Reading for Reflection No.

Issues Regarding the Educational System

When it comes to influence, the educational system of the Philippines has been affected
immensely by the country's colonial history including the Spanish period, American period,
and Japanese rule and occupation. Although having been significantly influenced by all its
colonizers with regard to the educational system, the most influential and deep-rooted
contributions arose during the American occupation (1898); it was during this
aforementioned period that 1. English was introduced as the primary language of instruction
and 2. A public education system was first established - a system specifically patterned after
the United States school system and further administered by the newly established
Department of Instruction. Similar to the United States of America, the Philippines has had
an extensive and extremely inclusive system of education including features such as higher
education.

The present Philippine Educational system firstly covers six years of compulsory education
(from grades 1 to 6), divided informally into two levels - both composed of three years. The
first level is known as the Primary Level and the second level is known as the Intermediate
Level.

However, although the Philippine educational system has extensively been a model for other
Southeast Asian countries, in recent years such a matter has no longer stood true, and such
a system has been deteriorated - such a fact is especially evident and true in the country's
more secluded poverty-stricken regions.
Nationwide the Philippines faces several issues when it comes to the educational system.

Quality of Education

First of which, is the quality of education. In the year 2014, the National Achievement Test
(NAT) and the National Career Assessment Examination (NCAE) results show that there had
been a decline in the quality of Philippine education at the elementary and secondary levels.
The students' performance in both the 2014 NAT and NCAE were excessively below the
target mean score. Having said this, the poor quality of the Philippine educational system is
manifested in the comparison of completion rates between highly urbanized city of Metro
Manila, which is also happens to be not only the country's capital but the largest
metropolitan area in the Philippines and other places in the country such as Mindanao and
Eastern Visayas. Although Manila is able to boast a primary school completion rate of
approximately 100 percent, other areas of the nation, such as Eastern Visayas and
Mindanao, hold primary school completion rate of only 30 percent or even less. This kind of
statistic is no surprise to the education system in the Philippine context, students who hail
from Philippine urban areas have the financial capacity to complete at the very least their
primary school education.

Budget for Education

The second issue that the Philippine educational system faces is the budget for education.
Although it has been mandated by the Philippine Constitution for the government to allocate
the highest proportion of its government to education, the Philippines remains to have one
of the lowest budget allocations to education among ASEAN countries.
Affordability of Education

The third prevalent issue the Philippine educational system continuously encounters is the
affordability of education (or lack thereof). A big disparity in educational achievements is
evident across various social groups. Socioeconomically disadvantaged students otherwise
known as students who are members of high and low-income poverty-stricken families,
have immensely higher drop-out rates in the elementary level. Additionally, most freshmen
students at the tertiary level come from relatively well-off families.

Drop-out Rate (Out-of-school youth)

France Castro, secretary of Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), stated that there is a
graved need to address the alarming number of out-of-school youth in the country. The
Philippines overall has 1.4 million children who are out-of-school, according to UNESCO's
data, and is additionally the only ASEAN country that is included in the top 5 countries with
the highest number of out-of-school youth. In 2012, the Department of Education showed
data of a 6.38% drop-out rate in primary school and a 7.82% drop-out rate in secondary
school. Castro further stated that "the increasing number of out-of-school children is being
caused by poverty. The price increases in prices of oil, electricity, rice, water, and other
basic commodities are further pushing the poor into dire poverty." Subsequently, as more
families become poorer, the number of students enrolled in public schools increases,
especially in the high school level. In 2013, the Department of Education estimated that
there are 38, 503 elementary schools alongside 7,470 high schools.

Mismatch
There is a large mismatch between educational training and actual jobs. This stands to be a
major issue at the tertiary level and it is furthermore the cause of the continuation of a
substantial amount of educated yet unemployed or underemployed people. According to
Dean Salvador Belaro Jr., the Cornell-educated Congressman representing 1-Ang Edukasyon
Party-list in the House of Representatives, the number of educated unemployed reaches
around 600,000 per year. He refers to said condition as the "education gap".

Brain Drain

Brain Drain is a persistent problem evident in the educational system of the Philippines due
to the modern phenomenon of globalization, with the number of Overseas Filipino Workers
(OFWs) who worked abroad at any time during the period April to September 2014 was
estimated at 2.3 million. This ongoing mass emigration subsequently inducts an
unparalleled brain drain alongside grave economic implications. Additionally, Philippine
society hitherto is footing the bill for the education of millions who successively spend their
more productive years abroad. Thus, the already poor educational system of the Philippines
indirectly subsidizes the opulent economies who host the OFWs.

Social Divide

There exists a problematic and distinct social cleavage with regard to educational
opportunities in the country. Most modern societies have encountered an equalizing effect
on the subject of education. This aforementioned divide in the social system has made
education become part of the institutional mechanism that creates a division between the
poor and the rich.

Lack of Facilities and Teacher Shortage in Public Schools

There are large-scale shortages of facilities across Philippine public schools - these include
classrooms, teachers, desks and chairs, textbooks, and audio-video materials. According to
2003 Department of Education

Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz, reportedly over 17 million students are enrolled in
Philippine public schools, and at an annual population growth rate of 2.3 per cent, about 1.7
million babies are born every year which means that in a few years time, more individuals
will assert ownership over their share of the (limited) educational provisions. To sum it up,
there are too many students and too little resources. Albeit the claims the government
makes on increasing the allocated budget for education, there is a prevalent difficulty the
public school system faces with regard to shortages. Furthermore, state universities and
colleges gradually raise tuition so as to have a means of purchasing facilities, thus making
tertiary education difficult to access or more often than not, inaccessible to the poor.
However, it is worth taking note of what the Aquino administration has done in its five years
of governance with regard to classroom-building - the number of classrooms built from
2005 to the first half of the year 2010 has tripled. Additionally, the number of classrooms
that were put up from the year 2010 to February 2015 was recorded to be at 86,478,
significantly exceeding the 17,305 classrooms that were built from 2005 to 2010 and
adequate enough to counterbalance the 66,800 classroom deficit in the year 2010.

In President Aquino's fourth state of the nation address (SONA), he spoke of the
government's achievement of zero backlog in facilities such as classrooms, desks and
chairs, and textbooks which has addressed the gap in the shortages of teachers, what with
56,085 new teachers for the 61, 510 teaching items in the year 2013. However, the data
gathered by the Department of Education shows that during the opening of classes (June
2013), the shortages in classrooms was pegged at 19, 579, 60 million shortages when it
came to textbooks, 2.5 million shortages with regard to chairs, and 80, 937 shortages of
water and sanitation facilities. Furthermore, 770 schools in Metro Manila, Cebu, and Davao
were considered overcrowded. The Department of Education also released data stating that
91% of the 61, 510 shortages in teachers was filled up alongside appointments (5, 425 to
be specific) are being processed

Issues regarding the K-12

There is dispute with regard to the quality of education provided by the system. In the year
2014, the National Achievement Test (NAT) and the National Career Assessment
Examination (NCAE) results show that there had been a decline in the quality of Philippine
education at the elementary and secondary levels. The students' performance in both the
2014 NAT and NCAE were excessively below the target mean score. Having said this, the
poor quality of the Philippine educational system is manifested in the comparison of
completion rates between highly urbanized city of Metro Manila, which is also happens to be
not only the country's capital but the largest metropolitan area in the Philippines and other
places in the country such as Mindanao and Eastern Visayas. Although Manila is able to
boast a primary school completion rate of approximately 100 percent, other areas of the
nation, such as Eastern Visayas and Mindanao, hold primary school completion rate of only
30 percent or even less. This kind of statistic is no surprise to the education system in the
Philippine context, students who hail from Philippine urban areas have the financial capacity
to complete at the very least their primary school education.
The second issue that the Philippine educational system faces is the budget for education.
Although it has been mandated by the Philippine Constitution for the government to allocate
the highest proportion of its government to education, the Philippines remains to have one
of the lowest budget allocations to education among ASEAN countries. The third prevalent
issue the Philippine educational system continuously encounters is the affordability of
education (or lack thereof). A big disparity in educational achievements is evident across
various social groups. Socioeconomically disadvantaged students otherwise known as
students who are members of high and low-income poverty-stricken families, have
immensely higher drop-out rates in the elementary level. Additionally, most freshmen
students at the tertiary level come from relatively well-off families. Lastly, there is a large
proportion of mismatch, wherein there exists a massive proportion of mismatch between
training and actual jobs. This stands to be a major issue at the tertiary level and it is
furthermore the cause of the continuation of a substantial amount of educated yet
unemployed or underemployed people.