Report No.

28063-PH

PHILIPPINES
EDUCATION POLICY REFORMS IN ACTION:
A REVIEW OF PROGRESS SINCE PESS AND PCER

Human Development Sector Unit

East Asia and the Pacific Region
The World Bank

May 2004
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

ADB Asian Development Bank
ARMM Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
AusAID Australian Agency for International Development
BEAM Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao
BEC Restructured Basic Education Curriculum
CHED Commission on Higher Education
COE-COD Centers of Excellence and Centers of Development Program
CSIs CHED Supervised Institutions
DBM Department of Budget and Management
DBP Development Bank of Philippines
DepEd Department of Education
EDCOM Congressional Commission on Education Reform
ESC-TFS Educational Service Contracting–Tuition Fee Supplement Program
EFIP Educational Facilities and Improvement Project
FAPE Fund for Assistance to Private Education
GASTPE Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education
HEDP Higher Education Development Program
HEI Higher Education Institution
INSET In-service Training
JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency
LGUs Local Government Units
NCCE National Coordinating Council for Education
NEAT National Elementary Achievement Test
NEDA National Economic Development Authority
NEETS National Education Evaluation and Testing Service
NSAT National Secondary Achievement Test
ODA Official Development Assistance
PAQTVET II Philippines-Australia Quality Technical Vocational Education and Training
Project (Phase II)
PCER Presidential Commission on Education Reform
PESS Philippine Education Sector Study
PhP Philippine Peso
PTTAF Policy, Training and Technical Assistance – Capacity Building Program in
Tech-Voc Education
RBEC Restructured Basic Education Curriculum Program
RLF/FL Regional Lingua Franca Pilot Project/First Language
SEDIP Secondary Education Development and Improvement Project
SEMP Social Expenditure Management Project
SUCs State Universities and Colleges
TEEP Third Elementary Education Project
TESDA Technical Education and Skills Development Authority
TESDP Technical and Skills Development Project
TIMSS Third International Mathematics and Science Study
TSDF Technical Education and Skills Development Fund
TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training
USAID United States Agency for International Development

ii
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This report was written by Elizabeth M. King, Lynnette de la Cruz Perez, Mario Taguiwalo,
with Yolanda Quintero, in consultation with representatives from key Philippine government
agencies, the academe, and research institutions: Juan Miguel Luz, Cristina Padolina,
Lourdes de Vera, Tess Felipe, Napoleon Imperial, Susan de la Rama, Jean Tayag, Susan
Carandang, Joel Flores, Yolanda Quijano, Rosario Manasan, Ester Albano Garcia, and Edita
Tan. We are grateful for their generous inputs. We also thank Peter Moock for his early
comments; and Cynthia Manalastas and Sabrina Terry for their administrative assistance.
Supervision from Emmanuel Jimenez, Robert Van Pulley, and Christopher Thomas is
gratefully acknowledged.

iii
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1. THE CONTEXT 1

2. OBJECTIVES 2

3. THE RECORD ON POLICY PRIORITIES AND ACTIONS 3

Basic Education 3
The Setting 3
PESS/PCER Recommendations 4
Actions 5
Program of Instruction 5
Targeting Disadvantaged Populations 5
Using Private Sector Capacity 6
Increasing Textbooks 7
Improving Teacher Effectiveness 7
Assessment 7

Higher Education 8
The Setting 8
PESS/PCER Recommendations 9
Actions 9
Rationalizing and Mobilizing funds 9
Rationalizing the Structure of Tertiary Education 10
Upgrading Quality of Teaching and Research 10
Assessment 11

Technical-Vocational Education and Training 11

The Setting 11
PESS/PCER Recommendations 11
Actions 11
Strengthening Quality Assurance Functions 11
Providing the Poor Access to Quality Programs 12
Devolving Training Functions 12
Assessment 13

Across the Whole Education Sector 13

The Setting 13
PESS/PCER Recommendations 13
Actions 14
Assessment 14

iv
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action

4. MAKING PROGRESS ON EDUCATION PRIORITIES 15

Strategic Implementation: Starting Easy and Building on Success 15
Broad Support for Specific Recommendations 16
An Institutional Environment for Change 16
Political Will for Change 18

Tables and Figures

Table 1: Student performance on mathematics and science tests: 1

Ranking among 38 countries
Figure 1: Gross and net enrollment rates in East Asian countries, 2000 1
Figure 2: Trends in NEAT and NSAT scores 2
Figure 3: Education enrollment and completion rates 4

References 20

v
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For decades, the Philippines could boast of
being one of the most highly educated
developing countries. Its enrollment rates at all
levels of education were higher than those of
other countries with comparable, or even higher,
income levels. But any edge that the Philippines
might have had in its human capital has been
eroding as more countries in the region –
Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam, as cases in
point – have achieved higher levels of education
and have invested in a more skilled labor force.
Moreover, quality of delivered instruction and
levels of educational outcomes attained by
students differ widely across different regions of
the country, between rural versus urban areas,
and among different types of schools (public or
private, central or peripheral, complete or
incomplete).
In recognition of these education problems, three
major reviews have been conducted in the past
decade, each culminating in a long list of
recommended priority actions: the
Congressional Commission on Education
(EDCOM) of 1991, the Philippines Education
Sector Study (PESS) of 1998, and the
Presidential Commission on Educational Reform
(PCER). As a result of EDCOM, three separate
government agencies with more focused
mandates now govern education: basic education
is managed by the Department of Education;
higher education is managed by the Commission
on Higher Education (CHED), and technical and
vocational education (TVET) is governed by the
Technical Education and Skills Development
Authority (TESDA). PESS and PCER
recommended other actions: ensure adequate
financing and improve the quality of basic
education; slow and reverse the haphazard
expansion of low-quality tertiary institutions;
provide equitable access at all levels so that
deserving poor households and communities can
benefit from public education provision; and
improve overall sector management through
greater local participation and accountability.
While some progress has been made with
respect to these recommendations, those that
vi
require fundamental changes in current
structures and relations within the educational
system remain current.
Basic Education
In the past decade, there have been a
number of important gains in improving
basic education. Policy actions have
mitigated input shortages in textbooks and
school buildings, particularly in the poorest
provinces. A new generation of instructional
policies, especially the more focused
basic curriculum, lays the foundation for
better learning, provided that adequate
material and systems support sustain the
full implementation of these policies.
Renewed attention on private sector
participation can complement the delivery of
basic education, particularly at the secondary
level, in cases of lack of capacity. But progress
is largely incomplete: real per-capita
government spending on basic education
continues to lose ground to population growth
and inflation; the Department of Education has
barely started to address the difficult task of
increasing the productivity of a large teaching
force. Very few fundamental institutional
changes have been introduced to improve
systematically the management effectiveness of
the national agency and the entire organization.
Higher Education
The uneven distribution of higher education
institutions across the country and increased
reliance on fees in higher education have been
used as the rationale for the mushrooming of
low-quality state colleges and universities.
Given that the needs of basic education have
greater priority and that there is no guarantee
that increased public funding will yield better
quality or more equitable access to higher
education, recommendations have focused on
the need for a more efficient, equitable and
strategic use of limited public funding for higher
education, with the expectation that private
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
institutions can then carry the main burden of
meeting student demands, coupled with a more
targeted program of college and university
scholarships. A moratorium on the
establishment of state colleges and universities
and a rationalization of the creation and
conversion of new state colleges and universities
have been recommended—and indeed, CHED
has slowed down the rapid growth of low quality
state institutions. The share of tertiary education
in total government spending for education also
has been contained, and the best institutions
have been deregulated with many moving ahead
with their own quality improvement efforts.
Some major gaps remain, however. The
creation of new SUCS still threatens to speed up
due to political interests in the nation’s
legislature. There has been no change in the
targeting of scholarships. Little progress has
been made on teacher development considering
the system’s high demand for better teacher
competencies. Even the best SUCs are unable to
generate significant levels of self-financing.
Technical-Vocational Education and
Training
The country has a wide variety of technical-
vocational education and training (TVET)
options, mostly in the private sector, but wide
variations in quality exist among these programs
and offerings while the patterns of demand for
skills constantly change. In many respects, the
problems and constraints reflect the failures in
basic education outcomes or the limitations in
admissions to higher education. The
recommendation with respect to this sub-sector
has been to rely primarily on private providers
so that programs can respond more quickly to
the market, and to use public financing mainly to
induce private providers to deliver high-quality
programs. PESS recommended an education
service contracting scheme for providers and a
development fund to assist private providers toll
up for offering TVET courses. TESDA has
focused correctly on the overall improvement of
quality, efficiency and equity of all programs
across the board, rather than only on its own—
but the full transformation of TESDA from
vii
provision to monitoring, evaluation, regulation,
and financing TVET is not yet complete, with
budget constraints being a significant problem.
Major Challenges Remain
Given evidence of constancy of purpose through
political changes (e.g., textbooks in basic
education), capacity to implement tough
decisions despite political resistance (e.g., some
rationalization of SUCs), and willingness to
change for greater effectiveness (e.g., TESDA’s
shift to quality assurance in TVET), why has
there not been more progress in other vital
areas? There was clearly no substantive
progress in creating mechanisms for sector-wide
accountability, leadership, and planning; in
improving teacher productivity and utilization;
in greater efficiency in schools; in increasing the
quality of SUCs; or in focusing public spending
on scholarships.
Strategic implementation. The recommendations
do not provide adequate guidance to policy
makers nor do they help policy makers prioritize
the actions. They may not have been specific
enough or prioritized enough. They may not
have provided clear implementation scenarios or
identified the trade-offs required to implement
the reforms. Sequencing and timing are going to
be affected by a number of factors, including
availability of required resources, existence of
supporting organizational structures, and degree
of political risks involved, that determine which
recommendations are going to be deemed as
feasible and which are the least costly. Strategic
implementation recognizes the linkages between
the reforms and uses breakthroughs in one area
to create breakthroughs in other areas, but the
implementation of many reforms has failed to
take advantage of these types of synergies.
Broad support for specific recommendations.
Reforms are more feasible and sustainable if
there is political consensus on, and broad
support for, the recommended changes—among
the key implementers of the reform, among the
wider education community, as well as within
the national population. Some recommendations
were contested by national education
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
stakeholders even at the time of the
deliberations.
An institutional environment for change. Basic
institutional reforms that are necessary for the
specific recommended reforms to be
implemented are missing. For example, the
education sector needs a champion for reform
whose accountability is the performance of the
whole education sector and whose institutional
interest is the efficient, coordinated functioning
of the whole system. The current lack of an
integrated leadership in the education sector
cripples the ability of the policymakers to act
strategically across the sub-sectors. Also, the
system does not yet have accountability
mechanisms to address the loose connections
between the implementers for change and the
beneficiaries of that change. Transferring some
decision making and implementation authority
closer to schools which are likely to benefit most
viii
can intensify and sustain push for change, but
the nation has continued to reject including
education in its decentralization reform. And
though a national education information network
can improve greatly the management of the
education system, information collection
throughout the system remains naïve and
sporadic (especially in comparison with other
countries), and information, when available, is
used ineffectively.
Political will for change. The key feature
characterizing the above environment for change
is a prevailing illusion that education reforms in
the Philippines seem discretionary, a “nice to
have” initiative that can be pursued voluntarily
when conditions and timing are right. There
does not seem to be a widely shared sense that
education reforms are a vital necessity, a matter
of survival for the education system, an
imperative imposed upon the nation due to
decades of inaction or inadequate effort.
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action

But any edge that the Philippines might have

1. THE CONTEXT
had in its human capital has been eroding as
more countries in the region – Thailand,
For decades, the Philippines could boast of
being one of the most highly educated Table 1. Student performance on
mathematics and science tests: Ranking
developing countries. Its enrollment rates at
among 38 countries
all levels of education were higher than those
Country Mathematics Science score
of other countries with comparable income score & rank & rank
levels (Figure 1). As a result, the export of Singapore 604 (1) 568 (2)
professionals, technicians, and other skilled Korea 587 (2) 549 (5)
Taiwan 585 (3) 569 (1)
workers has been a lifeblood for the economy. Hong Kong 582 (4) 530 (15)
A recent magazine article portrayed this Japan 579 (5) 550 (4)
colorfully: Malaysia 519 (16) 492 (22)
Thailand 467 (27) 482 (24)
Indonesia 403 (34) 435 (32)
At any given time, about 10 percent of the country's Philippines 348 (36) 345 (36)
76.5 million population is hard at work - outside Source: Trends in International Mathematics and Science
the country. During 2001, more than 800,000 Study 1999
people headed out on a commute that makes Rye- Malaysia, and Vietnam, as cases in point –
Grand Central seem like a milk run to the corner have achieved higher levels of education and
store. They went to Italy, Saudi Arabia, Canada,
have invested in a more skilled labor force.
Singapore, and Uzbekistan. They went to Mongolia
and Equatorial Guinea. Unlike Mexicans, who China, with its ample supply of cheap labor,
flock primarily to the United States, Filipinos poses a formidable threat to these smaller
traveled to 162 nations in all …as domestic economies with respect to labor-intensive
helpers, engineers, nurses, bricklayers, teachers, export industries. To face up to this threat, the
farmers, seafarers, stenographers, hairdressers, smaller economies in the region (as well as
crane operators, cooks, and entertainers. … those in other world regions) must build up
Remittances, the money they electronically send their comparative advantage in terms of a
back to their families, account for 8.2 percent of more highly skilled labor force. Indeed,
the nation's gross national product, stabilizing its students in Asian countries have performed
peso, improving foreign currency reserves, shoring
extremely well in international standardized
up consumption, and making more than a dent in
the unemployment rate (now 11.1 percent). Last examinations on mathematics and science
year, overseas Filipino workers sent home $6.2 (Table 1). But in the 1999 TIMSS tests of
billion. Indians sent home twice the amount - with eighth-graders in 38 countries, the Philippines
13 times the general population (Wired, 2002). ranked far behind its neighbors.

Figure 1. Gross and net enrollment rates in East Asian countries, 2000

120
100
100
80
80
60
60
40
40

20 20

0 0
Indonesia Philippines Thailand Malaysia Korea Indonesia Philippines Thailand Malaysia Korea
($710) ($1020) ($1980) ($3540) ($9930) ($710) ($1020) ($1980) ($3540) ($9930)
Primary Gross enrollment Primary Net enrollment Secondary Gross enrollment Secondary Net enrollment

Notes: GNP per capita data (in parenthesis) are for 2002. Data on Thailand’s net enrollment rate at the secondary
level is not available.
Data sources: UNESCO, 2003; World Bank 2003.

1
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
These results are consistent with other data on
the quality of basic education. The results of
national exams themselves indicate that
students are not learning the curriculum—only
slightly more than one-half of students pass
these tests (52 percent in elementary education
and 53 percent in secondary education)
(Department of Education, SY2000/01)
(Figure 2). In addition, while enrollment rates
appear high, completion is only at 66 percent
at the elementary level and 48 percent at the
secondary level.
Figure 2. Trends in NEAT and NSAT scores
54
NSAT math
52 NSAT science
50
48 NEAT math
46
44 NEAT science
42
40
1997/8 1998/9 1999/0
Source: Department of Education
For the Philippines to sustain its competitive
edge in the global economy, it will need to
raise its national average in key educational
competencies in comparison with other
countries, and at the same time, it will need to
reduce the lower range variation below that
national average. These two goals are
consistent with each other but not
automatically achieved together. To achieve
these two goals, the Philippines must make its
basic education schooling system, which has
already succeeded in reaching the vast
majority of school-age children, much more
effective in yielding educational outcomes for
the most disadvantaged children, by securing
higher educational achievement from each
year of schooling particularly in the first four
years (which are at this time the only years of
schooling that a large segment of youths get),
by increasing the average number of actual
years in school so that more children complete
the primary level and more children transition
to secondary level. Improving the quality of
basic education graduates is a key input to
better tertiary education. There are many other
issues related to improving tertiary education
but the most critical ones revolve around the
effectiveness of tertiary education in preparing
teachers for basic education, and around the
competing claims on public funding for
tertiary education that, to some extent, reduce
the level of public resources for basic
education.
These messages are not new. The Philippines
Education Sector Study (PESS) of 1998, a
joint study by the Philippine government, the
Asian Development Bank, and the World
Bank, and the final report of the Presidential
Commission on Educational Reform (PCER)
which was created in December 1998 by
Executive Order No. 46 (2000) raised these
issues, inter alia, and identified key priority
actions for addressing them. The key
recommendations of the PESS included:
2000/1
ensure adequate financing and improve the
quality of basic education; slow and reverse
the haphazard expansion of low-quality
tertiary institutions; provide equitable access
at all levels so that deserving poor households
and communities can benefit from public
education provision; and improve overall
sector management through greater local
participation and accountability. The PCER
report identified nine very specific
components of a future agenda for reform that
pertain to all levels of education and touch
upon similar areas as do the PESS
recommendations. While some progress has
been made with respect to these
recommendations, those that require
fundamental changes in current structures and
relations within the educational system are
still relevant.
2. OBJECTIVES
This paper reviews the progress in
implementing the key operational and policy
directions set out in the PESS, and the PCER,
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 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
and other education programs in the sector,
such as the Education for All initiative;
discusses the factors that might explain the
amount of progress achieved; the findings of
education sector performance review, with
emphasis on the key issues, gaps, constraints,
challenges confronting the sector, including
the results of the assessment of the progress in
actual implementation of key reform
recommendations; the medium-term growth
prospects; the Government plans for the
sector; the priorities and view of key
stakeholders; and lessons from programs and
operational initiatives. It aims to understand
the thrust of education reforms, the main
motivators and drivers of such reform
directions, and the chief sources of influence,
initiative and management. This will be done
by assessing progress in actual implementation
of PESS and PCER recommendations,
reviewing status of other competing or
complementary policy initiatives, identifying
shifts in directions and critical factors that
have contributed to, or deterred, progress. This
will also be done by appraising the current
thinking of key stakeholders in education
reform within government, in strategic
academic and other social institutions like
media, among major players in education
reform from the private and non-government
sectors.
3. THE RECORD ON POLICY PRIORITIES AND
ACTIONS
Since the PESS and PCER, the Arroyo
Administration had succeeded the Estrada
Administration; three successive secretaries of
education have headed the Department of
Education, and four different secretaries of
economic planning and two secretaries of
budget have provided policy direction to the
broad financing and management of the whole
education sector. Apart from changes in the
political leadership affecting the education
sector, there have also been significant
changes in the overall economic situation of
the country and in the corresponding fiscal
constraints of the government. Since
education occupies such a large share of total
3
government spending, the changing fiscal
fortunes of government greatly influence the
timing, scale and scope of possible initiatives
in the sector.
This section tracks and updates the thinking
within the principal education agencies – the
Department of Education (DepEd), the CHED
and the Technical Education and Skills
Development Authority (TESDA) – about the
main challenges in the sector and about
recommended policy actions. In each of the
respective areas of basic education, higher
education, and technical-vocational education
and training, as well as in matters that cut
across these areas, the key PESS and PCER
recommendations are summarized, the
principal actions on these recommendations
reviewed, and the current status of the reform
directions assessed.
The information contained in this section
comes from documents and interviews with
key informants in the principal education
agencies, in NEDA, DBM and donor partners
such as ADB, AusAID, JICA, UNICEF and
USAID, as summarized in a background note
(Quintero 2003) for this paper.
Basic Education
The Setting
The main outlines of the basic education
situation are well known. The Philippines has
succeeded in achieving close to universal
participation in Grade 1, exerting tremendous
effort just to accommodate a growing number
of cohorts of new school entrants each year.
Drop-out and repetition rates in the 6-year
elementary cycle, however, are significant and
have persisted for more than four decades
since the 1960s. Rates of completion at Grade
6 are low and achievement levels of those
completing elementary schooling are
considered unsatisfactory (Figure 3).
There has been rapid expansion in high school
enrollment since the 1990s when universal
free secondary education was implemented.
But since transition rates from elementary to
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
high school, though slightly higher, are still
low and drop-out rates are significant, the rate
of high school completion for children who
entered grade 1 is less than 50 percent (Figure
3). Achievement rates of graduates of the full
ten-year (elementary and high school) basic
education cycle are also deemed
unsatisfactory. There has also been an even
more recent trend towards increased public
Figure 3. Education enrollment and completion rates
120
100
Secondary GER
80
60 Gr6 Completion rate
40
20
0
1997/8 1998/9
Notes: GER=Gross enrollment rate; Secondary Completion Rate=Completion rate at Grade 10, conditional on
having started high school.
Source: Department of Education
sector share in secondary education
enrollment, reversing a long standing feature
of a large and vigorous private sector in
secondary education. Despite all these, a
significant portion of graduates from the basic
education cycle attains sufficient levels of
achievement to enable them to proceed to
higherNotes:
education.
GER – Gross Enrollment Rate
Source: Department of Education
But quality remains a problem. There is wide
variation in quality of delivered instruction
and levels of educational outcomes attained by
students from schools in different regions, in
rural versus urban areas, of different types
(public or private, central or peripheral,
complete or incomplete) and even from among
different sections of the same grade level
within the same school.
PESS/PCER Recommendations
The PESS recommended the following urgent
and priority initiatives in the immediate to
short term: address the textbook shortage in
basic education by reducing inefficiencies in
the acquisition, provision and use of this basic
input; target new investments in elementary
education to benefit disadvantaged areas and
Primary GER
Sec Completion rate
Gr1-10 Completion rate
1999/0 2000/1 2001/2
groups; improve teacher effectiveness;
encourage multi-grade instruction through
compensation supplements; carefully manage
new public investments and education service
contracting for secondary education to make
effective use of existing private sector
capacity; and improve the efficiency of
communications among different levels of
basic education. The PCER recommendations
focused on strengthening teacher
competencies through in-service training and
expanding options for medium of instruction
in Grade 1 using regional lingua franca or the
vernacular.
These two sets of complementary
recommendations point to pursuing a few
selected incremental efficiencies that might be
4
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
easily attainable yet yield tremendous benefits
in such a gargantuan enterprise as basic
education: better use of available funding for
textbooks; increased productivity of teachers,
particularly those assigned in the most
disadvantaged settings; better targeting of new
public investments to benefit the poorest and
to make use of private sector capacity; and
improve organizational communications as
one strategic aspect of more effective
management; introduce curriculum and
medium of instruction changes to facilitate
learning.
Actions
Program of instruction. To improve
efficiency of student learning in the critical
first two years of elementary schooling, a
policy to use the regional lingua franca or
vernacular was piloted in 1999 and eventually
was implemented more widely in subsequent
years. In 2002, a new Restructured Basic
Education Curriculum Program (RBEC) was
launched. The new intended curriculum
introduced a number of key changes, including
reduction in the number of subjects and
increased allocation of contact hours for
instruction in core subjects. Meanwhile, the
Multigrade Program, introduced by the
Department of Education several years ago
was further strengthened through the
Multigrade Program of UNICEF and UNDP in
some 130 schools that enroll some of the most
disadvantaged children. There are plans to
expand this cost-effective program to cover
additional disadvantaged students and schools.
In all these initiatives – teaching the first two
years using regional lingua franca,
implementation of BEC and expansion of the
Multigrade Program – the policy decisions had
been taken but the appropriate teacher
training, provision of appropriate textbooks,
adjustments in instructional supervision and
development of student assessment tools still
lagged considerably behind. In a sense, these
policy actions are still in the process of
implementation.
5
Targeting disadvantaged populations. DepEd
had also been implementing major public
investment projects partly financed by external
donors, which are targeted to benefit
disadvantaged communities. The Third
Elementary Education Project (TEEP), with
funding support from the GOP, World Bank
and JBIC, targeted investments in 22 poorest
provinces. While the project funding was
included in the total budget ceiling of DepEd,
the project allocations for each project
province became an additional spending for
the locality supplementing its regular budget
allocation. In this sense, TEEP spending for
each province effectively increased per capita
public spending for elementary education in
project provinces. TEEP provided support for
school building construction (with counterpart
spending of local government units) and repair
and maintenance, decentralized in-service
training of teachers, and for school-based
innovations and initiatives. Provincial level
educational management capacities were also
targeted for improvement. At the national
level, TEEP provided funding for the
expansion of textbook procurement and
provision of essential school furniture.
Unlike decisions on policies concerning
curriculum or instruction such as BEC and the
Multi-grade Program, which have been made
but still have to mobilize sufficient resources
necessary for their full-scale adoption,
investment projects like TEEP are able to
support specific policy directions directly by
providing incremental resources for their
implementation. Implementation of
investment projects, however, can be slowed
down by limited institutional capacities or
management difficulties. The slow
implementation of TEEP which led to the
earlier cancellation of a significant part of its
funding is a case in point.
Aside from TEEP, DepEd has also been
implementing the Secondary Education
Development and Improvement Project
(SEDIP), which is financed by government
and ADB. The project covers 26 poor
provinces and is much more directly school-
targeted than TEEP, which works through
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
provincial school divisions. SEDIP provides
schools with incremental inputs such as school
building construction, school equipment,
textbooks, in-service teachers training, among
others. Similar to TEEP, it has encountered
slow start-up and delays in implementation
that required a scaling down of project
funding.
The Social Expenditure Management Projects
1 and 2 (SEMP and SEMP 2) financed by the
World Bank not only provide funds to supply
textbooks, equipment, and teachers’ manuals,
build schools and classrooms, and train
teachers but also support improvements in the
implementation of core management systems
including financial management, procurement,
management information system and human
resource management systems (teacher
deployment in particular). The combined
procurement of textbooks under SEMP,
together with the requirement for textbooks
financed by the TEEP, showed a continuing
trend of lower prices for government procured
textbooks, despite increasing standards for
quality of paper that should lead to longer
average useful life for textbooks. The reform
components on the Basic Education
Information System and teacher deployment
have also shown early signs of resulting in
significant policy changes.
Other poverty targeted investment projects are
currently being implemented such as the
AusAID-funded Basic Education Assistance
for Mindanao (BEAM). BEAM focuses on
the needs of the indigenous and Muslim
population of Mindanao in three regions.
Some projects in the DepEd pipeline include
the Educational Facilities and Improvement
Project for ARMM (EFIP), supported by the
JICA, which is being developed by the
government for implementation in 2004-2005.
The Philippine Out-of-School Children and
Youth Development Program, supported by a
Japan Social Development Fund grant
administered by the World Bank, is a program
to pilot a number of prototype programs,
which brings together government, civil
society, and private sector to offer alternatives
6
to out-of school children and youth to return to
formal basic education and participate in
alternative learning systems for their basic as
well as technical education. A number of out-
of-school children and youth have been given
the opportunity to re-enroll in school to
continue their basic education. However, a
small percentage of these beneficiaries were
forced to drop out from school due to their
inability to fund ancillary needs not covered
by sponsorship. These efforts have also not
been mainstreamed into the education system
as a whole.
Using private sector capacity. Little had been
done earlier along the lines of mobilizing
private sector capacities and resources for
basic education. For example, the "Adopt-a-
School Program", already legislated some
years back, was operationalized only in late
2002 with the approval of the tax-credit
benefit for private sector donations to public
schools. DepEd expects a much more
vigorous response from the private sector with
this development. Recent community-based
response to the school maintenance ("Brigada
Eskuwela") program has been very
encouraging, with many parents and
communities providing donated goods and
volunteer labor to maintain school buildings.
A private sector initiative, the "Education
Revolution", has recently been much more
active in providing a wide range of resource
augmentation and enhancements to public
schools. A number of local businesses which
are members of the League of Corporate
Foundations have individually and as a group
embarked on education initiatives to augment
limited public resources. Projects usually took
the form of scholarships to poor but deserving
students, public school teachers, and private
school teachers focusing on math and science
education, as well as the provision of much-
needed education resource inputs such as
school furniture, equipment, building
construction or repair, and teacher-training.
More effective use of available private sector
capacity to provide education has also lagged.
For example, the expanded Government
Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
Education (GASTPE) program, which include
the Educational Service Contracting and the
Tuition Fee Supplement mechanisms,
continues to operate with the same rules and
weaknesses that were analyzed and
recommended for revision in the PESS in
1998. DepEd has shown renewed interest in
addressing the problems of GASTPE with new
proposals for its coverage expansion, increase
in its payment rates, and more attention to its
monitoring and evaluation. A proposal to
extend GASTPE to the elementary level is
under review.
Increasing textbooks. The reduction in
number of subjects for instruction mandated
by the BEC (fewer textbooks needed) and
selected changes in textbook specifications
resulting in lower costs had set the stage for a
major improvement towards greater adequacy
of textbooks. Improved procurement
procedures sustained through three different
DepEd administrations allowed the funding of
increased quantities of textbooks. However,
problems with respect to textbook distribution
and delivery, quality and choice of textbooks
and multiple titles remain serious challenges.
Innovations in wider public participation to
monitor textbook deliveries, such as the
recently-initiated ‘Textbook Count Project’ of
the DepEd, help is expected to assist in
solving this problem. DepEd expects to attain
a one textbook per student ratio on all core
subjects within the 2003-2004 school year,
although this may not yet pertain to the same
one textbook per student because some classes
still use two to three approved textbooks for
the same subject. Nonetheless, this is quite an
achievement in a very short period.
Improving teacher effectiveness. Some
important initiatives have been undertaken
towards improving teacher effectiveness,
including the numerous in-service teacher
training (INSET) activities conducted under
DepEd through various sources. However,
the overall impact on learning outcomes of
basic education students has not been
significant. The need to regard teacher
education and development as a continuum is
an imperative that needs to be translated into
7
concrete actions. While some commendable
approach reorientation has been initiated, such
as the TEEP focus on school-based training
needs of teachers, a more coordinated and
holistic teacher and education development
program approach has yet to be put in place.
The teacher deployment study under SEMP 2,
which set the use of color-coded maps
indicating teacher-surplus and teacher-
shortage schools, triggered a string of reform
actions from division and district officials to
improve teacher deployment in their
respective areas and has the potential of
setting an objective criteria in the rational
allocation of teacher resources between and
among schools. However, the Magna Carta
for Teachers is still viewed as an
insurmountable legal barrier to the full
implementation of some of the proposals for
reform.
While some DepEd programs in the past
included the provision of instructional
materials and other important references to
teachers, these have not been commensurate
with the large requirements of teachers, in
light of the growing number of students,
curriculum changes, and changing competency
requirements.
Improvements have been made on the efficient
and fair administration of the teacher payroll,
which have been welcomed by the teacher
workforce. Justifying the positive link
between salary grade adjustment and
education performance, DepEd recently put
forward a proposal to the DBM requesting for
the salary grade adjustment for District and
Education supervisors. Also, new training
programs have been introduced at the National
Educators Academy of the Philippines to
improve the management skills of principals,
supervisors and superintendents.
Assessment
In all, there are a number of important gains.
Policy actions have mitigated some of the
worst input shortages in textbooks and school
buildings, particularly in the poorest
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
provinces. A new generation of instructional
policies could lay the foundation for more
effective learning provided that adequate
material and systems support sustain the full
implementation of these policies. Renewed
attention to creating conditions for private
sector participation both in supporting public
schools as well as in complementing delivery
of basic education, particularly in secondary
education, should generate wider positive
response.
On the downside, there are some very stark
reminders that progress towards the
recommendations of PESS and PCER is
largely incomplete. Although DepEd receives
the largest budget among government
departments, real per-capita government
spending on basic education continues to lose
ground to population growth and inflation as it
decreased from PhP 399 in 1997 to PhP 370 in
2000 and PhP 353 in 2001 (Manasan, 2001).
Meanwhile, the exodus of students from
private to public schools continue unabated
and, in secondary education, an 80 to 20 split
in enrollment in favor of private schools just
over a decade ago has been reversed in favor
of public schools, putting even greater stress
on limited public resources. With 87% of
annual budgets allocated for personnel, mainly
teachers, DepEd has barely started to address
the difficult task of increasing the productivity
of this large workforce. Very few fundamental
institutional changes have been introduced to
improve systematically the management
effectiveness of the basic education
organization.
Higher Education
The Setting
The relatively small portion of the student
population that enter higher education faces a
wide variety of choices in courses and
institutions, with a corresponding array of
costs and prices. Courses offered by different
institutions vary considerably in quality and
price. Geographic availability of higher
education choices are wide in several
8
metropolitan areas of the country, limited in
some provincial and regional urban centers,
and may be non-existent in many smaller
towns and cities. Private higher education
institutions have responded very well to
student demand although increasing costs and
higher prices have made higher education a
major financial investment for the average
Filipino family. The uneven distribution of
higher education institutions across the
country and the increased financial burdens of
higher education borne mostly by families
have been used as the rationale for the growth
of low quality state colleges and universities
as well as for the expansion of publicly funded
scholarships. Public funding for higher
education, however, had grown at the loss of
more funding for basic education without
satisfactorily yielding adequate outcomes in
terms of increasing access to higher education
by the poor or of improving the quality of
course offerings available in localities or of
making available more science and technology
courses critical to the country.
The problem of quality is not isolated to basic
education. At the tertiary level, there is ample
evidence also of substandard quality. To cite
one, a newspaper article on the quality of
nursing education (Adversario, 2003) had this
to report:
At an interactive forum among nurses at a
recent congress, a nurse voiced his concern:
“The problem is not limited to the shortage in
human resources… Clinical and laboratory
facilities have also not expanded with the
increased enrollment. All these contribute to a
poor quality of education and consequently,
poor quality graduates, who inevitably have a
low chance of passing local and foreign board
exams. Based on figures from the PRC, the
percentage of candidates who pass the board
exams has declined in recent years.
Consolidated results from 1994-1998 showed
a passing rate of more than half at 57 percent.
In December 2002, those who passed the
board dipped to 43.6 percent, down from
52.58 percent in the same period in 2001.
Results from the local licensure exam given in
December 2002, showed that out of 223
nursing schools, 136 schools posted a passing
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
rate of below 50 percent. None of the
graduates from some 39 schools even made
it.” (The Manila Times, April 22, 2003).
PESS/PCER recommendations
The PESS recommended a moratorium on the
establishment of state colleges and universities
and the PCER also recommended
rationalization, within a moratorium period,
of the creation and conversion of new state
colleges and universities. The PESS
recommended that tertiary education
institutions be weaned from public funding
sources, while the PCER recommended that
the premises of public funding of tertiary
education be re-oriented towards meeting
student demand, greater equity of access, and
program considerations, under a system with
improved efficiency and accountability. Apart
from these two recommendations shared by
PESS and PCER, the PESS recommended also
a more targeted program of college and
university scholarships while the PCER
recommended the establishment of a one-year
pre-baccalaureate program between high
school and college to strengthen the
preparation of high school graduates, and a
program to accelerate development of college-
level faculty with the required post-graduate
credentials.
The main focus of these two overlapping sets
of recommendations is the more efficient,
equitable and strategic use of limited public
funding for tertiary education, with the
expectation that private institutions can then
carry the main burden of meeting student
demands that are not congruent with the
narrowly targeted public financing goals in
this area.
Actions
Rationalizing and mobilizing funds. In the
2001 budget, the share of higher education
relative to aggregate government expenditures
in education declined from its 2000 level.
This could reflect the results of discreet
attempts by DBM to rationalize resource
allocation using performance as indicator, in
9
contrast to earlier practices of determining
SUC budget allocations based on increments
to past budgets. To further improve on these
efforts, CHED has been working on a study to
develop an alternative funding formula or unit
cost norms, and new institutional typologies.
This study would ultimately come up with
definitive criteria for allocating limited
government resources to SUCs based on
quality and relevance of programs and access
to these programs by the poor. CHED is also
in the process of conducting studies on
innovative cost recovery measures (e.g.,
socialized tuition, democratization of fees),
means testing schemes, and an appropriate
socio-economic index. A proposed law to
allocate financing on a per-student basis is
awaiting legislative approval.
Proposals to institutionalize cost recovery
schemes and maximize utilization of
commercial assets of SUCs have had limited
implementation. A few SUCs initiated new
revenue generating measures such as offering
fee-based extension services or generating
incomes from use of some assets, while others
opted to retain their internally generated
revenues, as provided for in the Higher
Education Modernization Act of 1997. Most
SUCs, however, did not avail of the latter
option because it would have reduced their
next-year subsidy from the national
government. A number of SUCs felt that, with
a reduced subsidy, they did not have
sufficient capacity nor assets to sustain the
increase of their revenues and fully cover their
operating expenses. Reduced subsidy to SUCs
was met with opposition in the legislative
chambers as well, particularly from those who
had SUCs within their jurisdiction.
Direct financial assistance to student access to
higher education is done through the Improved
and Expanded Scholarship Assistance
Program, which is a continuation of several
long running student assistance programs.
The Program did not incorporate the
recommendations made by the PESS with
respect to targeted scholarships, especially
focused on the poor but deserving students.
CHED is conducting a study to elaborate a
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
student index (that will be piloted with
financial support from the ADB), and the
development of private sector loans to
deserving students who will be guaranteed a
job after graduation. Although the
Government responded positively to the last
initiative, the current economic situation of the
country limits the interest of the private sector
to promote these schemes. There is also a
proposal for commercial banks to offer student
loans.
Rationalizing the structure of tertiary
education. A moratorium on the creation of
new SUCs was actually adopted. This was not
strictly enforced, and was in fact reversed as
evidenced by the increase in the number of
SUCs, from 108 in 1998 to 113 in 2002. A
number of legislative bills have been filed in
the present Congress seeking to convert and/or
create more SUCs. There has also been a rise
in the number of local community colleges
established by Local Government Units,
which is allowed under the Local Government
Code. These local community colleges, which
are not under the supervision and control of
the CHED, are seen to impede the laudable
efforts of CHED to rationalize offerings and
financing of public HEIs.
CHED also moved ahead with developing new
types of institutional relationships with various
categories of higher education institutions
(HEIs). It adopted policies to extend a Grant
of Autonomy and Deregulated Status to
selected private higher education institutions
that meet certain criteria. This program aims
to encourage the best HEIs to achieve quality
beyond minimum standards and to allow the
CHED to focus its limited supervisory
resources on the lower end of the quality
spectrum of HEIs.
CHED acted vigorously to integrate and
consolidate the CHED-supervised Institutions
(CSIs). These small public higher education
institutions were passed on either to existing
SUCs or to the Technical Education and Skills
Development Authority (TESDA) according
to their actual program offerings and
proximity to a SUC. Among a total of 102
10
CSIs, 101 have been integrated to either
TESDA or an existing SUC. This has
generated cost savings through economies of
scale and specialization, apart from preventing
the eventual conversion of some of these
institutions into new SUCs in the future.
Resistance to the implementation of CSI
rationalization, occasionally exacerbated by
delays in the release of budgets of integrated
CSIs, has led to attempts at political
intervention. Some CSIs persist on seeking to
be upgraded to state universities and there are
reports about a move in Congress to reverse
the integration policy.
An important initiative that aims to change the
structure and management of higher education
is the Higher Education Development Program
(HEDP) project to be supported by the ADB.
It includes components to rationalize the
system of higher education through: (i) the
development of normative financing (based on
outputs instead of inputs) and the adoption of
procedures of risk financing management; (ii)
the rationalization of the number, distribution
and growth of SUCs through advocacy at
different levels, the adoption of minimum
standards for conversion, the development of
classification of HEIs, and the development of
alternative models of governance; and (iii) the
introduction of flexibility in the regulatory
framework by freeing qualified institutions
from regulations and close supervision.
Upgrading quality of teaching and research.
CHED has been implementing two programs
in support of this goal. First, the Centers of
Excellence and Centers of Development
Program (COE-COD) has been supporting and
providing incentives to institutions with a high
level of excellence in research. The Program
also provides extension to help competing
HEIs reach world-class levels. These
institutions are identified with the assistance
of technical panels and are granted broad
autonomy. Funding comes from the Higher
Education Development Fund (HEDF) with a
total cost of PhP 47 million, 90% of which is
devoted to scholarships.
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
DepEd is presently conducting a study to
determine the feasibility of establishing a
“bridging year”, or a fifth year for those
students entering high school. The final
document is expected before the end of 2003.
Proponents of the one-year pre-baccalaureate
program between high school and university
as recommended in the PCER and PESS
reports, highlight the need for a more intensive
information drive to gain support for this
important initiative from various sectors.
Assessment
The above review points to some progress.
CHED has slowed down the rapid growth of
low quality state institutions. The share of
tertiary education in total government
spending for education has been contained.
The best HEIs have been deregulated with
many moving ahead with their own quality
improvement efforts. And CHED has
acquired additional technical capacity, greater
prestige and authority, more influence and a
clearer position of leadership in the higher
education sub-sector.
Some major gaps remain. The creep on the
creation of new SUCS and local community
colleges still threatens to speed up once
backsliding is allowed to proceed. There has
been no change in the targeting of
scholarships. Little progress has been made
on teacher development considering the
system’s high demand for better teacher
competencies. Even the best SUCs with many
commercially valuable assets and with courses
in high demand are still unable to generate
significant levels of self-financing.
Technical-Vocational Education and
Training
The Setting
To meet the training needs of a population
with limited access to higher education and a
large pool of potential workers with only high
school education or even less, a wide variety
of technical-vocational education and training
11
(TVET) options emerged mostly in the
private sector and eventually augmented by
the public sector. But wide variations in
quality exist among these TVET programs and
offerings while the patterns of demand for
skills constantly change. In many respects, the
problems and constraints in TVET are largely
affected by either the failures in basic
education outcomes or the limitations in
admissions to higher education.
PESS/PCER Recommendations
The PESS recommended an education service
contracting scheme for TVET providers and a
development fund to assist private providers
toll up for offering TVET courses. The PCER
did not have a priority recommendation that
was specific to TVET.
The main thrust of PESS recommendations
and, by implication, of the PCER silence on
TVET is to rely primarily on private providers
to respond to the market for TVET. Limited
public financing of TVET should be directed
to inducing private providers to deliver
programs consistent with policy-determined
targets.
Actions
A number of significant actions were
undertaken by TESDA in response to the
PESS and PCER recommendations. TESDA
is redefining its core mission as setting
direction in the subsector (policies,
information, and labor market intelligence),
quality assurance (quality provisions,
competency, and training standards), and
TVET provision and support. It is also
building institutional capacity for TVET
providers. It has established corresponding
action areas and is matching projects and
programs with them.
Strengthening quality assurance function. An
important gain achieved by the TVET
subsector is the premium given to quality
assurance, that is, ensuring that outputs meet
the minimum standards of competence that
workers need to perform a particular job. This
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
is achieved through program registration and
accreditation, as well as through assessment
and certification, of centers and trainers of
TVET programs. A competency-based
education and training program as the new
learning methodology in TVET provision
allows an assessment of learning based on
competency performance of industry
standards. The system is ‘open’ in that it
allows open entry and exit from the TVET
system, and provides national recognition and
accreditation of acquired competencies by
registered program providers.
TESDA has developed Centers of Technical
Excellence (CenTEx) for pilot-testing the
competency-based training system. These
centers are developing 41 TVET institutions
across the country to serve as models for all
providers and demonstration areas for the
introduction of new learning systems. As
vehicles for reform, the centers are being
developed in their identified Distinctive Areas
of Competence through improvements in
infrastructure and equipment, provision of
support services such as capability building
through trainers development, curriculum and
training materials development.
The strengthening of TESDA as a policy
development, quality assurance, and oversight
agency is supported also by a technical
assistance loan from the ADB, the Technical
and Skills Development Project (TESDP), at a
total cost of US$90 million. TESDP began
implementation in 2002; to date, seven private
providers have applied for credits. It has four
components that contribute to the
implementation of the PESS’
recommendations: (i) Enhancement of the
management capacity of TESDA as an
oversight agency through the registration,
accreditation and equivalency processes, and
the enhancement of private skills training;
(ii) Devolution of training to local levels and
private sector; (iii) Establishment of the
Technical Education and Skills Development
Fund (TSDF) in alliance with the
Development Bank of Philippines (DBP); and
(iv) Improvement of equity by establishing a
12
scholarship program that makes loans to poor
students in rural areas.
Besides TESDP, the Philippines–Australia
Quality Technical Vocational Education and
Training Project (Phase II) (PAQTVET II),
supported by AusAID, establishes an industry-
led approach to develop a quality-assured
technical education and skills development
framework to guide the transformation of
TVET organizations, policies, and practices.
This gives a greater role and a higher level of
participation to the private sector about the
guidelines for the provision of technical
education within the country. The TESDA-
GTZ Project being assisted by the German
government, meanwhile, focuses on the
development of 27 public and private
beneficiary institutions along their Distinctive
Areas of Competence. Assistance in the form
of equipment outlay, capability building and
training materials development are being done
under this project.
Providing the poor access to quality
programs. TESDA’s PESFA Scholarship
Program aims to provide poor but deserving
students access to quality TVET through
enrollment in private TVET institutions. It
gives limited scholarships since the budget for
the program is being funded out of the regular
MOOE funds of TESDA. The TESDA-ADB
Scholarship Program is similar in nature to the
PESFA Scholarship but includes enrollment in
public institutions. Its scholarship fund, an
expansion of an existing program, will target a
total of 20,000 students from public technical
and vocational institutions for a five-year
period.
Devolving training functions. TESDP funds
are also being used to prepare institutions for
the devolution of training functions along with
funds of Policy, Training and Technical
Assistance – Capacity Building Program in
Tech-Voc Education (PTTAF) through a grant
from Canada. Since 1999, PTTAF has been
supporting TESDA in its role of enhancing the
institutional capacity of local governments and
private providers. It is developing tools to
assess the readiness of partners (local
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
governments and NGOs) in assuming
responsibility of TVET activities. So far,
provincial governments have shown their
interest in co-managing training schools and
centers. However, local governments argue for
the need for further assistance due to the lack
of current technical capacity to manage these
programs. A major implementation problem
for TESDA, however, has been budget cuts
due to the fiscal deficit. The agency could not
provide the counterpart funding required by its
donors, which, in turn, affected project
implementation.
A Tender Scheme was launched by TESDA
aimed at directing TVET enrollment on
priority sectors/occupations through program
tendering to selected institutions. Under this
scheme, institutions are being offered tenders
to implement a particular program on behalf of
TESDA. Industry Working Groups, on the
other hand, were established for four of the 15
identified priority sectors of TESDA, namely,
tourism, health, ICT and agri-business. This is
envisioned to help in addressing demand-
supply gaps through the identification of
priority programs for TVET as well as ensure
market/industry relevance.
In an effort to rationalize program offerings,
the DepEd and TESDA, through a
Memorandum of Agreement, transferred the
secondary programs of TVET institutions
under TESDA to the DepEd. Governance
programs, meanwhile, were developed to
prepare TVET institutions for the eventual
devolution of training functions to the LGUs.
Governance plans were already prepared that
defined the various phases of devolution by
the institutions.
Assessment
It is encouraging to note that TESDA, CHED
and DepEd have successfully delineated their
agencies' respective jurisdictions without
excessive turf disputes. TESDA has focused
correctly on the overall improvement of
quality, efficiency and equity of all TVET
provisions across the board, rather than only
on its own direct TVET provisions. On the
13
other hand, the full transition of TESDA from
provision to monitoring, evaluation, regulation
and financing of TVET is not yet complete.
Budget constraints are preventing the faster
development of TVET programs. The
accreditation process is still lacking while
faculty development still leaves much to be
desired. The low societal regard for middle-
level manpower, compounded by the less
supportive hiring, training and promotion
policies in the country is also hampering the
growth and development of the sub-sector.
Across The Whole Education Sector
The Setting
As a result of the implementation of the
recommendations of the 1991 Congressional
Commission on Education (EDCOM), three
separate government agencies with more
focused mandates now govern three sub-
sectors of education. The largest and most
crucial sub-sector is basic education which is
managed by DepEd. Higher education is now
managed by CHED. TVET sub-sector is
governed by TESDA.
PESS/PCER Recommendations
The PESS recommended that an institutional
focal point be established for setting priorities
across the whole sector and for establishing
consistent rules for financing and management
across all levels of the education and training
system. The PCER recommended three
concrete measures to provide effective sectoral
governance across all areas of education: a
national coordinating council for education to
coordinate policies and plans; a national
educational evaluation and testing system to
measure educational outcomes; and adoption
of common standards for accreditation
applicable for various disciplines across
different educational levels.
The thrust of these recommendations is to
create a source of central influence or an
institutionalized mechanism for strategically
directing the reform and development of the
whole education sector without diminishing
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
the authority or accountability of each agency
to directly manage the affairs of each
respective sub-sector.
Actions
The Estrada administration formally
established the National Coordinating Council
on Education (NCCE) through Executive
Order No. 273, immediately following the
PCER launching in 2000. The NCCE was
supposed to fill up the policy vacuum resulting
from the trifocalization of the education sector
and was designed to coordinate and harmonize
the cross-cutting education issues, formulate
sectoral policies and priorities, and decide on
the rational allocation of resources across
different parts of the education system. To
date, however, the NCCE remains inoperative.
The formal convening of the body and
constitution of its high-powered Technical
Secretariat was not considered a priority of its
first rotating Chair. Most of the actual
coordination among education sub-sectors
have occurred informally. No formal decisions
binding on the whole education sector are
made and issues are resolved by consensus or
compromise, often independently of
considerations of existing policy.
Funding for the NCCE was supposed to be
sourced from the General Appropriations Act
but because of its non-operationalization,
funding in subsequent years was not pursued.
Consequently, the planning of the entire sector
continues to be fragmented and the conduct of
initiatives and resolution of issues that cut
across the three levels are not undertaken
efficiently. The determination of the growth
rates of the appropriation for each level over a
time period remains contentious because of
the lack of agreed developmental bases for
subsectoral allocation. As originally
envisioned, one of the tasks of the NCCE was
to convene the first National Congress on the
State of Philippine Education by 2001 to
assess the fulfillment of all program and
policy recommendations of the EDCOM and
PCER (Imperial, 2003).
14
The Professional Regulation Commission,
which administers and enforces the regulatory
policies of the national government, including
the maintenance of professional standards, has
not been modified or improved. Little
progress has been made in terms of the
accreditation system, given the complexity of
the task due to the huge number and variety of
existing higher education programs and
institutions. Equivalency, as a cross-cutting
issue, requires the participation of different
agencies. So far, there is only one agreement
for accreditation criteria and guidelines for
technical training on industrial skills (except
for information and communication
technology). Thus, the goal of establishing
mechanisms and regulations to facilitate the
move from post-basic education and training
to university education is far from complete.
The establishment of the National Education
Evaluation and Testing Service (NEETS), as
recommended in the PESS and PCER reports,
has not progressed in view of the non-
operationalization of the NCCE. Considerable
technical work has been undertaken on the
planning for improved student assessment
systems.
Assessment
Despite having the biggest share in total
national government expenditures, real capita
spending on education declined from PhP 486
in 1997 to PhP 451 in 1999 and down to Php
447 in 2001, as government spending in
education failed to keep pace with rising
inflation and enrollment expansion.
A set of implementation problems is common
to all the programs but is especially acute for
foreign-assisted projects: First, the already
mentioned budget cuts. Second, the lack of
continuity of project administration and the
change in focus of the agency due to frequent
changes in leadership. Third, the lack of
continuous training of the staff, which along
with the frequent shift of personnel makes it
difficult to deal with the varied requirements
of different donors. This is aggravated by the
lack of equipment that limits the possibilities
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
of electronic procurement. Fourth, the lack of
a permanent project management office to
administer the projects.
4. MAKING PROGRESS ON EDUCATION
PRIORITIES
Important gains towards directions
recommended by PESS and PCER were
achieved in the last five years from 1998 to
2002. The successful elimination of serious
textbook shortages in basic education
demonstrated the government’s ability to solve
a major problem through three changes in
leadership at the DepEd. The containment of
further growth of SUC claims on the total
public education budget demonstrated an
exercise of political will in a difficult area of
reform. The definite although incomplete
transition of TESDA towards quality
assurance and oversight role in TVET, from
its previous over-emphasis on direct delivery
of training services, demonstrated a healthy
capacity to withdraw from activities of limited
impact to those with strategic importance in
sectoral effectiveness.
Yet given these evidence of constancy of
purpose through political changes (e.g.,
textbooks in basic education), capacity to
implement tough decisions despite political
resistance (e.g., SUCS rationalization), and
willingness to change for greater effectiveness
(e.g., TESDA’s shift to quality assurance in
TVET), why was there not more progress in
many other vital areas?
There was clearly no substantive progress in
creating mechanisms for sector-wide
accountability, leadership, and planning. Very
little progress could be observed in improving
teacher productivity and utilization, or in
institutional changes for greater efficiency in
the basic education delivery organization.
While further claims by tertiary education on
the public budget have been contained, little
has been accomplished in terms of obtaining
increased policy-consistent outcomes from
existing public spending on tertiary education
either on SUCS or on scholarships. It is also
15
not yet evident that changes in the policy and
program environment of TVET will
significantly improve outcomes in this area.
Several factors likely explain the limited
implementation of the various policy
recommendations of PESS and PCER in the
last five years and of similar earlier efforts.
Some of these factors were identified by key
national stakeholders during interviews for
this report, and some emerged during team
discussions. This section discusses these
different factors, with the intention of
obtaining feedback from education
stakeholders during a consultation workshop
in June.
Strategic Implementation: Starting Easy
and Building on Success
Criticisms about the content of the
recommended reforms are unavoidable. The
recommendations may not have been specific
enough or prioritized enough. They may not
have provided clear implementation scenarios
or identified the trade-offs required to
implement the reforms. If so, then the
recommendations do not provide adequate
guidance to policy makers nor do they help
policy makers prioritize the actions. These
criticisms may or may not be valid—but even
if they are true, they are not sufficient to
preclude action. After all, the
recommendations, which were products of
long discussions and deliberations by key
stakeholders, are subject to interpretation and
could be modified during implementation.
What get in the way of effective
implementation are factors that may not be
directly related to the validity of the
recommendations themselves, but to the
sequencing and timing of implementation.
Judgments about sequencing and timing are
going to be affected by a number of factors,
including availability of required resources,
existence of supporting organizational
structures, and degree of political risks
involved, that determine which
recommendations are going to be deemed as
feasible and which are the least costly. There
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
are clear benefits from starting with reforms
that are easiest to implement—those for which
institutional support and resources already
exist and which involve little political risk—
not necessarily with those that are of foremost
importance. The benefits from starting easy in
an education system that has not had a strong
record of success cannot be overstated. Quick
successes are confidence-building both for the
implementers and the beneficiaries, and can
pave the way for more risk-taking.
Among the reforms that are easiest to
implement, there are potential gains from
acting on those that are likely to yield
multiplier effects, that is, those that facilitate
or reduce the cost of implementing other
reforms as well as increase the gains from
achieving those related reforms. For example,
successful textbook reform—rationalizing the
choice of textbooks and getting textbooks in
the hands of students—complements reforms
related to the curriculum or teacher
development. In fact, strategic
implementation recognizes the linkages
between the reforms and uses breakthroughs
in one area to create breakthroughs in other
areas. A critical shortcoming of the
implementation of many reforms is the failure
to take advantage of these types of synergies.
Broad Support for Specific Recommendations
Reforms are more feasible and sustainable if
there is political consensus on and broad
support for, the recommended changes—
among the key implementers of the reforms,
the wider education community, as well as
within the national population. This was not
the case with the education policy
recommendations. First, some
recommendations were contested by national
education stakeholders even at the time of the
deliberations. For example, at the time of the
PESS discussions, informants reported that
CHED did not agree with the recommendation
for its commissioners to give up their position
as chairs of the governing boards of SUCs.
The commissioners argued that those positions
are about the only mechanism for the agency
to influence and supervise SUCs. An
16
additional obstacle was the need for a
corresponding legislative action to amend the
Higher Education Modernization Act of 1997,
which provides for the composition and
powers of the governing boards.
Second, while the preparation of the policy
papers involved representatives of key
national stakeholders, the policy efforts of
PESS and PCER did not attempt to build a
broad political constituency around the
conclusions of the reports. The absence of
political support from an organized and
sustained network of interests for the
education reforms made the recommendations
vulnerable to the subsequent changes in the
political leadership within the three key
education agencies. Changes in political
administration eroded the commitment to
specific recommendations and led to changes
in policy or priority, implementation focus,
and funding allocations, thereby interrupting
the continuity of policies and programs. For
example, some of the recommendations
required legal changes, such as an amendment
of the Higher Education Modernization Act of
1997 that determines the composition and
powers of the governing boards of SUCs. The
absence of broad political consensus reduced
the probability of passing such legislation,
especially with respect to the more contested
recommendations (e.g., enforcing the
moratorium on the creation and conversion of
new SUCs, introduction of incentives for
teachers based on performance).
An Institutional Environment for Change
In addition to factors that are specific to
individual recommendations, the absence of
an enabling environment for change in the
education system deserves blame. The policy
papers did recognize the need for institutional
changes in the system, such as the
enhancement of local school boards of
primary schools, improvement of teacher
management, and a strengthening of the
accreditation system for private institutions,
but there are even more basic institutional
reforms that are necessary for the specific
recommended reforms to be implemented.
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
sector needs a champion for
reform whose accountability is the
performance of the whole education sector and
whose institutional interest is the efficient,
coordinated functioning of the whole system.
The current lack of an integrated leadership in
the education sector cripples the ability of the
policymakers to act strategically across the
sub-sectors. The recommended National
Coordinating Council for Education would
provide needed coordination of actions and
monitoring of the progress of implementation
in the different education sub-sectors, but the
leadership role that the whole sector needs
goes beyond one of coordination.
the points of actions for education reform and
the chief beneficiaries of those reforms, there
are, at best, weak consequences for the quality
of performance and thus weak incentives to
assume the costs of reform. Transferring
some decision making and implementation
authority closer to those who are likely to
benefit most ensures that a more sustained
push for reforms exists. Moreover, local
accountability mechanisms (such as the
community’s ability to change the
composition of the local school board, to
affect the level of resources available to the
school, or to unseat a local education manager
for poor performance) ensure that there would
be real consequences to improvements in
performance and thus create the incentives for
local leaders to experiment with better ways of
doing things. Indeed, there are difficult and
sufficiently different local conditions in the
Philippines to make experimentation
rewarding and even necessary, and to the
extent that a region can learn from the
experience of others, locally generated
innovations can underpin continuing
improvements in education. The Philippine
education sector, which continues to be
centralized relative to other sectors, can
benefit from more devolved decision making.
necessary incentives for reform. Sometimes it
makes sense to retain decision making
authority at a more aggregate level of
17
governance and management because of
economies of scale, such as in the case of
teacher deployment, policies towards SUCs,
and the design of assessment systems. The
question then is, Can the government establish
and enforce accountability mechanisms for
when there are likely to be loose connections
between the implementers for change and the
beneficiaries of that change? Some answers
emerge from the experience of other countries.
First, required are clear, widely known
performance standards and measures, an
information system that provides timely,
periodic and accurate comparative data on
performance, and an information-based system
management. It makes sense for the
government to maintain a national education
information network that supports planning
and budgeting tasks at all levels of
government, to ensure performance
measurement and reporting, and to monitor
innovations and provide the informational
basis for replication across local governments.
The current management of the education
system, though equipped with a management
information system, does not use information
efficiently throughout the system. There is
need also to audit existing skills of personnel
regularly and to map missing skills. While
districts should be responsible for upgrading
local skills to the necessary level, the national
government should be responsible for the
maintenance of performance standards that are
the basis for the skills audit.
exist in the education communities. A binding
or operative legal and regulatory framework
could compel agencies at different levels of
government to act. For example, despite the
obvious need to improve the allocation of
public resources for education, there is no
legal support for modifying how teachers are
deployed throughout the country. The Magna
Carta, the law that regulates the teaching
profession, continues to prevent the
government from transferring teachers to areas
where they are more needed. Reforms cannot
all be mandated by legal action; however, this
approach is too costly in terms of initiating
and enforcing reform. On the other hand,
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
competition for prestige and resources that is
based on agreed-upon performance standards
can be a powerful and less costly incentive
mechanism.
responded in some cases to emerging gaps and
growing needs within the context of limited
resources through innovations in terms of
delivery modes, systems improvement, and
alternative approaches. A number of new
solutions or novel policy or program
interventions have been designed and
implemented through experimentation and
demonstration, some of which registered
successes in terms of targeted education
outcomes, but in a limited setting. In many
cases, however, education policymakers and
key implementers continued to pursue
reforms, without regard to the successes
achieved through these earlier innovations. A
number of new interventions to address
cyclical problems of resource inequity or
quality issues were designed without building
on the worthy innovations on the ground.
Case studies documenting innovations
developed in other countries which are
applicable in the local setting need to be taken
into account as interventions are designed.
The complexity of the reform process in the
education sector necessitates building on these
successful and feasible innovations and
ensuring their replication particularly in areas
at-risk or most in need.
Political Will for Change
The key feature characterizing the above
environment for change is a prevailing illusion
that education reforms in the Philippines seem
discretionary, a “nice to have” initiative that
can be pursued voluntarily when conditions
and timing are right. There does not seem to
be a widely shared sense that education
reforms are a vital necessity, a matter of
survival for the education system, an
imperative imposed upon the nation due to
decades of inaction or inadequate effort.
There are some opinion survey data that
indicate that national political leaders are less
18
rewarded by favorable opinion when they
succeed in education reform while they are
severely punished by unfavorable opinion
when such reforms fail. Such an opinion
climate makes for severely risk-averse
education policymaking. There are also some
observers that point out that most of the
children of influential policymakers in
politics, media and academe now attend
private schools. This suggests that the parents
who make decisions affecting the large public
school system do so without benefit from
lessons from their children’s schooling
experience, or worse on the basis of their own
outdated impressions of public schools twenty
to forty years ago. The urgency for change
may also be temper by the fact that past
achievements in education seem to be enough
to continue yielding sufficient human
resources for overseas and domestic
employment. These explanations may place
the lack of more vigorous education reform in
context, although none of these will save or
exempt the country from the worst
consequences and missed opportunities of not
addressing large-scale and long-standing
education disadvantages and inefficiencies.
A vigorous and sustained political impetus for
change in the education sector needs to follow
through with the structural reforms of
EDCOM, the technical recommendations of
PESS and PCER, and the potential promise of
the gains in the past five years. For example,
the Restructured Basic Education Curriculum
is mainly an intended curriculum at this time,
and its most important objectives will be
attained only if the necessary material,
organizational and technical support to its
delivery were provided. When the previous
elementary education curriculum (the Revised
New Elementary School Curriculum) was
mandated in the 1980’s, it was accompanied
with a major infusion of resources (including a
major World Bank project, PRODED) to
provide support for teacher training, procure
new textbooks, improve instructional
supervision, and introduce student assessment
tools and capacities. A similar concerted effort
might be necessary to ensure that the BEC
delivers on its intended improvements.
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action
Such a concerted effort will need political
leadership at the highest levels as well as
supportive technical and managerial
leadership at professional levels. A leadership
network of this scale is not likely to emerge
fully grown from anywhere in the present
system. While many elements and capacities
for a leadership network for education reform
exists, a process for catalyzing involvement,
collaboration and sustained action will need to
reach out to the isolated pockets of excellence
and efficiency and connect them to a
politically viable movement for change.
19
Such a catalyzing process can consist of a
rigorously monitored program of innovations
and experiments for identifying small
successes which is then coupled with an
organized strategic effort aimed at building on
these small successes as key levers for change.
This process can generate benefits that attract
constituencies and champions, as well as
valuable learning, that will be critical to
success in ever larger arena of reform. This
process can enable a leadership network to
summon the political will to emerge, grow and
lead the change in the education sector.
 Philippines Education Policy Reforms in Action

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