Quality Education in the Philippines

We know that Philippines country is rich in agriculture and economics. But don't you know that Philippines are one of the top that is great in terms of education. And I can prove that in simply observing the status of my country and surveys in the rank of schools. Literacy rate in the Philippines has improved a lot over the last few years- from 72 percent in 1960 to 94 percent in 1990. This is attributed to the increase in both the number of schools built and the level of enrollment in these schools. The number of schools grew rapidly in all three levels – elementary, secondary, and tertiary. From the mid-1960s up to the early 1990, there was an increase of 58 percent in the elementary schools and 362 percent in the tertiary schools. For the same period, enrollment in all three levels also rose by 120 percent. More than 90 percent of the elementary schools and 60 percent of the secondary schools are publicly owned. However, only 28 percent of the tertiary schools are publicly owned. A big percentage of tertiary-level students enroll in and finish commerce and business management courses. Table 1 shows the distribution of courses taken, based on School Year 1990-1991. Note that the difference between the number of enrollees in the commerce and business courses and in the engineering and technology courses may be small – 29. 2 percent for commerce and business and 20. 3 percent for engineering and technology. However, the gap widens in terms of the number of graduates for the said courses. Aside from the numbers presented above, which are impressive, there is also a need to look closely and resolve the following important issues: 1) quality of education 2) affordability of education 3) government budget for education; and 4) education mismatch. In Quality There was a decline in the quality of the Philippine education, especially at the elementary and secondary levels. For example, the results of standard tests conducted among elementary and high school students, as well as in the National College of Entrance Examination for college students, were way below the target mean score. In Affordability – There is also a big disparity in educational achievements across social groups. For example, the socioeconomically disadvantaged students have higher dropout rates, especially in the elementary level. And most of the freshmen students at the tertiary level come from relatively well-off families. In Budget – The Philippine Constitution has mandated the government to allocate the highest proportion of its budget to education. However, the Philippines still has one of the lowest budget allocations to education among the ASEAN countries. In Mismatch – There is a large proportion of â€Å"mismatch† between training and actual jobs. This is the major problem at the tertiary level and it is also the cause of the existence of a large group of educated unemployed or underemployed. Improved quality of education in the Philippine schools The Philippine education system is plagued with problems from the basic level until the tertiary level, and although previous and present administrations took steps to reform the system, these reforms failed to improve the country’s education system. According to the latest â€Å"Economic Policy Monitor†, released in April 2012 of government think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies, despite the reforms pursued by the Aquino administration to address these failures, even more reforms are needed to improve the quality of education in the Philippines. The same study found that even the reforms initiated by the government may even bring more problems to the education system. Foremost among the problems in the early childhood education is the inequality to access to kindergarten education. THE INTENSE ECONOMIC CRISIS that the Philippines are currently undergoing has certainly buried the sanguine and unreasonable hopes that the government had projected for the near future. The triumphalism of Philippines 2000 has been shaken to the core and reduced to a laughable joke for the history books. This crisis only confirms that the Philippines have yet to liberate itself from the age-old problems, which have plagued it in the economic and political spheres. The much-trumpeted new epoch of free competition and borderless economies has not resulted in any real development but only in a more intense form of economic domination and exploitation of the poorer countries by the advanced capitalist countries. The seemingly neutral facade of Globalization has turned out to be more of the same old Imperialism that just cannot be wished away. Nevertheless, it would be too much of a simplification to arrive at the conclusion that the present global order has not resulted in any significant changes. It would certainly be correct to ay that for the educational system, as in Philippine society as a whole, that â€Å"nothing of the essence has changed. † However, even if it is true that the essential traits and defining characteristics of Philippine education has remained the same all throughout this so-called period of â€Å"Globalization,† it is also equally unavoidably true that certain changes have occurred and are still occurring that may not have actually touched the â€Å"essence† of things as they are but still have important implications for the understanding of the current situation and the various effective political responses that can lead to genuine social transformation. One of the main tasks is to attempt to identify what these â€Å"changes† are without losing sight of the â€Å"meaning† of these phenomena in relation to an essentially unchanged exploitative global economic and political system which must be identified as â€Å"imperialism. † The changes in question can be identified by analyzing the so-called â€Å"three major areas of concern† in education which have been underlined in the Medium Term Education Development Plan (MTEDP). These are: â€Å"(1) increasing access to and improving of the quality of basic education; (2) liberalizing the regulation of private schools, and; (3) rationalizing the programs of State Universities and Colleges (SUCs). † The question of â€Å"increasing access to† and â€Å"improving the quality of† education have been constant themes since even before the intricate and obfuscators jargon of â€Å"globalization† entered the scene. It cannot even be asserted that these ideas have changed in the sense that they previously had an altruistic meaning which has currently been lost in this period of technocratic appeals to â€Å"efficiency† rather than â€Å"morality. Reyes, John Christian A. BSIT-109I Improved quality of education in the Philippines schools This is the first major issue that the Philippine government should resolve but somehow it is recently improving. The quality of Philippine education has declined few years ago due to poor results from standard entrance tests conducted among elementary and secondary students, as well as the tertiary levels. The results were way below the target mean score. High dropout ates, high number of repeaters, low passing grades, lack of particular language skills, failure to adequately respond and address the needs of people with special needs, overcrowded classrooms, and poor teacher performances, have greatly affected the quality of education in the Philippines. Philippine education is strongly viewed as a pillar of national development and a primary avenue for social and economic mobility. It has undergone several stages of development from the pre-spanish time to the present. It is handled by three government organizations, namely, the Department of Education, Culture, and Sports. The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the TESDA. The DECS govern both public and private education in all levels, with its mission â€Å"to provide quality basic education that is equitably accessible to all by the foundation for lifelong learning and service for the common good. † The government was mandated by the Philippine Constitution to allocate the highest proportion of its budget to education. However, among the ASEAN countries, the Philippines still has one of the lowest budget allocations to education. This is due to some mainstream political issues and humungous problems that the government is facing specially corruption. There are some measures that the Philippine government has looked into for the reformation of quality education. Technology use is starting to gain momentum in the overall education of this country. This helped improve the quality of education in the Philippines and to be globally competitive in this millennium. Improving the Quality of Education in our Country The Philippines has the highest number of college graduates among developing Asian countries, but that isn’t a substitute for quality. The role of education in economic development is widely acknowledged: education increases the innovative capacity of an economy and facilitates the diffusion, adoption, and adaptation of new ideas. More specifically, education increases the amount of human capital available, thereby increasing productivity and ultimately output. Education is especially important in a rapidly evolving economic environment where a rapid rate of job destruction and creation might otherwise lead to a gap between the skills demanded in the labor market and the skills of job-seekers. So how can regional cooperation improve the quality and availability of education? The role of regional cooperation in a particular country and what means of cooperation are viable will largely depend on that country’s position on the development ladder and the status of its education sector. The role of regional cooperation in a particular country and what means of cooperation are viable will largely depend on that country’s position on the development ladder and the status of its education sector. Since 1975 both GDP and education levels in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam have been catching up. Over the same period GDP growth and improvements to education levels have been losing momentum in developed countries including the United States, Canada, and New Zealand. The Philippines exhibits a curious pattern in this respect, because even as the level of education attainment plateaued, its GDP has been falling behind. This is an apparent contradiction. Given the well-established beneficial effects of education on GDP and on GDP growth rates, the Philippines should have witnessed an era of high growth since 1975, when it had the highest rate of completion of tertiary education among developing Asian countries – higher than Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or Singapore. This suggests that the problem in the Philippines has been the quality of education, rather than its availability or accessibility. Regional cooperation in education is often identified with trade in education services. In the Asia Pacific, this most commonly takes the form of direct exchanges of people, whether they be students from less-developed countries going to study in more-developed ones, or, as in the case of Singapore and Malaysia, academics from more-developed countries encouraged to relocate to universities in less-developed countries by partnerships between the two institutions. Trade in education services also takes place through transnational education, for example when foreign institutions are encouraged to establish campuses in developing countries. Yet these forms of cooperation are not the most appropriate for the Philippines – for instance because poor local infrastructure makes it difficult to attract foreign institutions and academics. And, moreover, the principal effect of these forms of education cooperation is to make education more available, when the problem in the Philippines is the quality of education – not its availability. Regulatory reform is needed to ensure that the quality of education received at home is high enough to give domestic Filipino students access to education and work abroad. This reform process must start by establishing a credible accreditation system, because under the current system of voluntary self-regulation, less than 20 percent of higher education institutions in the Philippines are accredited. Forms of international cooperation other than through trade in education services would allow the Philippines to improve the quality of domestic education by following the example set by Malaysia, which has linked its own accreditation system to international ones. Malaysia has also been active in promoting the development of a regional quality assurance framework, the ASEAN Quality Assurance Network (AQAN). The AQAN was organized in 2008 in order to promote collaboration among quality assurance agencies in individual ASEAN countries. Though the Philippines has not yet fully acceded to the AQAN, negotiations are underway to formalize an agreement to adopt common standards in the education sector. The Philippines can also pursue bilateral mutual recognition agreements. Such agreements should include quality assurance on the part of both countries. In this way, even if the standards are not at the same level as in higher-income countries, there will be pressure on some of the higher education institutions in the Philippines to improve their programs and facilities in order to gain accreditation. Such agreements, whether bilateral or as part of the AQAN, might make it easier for Filipino policy makers to argue for domestic reform on the basis that it is necessary to meet international agreements. With a higher-quality higher education system, the Philippines would then be better placed to reap the well-documented economic benefits of an educated population.