Current Trends and Issues in Philippine Education best start for all children, by ensuring that every Filipino

that every Filipino child has

Source: United Nations International Children Emergency Fund access to some form of ECCD and school readiness programs before.

Issue UNICEF, in collaboration with government and non-

government partners, supports ECCD initiatives and participates in
promoting parental awareness and appreciation of the value of
ECCD.  UNICEF also promotes a holistic approach to early learning,
bringing in many crucial child development processes such as
children’s active participation through interactive learning and play,
health, hygiene, sanitation, and overall well-being as well as
teachers’ motivation, and community support for children’s safe and
secure environment. 

Despite recent government efforts to improve the policy

environment, expand access and enhance quality, implementation
gaps persist and significant challenges remain. National statistics
indicate that only 78 out of 100 Grade 1 entrants have kindergarten
experience. Among the 6 year olds, which is the official entry age to
Grade 1, 14.5 per cent are not in school and 25 per cent are still in
preschool. 

© UNICEF Philippines/2008/Francia Research shows that children who don’t start school at the
Achieving basic primary education remains one of the greatest right age are more likely to have learning difficulties, to repeat or
challenges in the Philippines. drop out.  Most dropouts occur in Grades 1 and 2 which could
indicate lack of school readiness that is best ensured by attending
quality ECCD.
UNICEF supports the Philippine Government’s thrust of
expanding access to quality Early Childhood Care and Development
The factors that affect participation in early education
(ECCD) which includes promoting universal Kindergarten.  This is
include poverty; gender, ethnicity, low level of awareness of the
meant to contribute towards the achievement of the education MDGs
value of early childhood education; disabilities; long distance from
– Universal Primary Education and Gender Equality in Basic
school; threats of dislocation among informal settlers, and exposure
Education.
to conflict and natural disasters; and urban challenges. 
Action
The ECCD program addresses the long-standing concern
with creating an equitable platform for learning and providing the

© UNICEF Philippines/2008/Francia
UNICEF supports day care centers where children's learning is
stimulated and readied for primary school.
In line with UNICEF’s thrust to focus on areas identified by
Government as the most disadvantaged, the Education Program will
be implemented in selected municipalities and cities experiencing
one or combinations of  vulnerabilities, such as extreme urban
poverty, conflict or natural disasters.
To ensure that efforts are sustained and scaled up, UNICEF
will work mainly with national government agencies in creating an
enabling ECCD policy and programme environment.  UNICEF will
also collaborate with LGUs to demonstrate effective ECCD services
and replicate these models. It will also work with national and local
government partners and the donor community to leverage resources
for quality ECCD services.
UNICEF’s support will be framed by the new education
structure—the K to12 Program, which is embodied in the package of
policy reforms under the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda
(BESRA).  Priority interventions will assist Government to pursue an
equity-focused approach to address disparities in education, and
promote rights- and knowledge-based education. 
UNICEF and its partners will develop a system of referral
and intervention starting at the community level for cases of
developmental disorders or early childhood disabilities.  UNICEF
will also work on culture-responsive kindergarten programs for
indigenous peoples, and continue earlier work on Tahderiyyahs in
majority Muslim communities.
This will address the holistic development of the Filipino
child and enhance the use of both indigenous and latest scientific
innovations.  UNICEF will also focus on improving the capacity of
the education system to address major barriers, scale-up tested and
appropriate innovations, develop joint mechanisms among key
stakeholders, and develop an integrated school-community
monitoring and evaluation systems.
It also seeks to ensure that marginalized and excluded young
children are ready to learn and enter school at the right age, and that
marginalized and excluded children participate in and complete
quality elementary education—by focusing on developing children’s
“readiness to learn” in pre-school; “learning how to learn” in the
early grades; and maximizing basic opportunities to learn in the
higher grades.  
Impact
 Order 23 (2011), on the Kindergarten Summer Program; and (d)
DSWD Administrative Order 15—Guidelines for improved
accreditation of day care  (early learning) centers and workers.

• UNICEF initiated advocacy to ensure a coherent curriculum and

solid foundation for early learning.

• LGU resources maximized to expand support to ECCD innovations

(home-based ECCD, “ECCD on-horse,”, “ECCD on wheels,” etc.). 

Child-friendly school system

© UNICEF Philippines/2008/Francia
• Established a network of child-friendly models in 5,300 primary
UNICEF provides school packs and much-needed books for children. schools and 61 high schools nationwide in 24 focus areas located in
the three main islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Early childhood care and development • Established the Student Tracking System (STS) to enrich the
School-based Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for BESRA. 
• Increased participation of 3-5 year old children in ECCD services
in nine focus areas—Mountain Province, Masbate, Eastern Samar, • Developed tools for child-friendly school practices for teachers. 
Northern Samar, North Cotabato, Sarangani, Davao City,  
Maguindanao and Manila—reaching a 69.74 per cent gross • Improved community-school partnerships to advance child rights.
enrolment rate in 2011. 
• Contributed to the strengthening of Madrasah Education through
• Six of nine LGUs have issued policies increasing support and development of instructional materials.
investments for ECCD.
  
• Over 9,000 3-5 year-old children from conflict-affected Education in Emergencies
Bangsamoro communities are now attending culture-responsive
ECCD services in 313 Tahderiyyahs (Islamic preschools).
• Functional Education in Emergencies Cluster integrated into the
• UNICEF provided technical inputs to the following policies: (a) National Emergency Clusters.
R.A. 10157—Institutionalizing Kindergarten (KG) education into the
basic education system (2012); (b) DepED Order 21 (2011)—
Implementing the Universal Kindergarten KG Program; (c) DepED
• During emergencies, ensure a holistic, integrated response through for engineering and technology. However, the gap widens in
technical assistance, provision of learning supplies and collaboration terms of the number of graduates for the said courses.
with sectors such as Child Protection for psychosocial support and
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) for WASH in schools. In TABLE 1: TERTIARY ENROLLMENT AND
the conflict affected areas, help establish learning institutions (ECCD GRADUATION BY FIELD OF STUDY. SY 1990-1991
centers and schools) as Zones of Peace.
ENROLLMEN
• Contributed to the strengthening the capacity of the Department of FIELD OF STUDY GRADUATION
T
Education in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and preparedness.
No. % No. %
KEY ISSUES IN PHILIPPINE EDUCATION
Arts and Sciences 196,711 14.6 29,961 13.6
Literacy rate in the Philippines has improved a lot over the
last few years- from 72 percent in 1960 to 94 percent in 1990. Teacher Training &
242,828 18.0 34,279 15.5
This is attributed to the increase in both the number of Education
schools built and the level of enrollment in these schools.
Engineering &
273,408 20.3 32,402 14.7
The number of schools grew rapidly in all three levels - Technology
elementary, secondary, and tertiary. From the mid-1960s up
to the early 1990, there was an increase of 58 percent in the Medical and Health -
176,252 13.1 34,868 15.8
elementary schools and 362 percent in the tertiary schools. related Programs
For the same period, enrollment in all three levels also rose
by 120 percent. More than 90 percent of the elementary Commerce/Business
392,958 29.2 79,827 36.1
schools and 60 percent of the secondary schools are publicly Management
owned. However, only 28 percent of the tertiary schools are
publicly owned. Agriculture, Forestry,
Fishery,
A big percentage of tertiary-level students enroll in and finish 43,458 3.2 7,390 3.3
and Veterinary
commerce and business management courses. Table 1 Medicine
shows the distribution of courses taken, based on School
Year 1990-1991. Note that the difference between the Law 20,405 1.5 2,111 1.0
number of enrollees in the commerce and business courses
and in the engineering and technology courses may be small Religion / Theology 1,695 0.1 209 0.1
- 29.2 percent for commerce and business and 20.3 percent
TOTAL 1,347,715 100.0 221,047 100.0

On gender distribution, female students have very high
representation in all three levels. At the elementary level,
male and female students are almost equally represented. But
female enrollment exceeds that of the male at the secondary
and tertiary levels . Also, boys have higher rates of failures,
dropouts, and repetition in both elementary and secondary
levels.
Aside from the numbers presented above, which are
impressive, there is also a need to look closely and resolve the
following important issues: 1) quality of
education 2)affordability of education 3) goverment budget
for education; and 4) education mismatch.
1. Quality - There was a decline in the quality of
the Philippine education, especially at the
elementary and secondary levels. For example,
the results of standard tests conducted among
elementary and high school students, as well as
in the National College of Entrance
Examination for college students, were way
below the target mean score.
2. Affordability - There is also a big disparity in
educational achievements across social groups.
For example, the socioeconomically
disadvantaged students have higher dropout
rates, especially in the elementary level. And
most of the freshmen students at the tertiary
level come from relatively well-off families.
3. Budget - The Philippine Constitution has
mandated the government to allocate the
highest proportion of its budget to education.
However, the Philippines still has one of the
lowest budget allocations to education among
the ASEAN countries.
4. Mismatch - There is a large proportion of
"mismatch" between training and actual jobs.
This is the major problem at the tertiary level
and it is also the cause of the existence of a
large group of educated unemployed or
underemployed.
The following are some of the reforms
proposed:
1. Upgrade the teachers' salary scale. Teachers
have been underpaid; thus there is very little
incentive for most of them to take up advanced
trainings.
2. Amend the current system of budgeting for
education across regions, which is based on
participation rates and units costs. This clearly
favors the more developed regions. There is a
need to provide more allocation to lagging
regions to narrow the disparity across regions.
3. Stop the current practice of subsidizing state
universities and colleges to enhance access.
This may not be the best way to promote
equity. An expanded scholarship program,
giving more focus and priority to the poor,
maybe more equitable.
4. Get all the leaders in business and industry to
become actively involved in higher education;
this is aimed at addressing the mismatch
problem. In addition, carry out a selective
admission policy, i.e., installing mechanisms to
reduce enrollment in oversubscribed courses
and promoting enrollment in undersubscribed
 ones.

5. Develop a rationalized apprenticeship program

with heavy inputs from the private sector.
Furthermore, transfer the control of technical
training to industry groups which are more
attuned to the needs of business and industry