Salvaging our future
The Second Congressional Commission on Education (EdCom II) has released its year two report entitled “Fixing the Foundations: A Matter of National Survival,” and the picture it paints about Philippine education remains rather grim. Let me discuss seven of their more alarming findings:
One, more than half (53 percent) of 180 teaching days in school year 2023-2024 were lost to calamities and local holidays across the country. As of November 2024 in the current school year, students have already lost 42 learning days in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), 38 days in Calabarzon, 36 days in Cagayan Valley, and 33 days in the Ilocos Region. Studies estimate these to have resulted in an equivalent of half a year of learning lost in terms of student achievement in math and science in Grade 4. We’ve seen it happen too often that classes are canceled when the weather turns out not to have warranted it. It’s hard to blame authorities for being too cautious or the weather bureau for bad forecasts, but these errors are proving too costly.
Two, the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Supplementary Feeding Program is reported to benefit less than a quarter (23 percent) of children, and yet only 28 percent of those fed actually needed it. The severe long-term impact of child malnutrition and stunting on the nation’s very future is now more widely understood and already of common concern. But such poor targeting magnifies the waste of already meager resources devoted to direly needed government interventions.
Three, the backlog in classroom construction is now pegged at 165,000, which is two and a half times what it was in 2010, while there are wide regional disparities in classroom availability. Furthermore, less than a third (30 percent) of school buildings are in good condition. The severe classroom shortage has led many schools to resort to multiple shifts and alternative learning delivery modes.
Four, the country ranks as the “bullying capital of the world” as students report a high prevalence of the problem. Data from the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment revealed that two-thirds (65 percent) of our Grade 10 students experienced bullying multiple times in a month, the highest incidence among all participating countries. At the same time, the resolution of cases “moves at a glacial pace” with only 38 out of 339 filed cases resolved between November 2022 and July 2024.
Five, even with free college tuition benefiting poorer students, our 35 percent participation rate in higher education is still below the Asean average of 41 percent. Furthermore, higher education attrition rates are alarmingly high with 39 percent dropping out nationally, but reaching as high as 93 percent in Muslim Mindanao, 61 percent in Central Visayas, 59.5 percent in Western Mindanao, and 55 percent in CAR.
Six, more than half of public schools are operating without principals, and “the quantity, quality, and qualifications of school leaders are in a dismal state.” This is a severe binding constraint that prevents the Department of Education (DepEd) from realistically pursuing decentralization of education governance more aggressively, even with “school-based management” having been the declared policy since 2001 under Republic Act No. 9155.
Seven, the country allocates less budgetary resources to education as a percent of GDP (3.2 percent) than the norm (4 to 6 percent), of which basic education receives the lowest share despite its critical foundational role. Most increases in the education budget have in fact been for senior high school and higher education, which are of little efficacy if students’ learning foundations in primary school are weak. The infamous reduction of the DepEd budget for 2025, among other misdeeds of the bicameral conference committee, reveals their sorry lack of grasp for urgent education priorities—or simple lack of patriotism.
To address these and many more shortcomings highlighted in its year two report, the EdCom II lists numerous recommendations we do not have space for here and will have to be the subject of another article. But while the 10 EdCom II commissioners are lawmakers themselves (five from each chamber), supported by a host of experts in various standing committees, they are a tiny minority among legislators, and whether their colleagues will prioritize and pass their recommended educational reform measures remains up in the air. In a Congress widely seen as driven mainly by the desire for reelection, EdCom II may yet end up little more than a stocktaking of shortcomings that yields no real solutions. But hope springs eternal, and I pray that our lawmakers put the country first for once, and heed urgent calls to salvage our endangered future through educational reform.
—————–
cielito.habito@gmail.com
