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THE
Philippine Business for Education (PBED) Wednesday said
the government has not spent enough to upgrade the
quality of education in the country.
In a
press briefing, PBED chairman Ramon del Rosario Jr.
urged the national government leadership and legislators
to take a serious look at the deliberations on the
national budget for 2009.
He
pointed out that there is an urgent need to act because
the Philippines’ per capita investment on education
remains the lowest in the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations.
“We
continue to lag far behind the proposed 8 [percent] to
10 percent increase in the education budget for us to
close the gaps and achieve our ‘Education for All’
targets. Increased budget for education must prioritize
programs to improve teacher quality, including decent
compensation packages, and enhance school-based
management,” said the PBED in a statement read by del
Rosario to the press.
Under
the General Appropriations Act of 2008, a total of P149
billion has been earmarked for basic education.
Dr.
Rosario Manasan, senior researcher of the Philippine
Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), said investing
in basic education would both benefit the government and
the people.
In a
paper titled, “Benefit Incidence of Public Spending on
Education in the Philippines,” Manasan stressed that
increasing the budget for basic education will give the
marginalized sector the opportunity to have access to
basic education.
“It,
therefore, strengthens the national economy by improving
the distribution of income and welfare,” said Manasan in
her paper posted on the PIDS web site.
Further,
the study noted that increasing the budget for education
will beef up the government’s position to meet one of
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), to which the
Philippines has committed to achieve universal primary
education by 2015.
“It is
really the poor that will benefit more from government
subsidies in basic education, especially from elementary
subsidies. Thus, the more government invests in
elementary education, the greater gains poorer
households get,” Manasan emphasized.
Her
study commended the government’s decision to allocate
more resources to finance primary education rather than
spend more for tertiary education.
However,
Manasan noted that the government should continue
providing subsidy to college education in regions, such
as the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Cordillera
Administrative Region and Caraga, since college
education in these regions serves the needs of the
poorer households.
She
urged the government to be more prudent when deciding to
cut subsidies for higher education in these
resource-challenged areas.
In the
same forum, former education undersecretary Juan Miguel
Luz said the “non-elite” private schools have also been
experiencing financial difficulties in their overall
operations because of the volatility of the economy.
“Let’s
forget about the elite private schools like Ateneo, De
La Salle, Miriam and the rest because they can manage
these problems,” he said.
He noted
that private schools in the provinces have experienced
decline in enrollment when they tried to increase their
tuition.
“That
was the case of La Sallette in Cagayan,” he said.
With the
increase in tuition, students from the private sector
transferred to public schools, worsening the problems in
the public-school system, such as classroom shortage and
poor facilities.
Chito
Salazar, executive director of PBED, said implementing
the original educational service contracting program as
mandated by Republic Act 6728, or the Government
Assistance to Teachers and Students in Private
Education, would boost the viability of private schools
in terms of sustained enrollment through the partnership
with the Fund for the Assistance for Private Education (Fape).
“Through
Fape, a certification process to accredit private
schools and a recruitment process to identify eligible
students with supportive parents ensures more
distributable and higher utilization,” said Salazar.
To
depoliticize education, PBED also launched the
Philippine Education report card which will function as
an objective evaluation, monitoring and planning tool
for the massive multisectoral and multistakeholder
education reform effort.
Del
Rosario said PBED will release a report every two years,
starting in the summer of 2009, on the state of
Philippine education. This will grade their policy and
program implementation focusing on teachers, learning
time, core subjects pedagogy, language, learning
materials, facilities and leadership. |
