Executive Summary
Education is an indispensable requirement for a person's well-being. Insufficient or poor education
deprives a person of the means of doing and becoming.
The Philippines has always taken pride in its achievements in education, particularly its high
adult literacy rate and high enrollment rate. Ironically, such high achievements in education are not
translated into higher levels of development. The disparity stems from the unequal access to, low quality
and marginal relevance of basic education in the Philippines.
Improving access to education has always been the focus of government's policy interventions, to the
exclusion of other concerns. The government is hard pressed to keep up with the rapid growth of the
country's school-age population, and the high public elementary and secondary enrollment rates. The
concern for universal access required budget cuts that led to the deterioration of the quality education.
Poor quality of education is evident in the low scores obtained by Filipino students in standard
tests at the national and international levels. Results of the nationally-administered National Elementary
Achievement Test and National Secondary Achievement Test showed that students gave correct answers
to less than 50 percent of the questions. The Philippines also performed poorly in the Third
International Mathematics and Science Test, ranking second from the bottom in the mathematics
category and third from the bottom in the science category.
The quality deficit is mainly attributed to the inadequate budget for education. As of 1997, the
national education budget was only about four percent of the Gross National Product
(see Table 3.6 ).
Expenditure per pupil in 1996 was P1,396 (1985 prices), way below national and international standards.
In addition to this, schools' pattern of spending was skewed in favor of personnel services (salaries
and other forms of compensation) at the expense of capital outlays (school buildings and school facilities)
and the maintenance and other operating expenses (textbooks, library, laboratory supplies).
Also contributing to the low quality of education is the dearth of highly competent teachers who are
the students' primary source of learning in the absence of books and other learning materials. There are
few institutions that offer high quality education in core courses like language, math and science.
Inadequate preparation of teachers is evident in the teachers' dismal performance in the Professional Board Exam
for Teachers.
Apart from quality, relevance is also a problem in Philippine education. Most of what children learn in
school are not applicable in their daily lives. Curriculum is overloaded and does not accommodate regional
and cultural differences, leading to lack of focus and rote memorization. Language remains an issue. While
the government has made an effort to indigenize knowledge through the use of Filipino as the medium of
instruction, this is unsupported by qualified teachers and good teaching materials. Coupled with the
deteriorating quality of English teaching, the situation has resulted in semilingualism and mediocrity.
The old debate on whether to use local languages or English in schools has also been resurrected in the
light of the challenges presented by globalization.
Households spent 3.7 percent of their income on education in 1997. This is an improvement over the 1988
level of 2.9 percent. As might be expected, this varies by level of family income. The proportion spent on
education rises with family incomes (see Figure 3.4). With 32 percent of the families below the poverty
threshold (per capita poverty threshold in 1997 ranged from P14,360 in the National Capital Region to P8,000
in Central Visayas ), many families spent less than one percent of their income on education. Assistance to
students at the secondary level is provided mainly under the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers
in Private Education (GATSPE) program. This consists of two schemes: the Education Service Contract (to enable
students to enroll in private schools where no public schools exist or where there is excess enrollment in
public schools) and Tuition Fee Subsidy (to help families cover tuition fees in private schools) . However,
both proved ineffective in helping poor students because the amounts provided are too low to bring the cost of
secondary education within the reach of the poor.
Present efforts of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) are geared towards expanding access
to basic education and enhancing skills of teachers. Apart from the construction of more school buildings, the
DECS is studying the feasibility of using year-round calendar to enable the schools to take in 20-25 percent
more students, and optimize the use of school facilities; recruiting construction firms to build school buildings
under the build-operate-transfer scheme or lease/purchase agreement; opening nursery schools, kindergarten,
pre-schools and day-care centers at government expense; and adding a pre-university year to brush up students'
skills in language and mathematics. DECS also plans to improve the skills of both elementary and secondary
school teachers (particularly Grade V and VI teachers) by providing scholarships for higher education and
training programs. Long-term plans include reforms in teacher education.
The rationalization of the education budget is needed to properly address the issues of educational quality
and relevance. Priority must be shifted from personnel services to capital outlays and maintenance and other
operating expenses (MOOE). One way to attain savings in MOOE is to cut down on the number of textbooks
required, and to concentrate on procuring quality instructional materials. Investment in information
technology is also practical as it not only serves as an effective teaching method, it has also a much wider
reach than traditional teaching techniques. There is also a need to make education more accountable to parents,
communities and local governments. This will pave the way for common projects such as fund-raising for the
improvement of school facilities, and development of quality and relevant curriculum. Greater collaboration
must be undertaken by the DECS and local authorities on technical academic reforms, particularly those
pertaining to the curriculum and policy on language instruction.
(The 2000 PHDR was adjudged by the UNDP Human Development Report Office as the best national human development
report in the Asia-Pacific Region for the period 1999-2000 along with the China report. The UNDP cited the
Philippine report for its excellent use of human development tools, presentation and design, and participatory
approach and policy impact. For a complete listing of awardees, please view
http://www.undp.org/hdro/highlights/nhdr.htm)
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The Human Development Index
HDI and GDP per Capita Through Time Figure 4.1
National Human Development Index Table 4.2
Top and Bottom Ten Provinces in HDI Table 4.11
