In order to address challenges in education, the Department of Education (DepEd) underscored the importance of support coming from various quarters --- especially from the private sector.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones, during the online Management Association of the Philippines General Membership Meeting (MAP GMM) on Addressing the Learning (Education) Crisis ON on Oct. 12, said that the Philippines is underspending in education in relation to its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and according to world standards.
“This is where the different sectors come in, this is where the international partners come in, this is where business comes in,” Briones said.
MAP is a 70-year-old management organization whose almost 1,000 members represent a cross-section of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Operating Officers (COOs), and other top management practitioners from the largest local and multinational companies operating in the Philippines.
Budget allocation, assistance preferences
During the online discussion, Briones shared the budget allocated and assistance preferences for education.
While there is an increasing number of business partners have been helping out the education sector, she noted that the “challenge here for business and other institutions is they would have preferences, which is sometimes not exactly the same as our preferences.”
Given this, Briones highlighted the importance of the support of the business and private sector in the Philippine education system.
“Sometimes there are places where there is an abundance of love and outpouring of donations, and this has to be rationalized of course,” she said. “These would need cooperation among the donors as well as the recipients,” she added.
Briones also noted that collaboration between the government and private sector is needed in improving the pre-training of aspiring teachers.
“As to the upgrading of teachers, this is a challenge because as we all know education is tri-focalized,” Briones said.
“Not unlike in other countries where the ministry of education has control over the pre-job training and formation of the teacher, this is where we have to collaborate more with another institution in charge of pre-training of the teachers,” she explained.
Areas to improve
Briones was joined by Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) Chair Ramon Del Rosario, Jr. and Knowledge Channel Foundation co-founder and president Rina Lopez Bautista.
Del Rosario shared that there is a need for improvement in the budget for education, especially in comparison with our ASEAN neighbors.
“To bring it up to the standards of the very least that compares well with our ASEAN neighbors to start with because those are the people we are competing with, whom we will encounter with the rest of the world,” Del Rosario said.
“The sooner we address these things the better for all of us,” he added.
Meanwhile, Bautista cited the importance of providing an enabling environment for learners --- especially in their early years in school.
“We really need to start them very young, the resilience, the social-emotional learning needs to start also from very young. They need a safe environment; they need to be able to express themselves,” Bautista said. “I really believe the foundational skills, cognitive and non-cognitive, should really start from 0-8 years old,” she added.