An advocacy group on Monday, July 5, stressed the urgency to address the ongoing learning crisis and called on the government and other sectors to act on the “devastating” state of Philippine education.
The Philippine Business for Education (PBEd), in an online media roundtable, presented facts and figures that reflect the state of education and learning in the country which was “exacerbated by the new normal” brought by the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Philippine education is in serious crisis,” PBEd Chairman Ramon del Rosario, Jr. said. “We are seeing declining access and quality of education affecting the learning outcomes and future prospects of our youth and our country,” he added.
PBEd is an advocacy group founded and led by the country’s top business leaders. It advocates education reforms on learning and employability to contribute to an improved quality of life for every Filipino.
During the forum, PBEd also unveiled their policy recommendations to address the learning crisis - noting that a collective action from all sectors of society towards better education is needed.
“Clearly, we need to stop the learning crisis,” del Rosario said. “All sectors of society need to take part in solving this crisis, with the government taking the lead,” he added.
The group emphasized enabling active participation and engagement among citizens, pushing for education to be a key issue in the upcoming national elections.
“We must demand for better education, for quality education enables individuals to enjoy strongly rooted and secure lives as reflected in Ambisyon Natin 2040,” del Rosario said.
“We might not feel its immediate impact now, but we stand to suffer long-term ramifications of inaction and poor learning,” del Rosario stressed. “We deserve better; our people deserve so much more,” he added.
Addressing the ongoing learning crisis
PBEd noted that the Covid-19 pandemic inflicted “further damage to the education system.”
The group noted that more than one million students did not go to school while private school closures reached a total of 1,179 in 2020. Citing the Department of Education (DepEd), PBEd said that the “digital divide, more evident in the distance learning setup, widened the education gap.”
Citing a Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Pamilya ng Pantawid survey of more than 9,000 parents, PBEd said that “parents tried to cope with their children’s online classes, saying that they spent 40 percent more because of distance learning compared to the previous year.”
However, PBEd noted that this increase in spending has not “resulted in perceptions of better learning” citing a 2021 Pulse Asia survey says that “one out of four parents think their children are not learning in the remote setup.”
Given this, the advocacy group called on all sectors of society to act upon these problems that threaten the nation’s economic growth prospects.
PBEd also echoed the private sector’s earlier call for the reconstitution of an Education Commission, and presented its proposed foundational reforms including increase in education budgets, implementation of Philippine Plan of Action for Nutrition, pre-primary education, Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB MLE), and the Teacher Education Scholarship for Achievers or TEACH Bill.
The group also pushed for the involvement of the private sector in education governance by enhancing complementarity between public and private education, and providing work-based training.
To enhance the employability and workforce readiness, PBEd advanced the Jobs Next Bill that seeks to produce a skills voucher and incentive program to train over seven million Filipinos in five years for jobs of the future.
Moreover, PBEd called on all stakeholders to join the Education Nation which is a coalition of organizations and individuals who have a common goal of pushing reforms towards quality Philippine education.