Education in the Philippines during American rule

Education became a very important issue for the United States colonial government, since it allowed it to spread their cultural values, particularly the English language, to the Filipino people.

[2] On March 10, 1901, with the Philippine-American war drawing to a conclusion, Elwell S. Otis, as Military Governor, created the Department of Public Instruction.

Schools were also built in remote areas like Sulu, Mindanao, and the Mountain Provinces, where attention was given to vocational and health practice.

They began to arrive in August 1901 aboard U.S. Army Transport (ASAT) ships named Sheridan and Thomas and came to be called Thomasites.

As the Pensionado Act started in 1903, the purpose was to "Educate and bind current and future Filipino leaders to the American colonial administration.

The first year of the program there were about 20,000 applicants with only one hundred of Filipinos men ultimately selected to study abroad in the United States.

It was headed by Paul Monroe, who at the time was the Director of the International Institute of Teachers College, Columbia University, and it was composed by a total of 23 education professionals, mostly from the U.S. and some from the Philippines.

Pupil performance was generally low in subjects that relied on English, although the achievement in Math and Science was at par with the average performance of American school children..." Counts also described the Filipino children of the 1920s as handicapped because not only were they trying to learn new concepts in a foreign language but they were also being forced to do so from the point of view of a different culture, due to the fact that they were using materials originally designed for pupils in the United States.

Many of the problems identified were attributed to the attempt to impose an English-based education system in just one generation, concluding that "Upon leaving school, more than 99% of Filipinos will not speak English in their homes.

"[13] Other recommendations of the Commission asking for a "curtailment of the type of industrial work found on schools" and the elimination of the General Sales Department that had been set up to distribute the sale of items made in schools, pushed the implementation of several changes in the educational system to try to prioritize on the instruction of the pupils to be taught over the teaching of "industrial" education that until then had been focusing on the production of handicrafts such as basketry for boys and embroidery for girls, farming techniques, and other skills deemed favorable for the future of the pupils.