MANILA, Philippines — Casual discussion about why the Philippines lags behind its neighbors can yield a number of reasons ranging from the country’s corrosive political culture to the national habit to procrastinate.

Seldom is media immaturity cited as a reason.

However, when one closely dissects how neighbors Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia have made it to where they are today, one can’t help but look at the way these countries have advanced technologically by investing in education and in their youth populations.

Their citizens are not only well tuned in to the rest of the world but are also able to articulate global issues intelligently. This they are able to achieve because of sound media education. The Japanese, Koreans Taiwanese, Singaporeans and Malaysians are not just media savvy; they are also media smart.

It is not enough that our youth are exposed to the hottest editions of the mobile phone or the latest tablets. Owning and brandishing them are different from actually knowing how to use them intelligently.

We found out that these countries do not scrimp in schooling and media education is a serious, integral part of elementary and high school instruction. The Philippines has not even started, even if the idea had been in the drawing board for years. Like many other necessary innovations, media education is part of the thicket of rhetoric and empty promise in national education.

A visit to provincial schools will break one’s heart. Time seems to have stopped. Children are still held hostage by memory work; spend hours trapped in their seats aiming to get high grades by buttering up; and still ploddingly write the de rigeur essays, most of them dressed in cliché and archaisms.

Teachers, afraid of change, will refuse projects that allow children to innovate and freely use modern technology. Their common reasoning is that education outside the purview of books, pen and paper is anything but. Hence, today’s Filipino child, steeped in modern media courtesy of computers and television, is pathetic in discussing lessons that momentarily pluck him away from the 21st century and transports him back to the 20th.

This could also be the reason why many students find television and other modern forms of media more beguiling and relevant to his life. An hour spent watching television means an hour of novel things, new knowledge and exciting information presented to him entertainingly. He considers that particular hour more engaging and useful than five hours with a teacher and his yellowed notes, piece of chalk and decrepit blackboard.

Sometime back, Knowledge Channel and ABS-CBN Foundation tried to fill in the gap in education by providing audio visual materials for the classrooms. They knew that it was the way to go in education. The effort was successful only where principals and teachers were generous about letting school children use the equipment and software. Many other principals, alas, insisted on keeping the TV sets and materials in the safety of their rooms, only occasionally displaying them to impress a visiting superintendent or politician guest.

Tacloban City will stage an event in May that hopes to show the way in education by giving space to children. That will be discussed in the next column.