In Brief
Can the Philippines achieve its goal on two key international commitments--the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on Education and the Education for All (EFA) Initiative--for the achievement of education for everyone? A close look at the figures shows that the country may be at risk of not achieving its goal of attaining universal primary education by 2015. Given this scenario, the government should intensify its efforts in improving basic education by developing evidence-based policies and actions. In particular, the Department of Education (DepEd) should be required to have a sound monitoring and evaluation system to assess the conditions of basic education regularly.
For more, see the full Policy Note [pdf].
Same issues on education since the 1960s yet, unresolved till now. I’m getting tired of hearing the same things really. I was among civil society advocates in the education sector last decade, and I found it so frustrating an exercise altogether.
It can be frustrating to see very little change happening in a sector, or in the case of the Philippines, some apparent retrogression based on the trends. However, what is important is not to get discouraged, but to find more avenues for disseminating information in order to yield responses from the decision makers, who oftentimes have to make difficult choices in the midst of many constraints.
As we pointed out in this note, there will be a need for more advocacy and dissemination of education statistics in order to elicit the proper responses from the policy formulators and implementors, and to have the community of education advocates become more organized in seeking accountability from the powers that be.
The cynicism of some people are not at all helping in the drive to improve basic education in the Philippines. Hooray for PIDS for the focus on numbers.