National

The Philippines committed to Millennium Development Goals and Education for All (EFA) targets that
include universal primary education. However, various data sources, including the Department of
Education’s Basic Education Information System, and household surveys conducted by the National
Statistics Office, suggest that in 2008, a considerable magnitude of children were not in school. A
description of these children is provided here, as well as that of children who are at risk of dropping out
of primary and secondary levels of education. Reasons for children not being in school are discussed,
together with the results of an econometric model that identifies correlates of non-attendance in
school.

Local

Davao was one of eight local government units selected to participate in the ILO-CIDA sponsored Youth
Employability Enhancement and Development Programme (YEEDP) which ran from mid 2005 to late
2007. The inception and initial round of implementation of the YEEDP program were off-shoots from the
ILO commissioned 2006 youth employability profiling study undertaken in Davao City and follow up
activities including the local multi-stakeholder employment planning workshop held on February 6, 2007
as well as the technical workshop amongst local planners and employment focal persons from across
localities on April 16–17, 2007 in Manila.

Labor Force

According to Canlas and Pardalis (2009), there are a total of 24,942 youth in the year 2006. 14,280 of it
are the youth in labor force which 57.3% of the total youth. According to the 2001 Philippine Survey on
Children, the foremost reason given by the youth aged 15 to 17 years for dropping out of school was the
high cost of schooling (31.8 per cent). Other reasons mentioned include: loss of interest in school (30.8
per cent); (ii) need to engage in paid/self employment to augment family income (12.4 per cent); need
to help in family business/farm (8.9 per cent); and the long-distance travel to school (4.6 per cent). Loss
of interest in school was the primary reason among males (38.2 per cent) while high cost of schooling
was the main reason cited by females (46.2 per cent).

RRL

Education is the primary weapon, a powerful driver of development and strong instrument for reducing
poverty (World Bank, 2008). On April 2011, World Bank launched its Education Strategy 2020, Learning
for All: Investing in People’s Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development, a road map for the next 10
years that focused on increasing learning for all by investing early, smartly and investing for all. Learning
for all means giving all people equitable opportunities to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to
have healthy and satisfying lives, to be good citizens, and to be productive contributors to their
countries’ economic development hence it becomes a tool in empowering individual to contribute
change and improve their way of living and their personal successes(Pogoy and Montalbo,
2012).Educational quality contributes to greater productivity and competitiveness, leading to greater
economic growth (Committee for Economic Development, 2005; Moretti, 2004; National Center for
Public Policy and Higher Education, 2008; Shapiro, 2006).

According to Guevarra (2007) as cited by ADB (2010), low educational attainment deters one from
finding a job, if not at all, unavailability, insufficiency or insecurity of employment. Research and
Development or RAND, (2008) a non-profit research organization cited that people who are better
educated, tend to have a much higher likelihood of employment and, when employed, much higher
wages (Card, 1999; Ashenfelter, Harmon, and Oosterbeek, 1999; Krueger and Lindahl, 2001; Rouse,
2005).Education opens a lot of opportunities for an individual in making its way through life and
situating himself in the society.Participation in after school programs creates a positive effect on a
youth’s self-esteem. On the side it also develops their social skills, cooperation and leadership skills,
manifests adequate behavior in demanding social contexts, and enhances academic performance and
achievements (Durlak and Weissberg 2007;Granger 2008; Fredriks and Eccles 2006).To wit, increased
self-efficacy and personal growth were among the most notable outcomes of youth work participation
as cited by Dworkin et al. (2003).

Further, a positive impact on employment relationships and earning income, being healthy, local
community engagement and contributing to environmental protection have also been documented to
justify the importance of school participation among the youth (NYA 2008; Feinstein et al. 2008;
Feinstein et al.(2006).Educational quality contributes to greater productivity and competitiveness,
leading to greater economic growth (Committee for Economic Development, 2005; Moretti, 2004;
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2008; Shapiro, 2006). According to Guevarra
(2007) as cited by ADB (2010), low educational attainment deters one from finding a job, if not at all,
unavailability, insufficiency or insecurity of employment. Non-formal education as defined by Smith
(2005) is any organized educational activity outside the established formal system, whether operating
separately or as an important feature of some broader activity, that is intended to serve identifiable
learning clients and objectives.

The council of Europe in the year 2000 as cited by Rogers (2004) recommended that non-formal
education be recognized as a de facto partner in the life-long learning process and make it accessible to
all.According to Abadzi (2004), the dictum of cognitive psychology has that, unless something makes
sense to a learner, it will not be remembered or used when the need arises. The youth can be shown
how the acquisition of new knowledge, skills and attitudes can be used to solve their problems in life.
This dictum provides the idea that an empowered person is able to take control of their lives by making
positive choices and setting goals. It would mean developing selfawareness, an understanding of one’s
strengths and weaknesses and in the end knowing your own limitations thereby it is important that the
youth is trained to be self-reliant and knowledgeable to survive the different challenges in life and make
them strong and powerful individual who has the ability to become catalyst of change, make wise
decisions and deal with people in the community honestly and truthfully.

The economic and social prospects are daunting for the 89 million out-of-school youth who comprise
nearly half of all youth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within the next decade when this cohort becomes the core
of the labor market, an estimated 40 million more youth will drop out, and will face an uncertain future
without work and life skills. Their lack of work and life skills will impair these youth’s ability to get good
jobs in desirable occupations, resulting in low and unstable incomes while exposing them to potentially
long periods of unemployment. The adverse effects of staying out of school will also be felt by the next
generation, since these youth’s poor economic outcomes will hurt their ability to provide favorable
opportunities for their own children. Societies at large will feel the impact: economic growth will be
constrained, limiting the revenue-raising capacity of governments, while the need for public expenditures
to support these youth, who will be more likely to rely on government health care, public welfare, or
housing assistance, will expand. They will have shorter lives than their educated peers, will be more likely
to become teen parents and to commit crimes, and will be less likely to raise healthy children, engage in
civic activity, or vote or volunteer in their communities. Keiko Inoue, Emanuela di Gropello, Yesim
Sayin Taylor, and James Gresham.

The problem of children and youth dropping out from school likely stems from economic and social
reasons. According to the study conducted by Quality Learning Foundation in 2012, more than 100,000
girls were pregnant while in school and left to raise their children, more than 60,000 students
committed some kind of felonies or crimes and had to enter juvenile observation and protection
centers, and more than 600,000 children were under the influence of the drug amphetamine. All of
these children and youth were faced with social problems. However, there is another group of children
and youth who were faced with financial problems and entered the child labor market to support their
families, while others decided to go down the dark paths in order to afford the luxury items that they
desire to have. As a result, only about half of the students, about 580,000 children, succeeded in
completing their compulsory education, [7]. And the number of those who managed to enter university
was 360,000 or 32.4% only (Child Watch, 2010).