A newly-organized education reform group on Monday called for an “Education President” who will improve the current state of the country’s education system.

Composed of various education-related reform groups, Education Nation aims to form “a broad-based constituency composed of parents, associations, businesses, teachers, and various civic groups” who will demand “genuine Education Agenda” from an education president.

 “We need to talk seriously about education, because the government has not really sat down and started discussing the current education situation,” Butch Hernandez, executive director of the Foundation for Worldwide People Power, told journalists.

The forum is the first in a series of agenda workshops that will be organized by the group so they can come up with specific reforms on education governance and financing, basic and higher education, teacher quality and welfare, and alternative learning.

By November, Education Nation plans to release strategic education reforms and a list of aspirants who will commit to their agenda of improving the educational system.

Chito Salazar, president of Philippine Business for Education, clarified that although the group is batting for an education president, they will not endorse a specific candidate for the elections.

Measuring education

According to Mike Luz, executive vice-president of the National Institute for Policy Studies, the group will produce a report card to measure the performance of each division of the Department of Education (DepEd).
 
“It will not be a rating of DepEd but a rating of the institution itself,” he clarified during the forum.

Though the group has yet to finalize the report card, it will hopefully revolve around the participation, survival, and the achievements of students, not just at a national but also at the local level.

Luz added these will be important in adopting a framework that could improve the basic education system.

Current state of education

Since 1995, the participation rates of students in both basic and secondary have fallen. The current participation rate, or the rate of students who enroll in school, dropped from 90.10% in 2001 to 84.84% in 2009.

Luz said the primary reason in the decline in student enrollment is because parents have been delaying the education of their children due to health problems.

He also added that of the students who enter grade school at the age of seven, most of them drop out of school when they reach Grade 5.

“If you keep students from Grade 1 until Grade 4, there is a bigger chance that they will stay in school,” Luz added.

Recent data also showed that girls have a higher survival rate than boys. According to Luz, the number of boys (84.8%) and girls (88.4%) who enter Grade 2 are almost the same, but when they reach Grade 4, the boys’ population declines to 77.6% and the girls to 84.2%. When they graduate in Grade 6, the boys’ population is only 70.0% while the girls' is at 80.5%, leaving a big 10.5% difference in numbers.

The survival difference is also the same in senior high school students. “This means that girls are more likely to enter and finish college, get better work, and better pay,” Luz explained.

Luz also correlated the data with increasing instances of domestic violence in the Philippines. “If you look at the usual profile of domestic violence in the country, the woman earns better than the husband.”

Adding two more years

The group also floated the idea of adding two more years to the current 10-year basic education curriculum in order to further develop students’ skills.

According to Hernandez, the current cycle does not allow enough time for students to learn and master basic education skills that are necessary for employment.

In a 10-year education system, students usually finish high school at the age of 16, an age that does not qualify them for professional employment. “Consider the cost of an unemployable graduate. Sayang lang, you wasted your money.”

Vicente Fabella, president of the Jose Rizal University quoted a study conducted by the People Management Association of the Philippines in stating the importance of basic education.

Basic skills

According to the study, among the reasons graduates do not pass their first interviews is because they lack these skills: 1) Communication, 2) Critical thinking and Analysis, and 3) Initiative.

“No one talked about the technical skills yet. If you notice, those are the things you learn in high school, grade school, and if you’re fortunate, in the first two years of college,” Fabella said. “So it is very important that we focus on improving basic education.”

Ramon del Rosario, chair of the Philippine Business Education, explained that adding two more years in basic education will improve the quality of employees.

Del Rosario also added that there are jobs that do not really require college degrees such as clerical and security jobs.  “We have to overspecify the basic requirements because the quality of education is poor,” Del Rosario said.