelled them out for us a hundred years ago through the colorful episodes in his life. Let us
use then example of Rizal as a model for finding solutions to the problems in our system of higher
education.”

Here are some of his recommendations inspired by Rizal:

1. Study paradigm shifts as part of the school curriculum – Our educational system should be able to
go with the flow. It should not stand still and continue to operate within the mindset of the industrial
age. Otherwise it will be left behind as the 21st century rushes to readjust the manifold expressions
of human life to new frameworks of reference and meaning appropriate for dealing with the
complexities of the knowledge age.

2. Study the future or the science of alternative future scenarios. – Education must be concerned with
anticipating alternative future scenarios. It has to prepare young people for the task of both shaping
the future and coping with the future. The issue “future of education,” therefore is interrelated with
the issue “education for the future.”

3. Develop multi-skilling – Schools must encourage and develop programs that spur students to take
courses and degrees beyond their chosen fields. Law students may, for instance, also study public
administration or a course in civil engineering may be combined with a course on mechanical
engineering. Retooling the curriculum this way will give students more insight into their chosen
 fields, while making them more eligible and flexible in the job market. It will also enable them to
have wider perspective from which to make intelligent decisions, the very goal of education.

4. Anchor the core curriculum on a strong liberal arts education – Educating the whole man, begins
with a core liberal arts curriculum which facilitates the student’s understanding of the interrelations
of the many world he lives. Dr. Jesus Estanislao, formerly of the University of Asia and the Pacific,
notes, “A strong liberal education will enable Filipinos to be more flexible and better equipped to
cope with the ever-changing demands of social, economic, and technological dynamics.”

5. Develop the ambience of education, strengthen a school celebratory culture, and transform the
school into a place for community commitment – We must develop and strengthen a school
celebratory culture to foster social bonding and pride in the school. Rizal’s unique admission test
was not simply a test of resolve but a great bonding exercise between the teacher and the students
which, like the rites passage, ensured deep loyalty to the school, its ideals and its traditions.

We must also accept that school culture, in general, will be transformed in the 21 st century. The printed
book, which replaced lectures, recitations, and copying manuscripts 300 years ago, will surely be
supplemented by television, audio-video cassettes, films, computers, teleconferencing, and other gadgets
of the knowledge age. It is already happening, although it may take some time for all our tertiary institutions
to be wired adequately.

RIZAL’s STRATEGY for LIBERATION

As a liberal, Rizal proposed that the individual must be educated, so that he could be unshackled
from ignorance and irrationality.

Dr. Antonio de Morga in his Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas noted that there were no illiterates in
this island. The adults that he met could all read and write in their own system of writing. After
over three centuries of colonization by the Spaniards who made claims to a superior culture, very
few Filipinos were literate. The census of 1903 placed the literacy rate at around ten percent of
the population. Not only did Filipinos lose their literacy, they lost much more. Wrote Rizal in
“The Philippines, A Century Hence”.

“They gradually lose their ancient traditions, their recollection; they forgot their writings, their
songs, their poetry, and their laws in order to learn by heart other doctrines, which they did not
understand; other ethics, other tastes, different from those inspired in their race by their climate
and their way of thinking. Then there was a feeling of being lowered before their own eyes, they
became ashamed of what was distinctively their own in order to admire and praise what was
foreign and incomprehensible; their spirit was broken and they acquiesced.”

Seeing this condition of the people, Rizal concluded that education should be top priority. A true
child of the Enlightenment, he believed that action was the expression of the will, and will was
guided or shaped by thought. For as long as false ideas shaped the will, action from such will
cannot make a person free. Truth then must be sought for only truth will set people free.

Rizal shows obscurantist education propagated by the friars in the class in physics in the Fili and
substantiated by testimonies given to the Schurmann Commission. This is to be expected for the
friars knew what the Enlightenment did in Europe.
It reduces the stature of the church considerably. Science wrought the miracles prayer could not
produce. Living philosophies like Marxism and pragmatism drew away the people from the pulpit.
Instead of building cathedrals and shrines, the rich build temples to commerce and industry. To
the Spanish clergy, the Philippines was the last bastion of their religion. Isagani tells Padre
Fernandez in the Fili that the friars were curtailing knowledge as much as possible by
extinguishing all ardor and enthusiasm, by trampling on our dignity, the soul’s only refuge, by
inculcating worn-out ideas, rancid beliefs, and false principles incompatible with a life of progress.

Isagani and Padre Fernandez’s conversation focused on this dilemma: when people are not
educated, it is not worthy of liberty; but when people have no liberty, it cannot have the right kind
of education.

Rizal was well aware of this dilemma and its solution, but he did not believe that the people were
ready for armed struggle. Instead of asking the people to revolt, he asked the colonial authorities
that instruction be no begrudge the Filipino. And this instruction, he said, does not mean that we
should ask first for native the instruction of a sage and all imaginable liberties in order to put a hoe
in his hand or place him in a workshop.

Rizal stressed the importance of education in liberating Filipinos from the bondage of ignorance
and preparing them for reforms and freedom they have been aspiring for. In a manifesto he wrote
while exiled at Fort Santiago, he emphasized the value of education.

“I place as a prior condition the education of the people, that by means on instruction and industry,
they may have a personality of their own and make themselves worthy of these liberties.”

Rizal reiterated his insistence on education as an important ingredient in the task of nation building.
This is evident in the word of Padre Florentino in the Fili:
“Liberty must be secured, by making ourselves worthy of it, by exalting the intelligence
and the dignity of the individual, by loving justice, right, and greatness, even to the extent of dying
for them.”

Undeniably, Rizal asked for the creation of the schools in order to free ourselves from ignorance. Today,
thousands of schools are established and many more to established; yet Filipinos remain oppressed no
longer by colonizers but by our own educational system. Rizal was not able to build the school he
envisioned, but we can build one. Rizal is no longer in our midst to diagnosed our school system and school
curriculum, but we can innovate our educational system.