The Aquino administration will be investing P238 billion in basic education for 2012, the largest budget ever allocated for such purpose.
Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Florencio ‘Butch’ Abad affirmed this in a meeting with state universities and colleges (SUCs) presidents from Cordillera and Region I at the Benguet State University, Saturday.
According to Abad, who once was the country's Department Education Secretary, the country’s education system is in crisis because it has long been neglected. He said that about half of the country's children are not in school and those who entered basic education – elementary and secondary, have poor achievement level and only less than 15 percent eventually get a college diploma; less than five percent finish a degree.
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Abad also said that such problem is found generally in the tertiary education in the country. “Because the foundation (basic education) is very weak, except in a few universities/colleges, we encounter inferior quality of graduates; this is evident in the passing rate in our board exams,” he lamented.
This is the reason, Abad said, why government is investing heavily in basic education, including pre-school through the new ‘K to 12’ program.
According to Abad, studies show that the children who were properly prepared to enter formal school have bigger chances to finish up to secondary and even up to their tertiary level given the ample support from government.
Another reason Abad pointed out is that we are now living in a very competitive world, hence the country needs to work hard to grow as an economy.
Abad also affirmed that the government is also focusing on technical-vocational (Tek-Bok) skills training and education with the government putting up a P1.2 billion investment in partnership with the BPO sector.
“P500M of the said investment were initially invested for the training of 72,000 possible BPO workers or near-hires and the BPO industry also committed to hire 58,000 of these trainees, as well as to recruit and train faculty members from our SUCs,” he said.
Abad also announced that President Aquino has already gave them a directive to assure that before the end of 2014, the country should have been able to close the classroom gap in which the government is also bringing in the private sector to help build the needed classrooms.
“So, by next year, the target is for us to build 45,000 classrooms, which is far away from the average classroom of about six to 10,000 a year. The President also gave instructions to hire the corresponding requirements, in terms of teachers, textbooks, and other school facilities,” Abad said. (PIA / by Lito Dar)
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