Kupasan Terhadap Kritikan Terpilih Renato Constantino: Antara Konflik dengan Pelestarian Identiti dalam Pendidikan di Filipina, 1901- 1935

Abstract

The education system in the Philippines has been argued by one of its most prominent historians, Renato Constantino, as the root of confounding national identities in the post-independence Philippines and the multitudes of the internal crisis faced by the country. Constantino was regarded as a “left-wing” scholar, raising difficult questions on the nation’s adaptation of colonial thoughts and the uncritical approach to Americanisation, a result of the education model introduced by the administration of the United States (1898-1901). This study focuses on American rule in the Philippines from the establishment of the Department of Public Instruction in 1901 which had formed and implemented education policies in the country to the founding of the Commonwealth government in 1935, an interim government before the United States granted full independence to the Republic of the Philippines in 1946. This paper proposes that conflicts in the Philippines can best be understood through a critical reading of Constantino’s controversial and critical works. Additionally, this paper also stresses discussion on the interconnectedness between political problems, social issues, and post-colonial education which had affected the Philippines, and in general many formerly colonized nations.