DepEd asks President-elect Aquino for increased budget in 2011

The Department of Education (DepEd) on Thursday asked president-elect Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino 3rd to provide as much 4 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2011 to address the most pressing problems in education, the Philippine News Agency reported.

“If the incoming administration wants to eliminate the backlog such as in classrooms and teachers, the budget we will present for next year will be able to address,” Education undersecretary for Finance and Administration Manaros Boransing said.

In asking for the “zero backlog” budget for next year, Boransing said the department would then be able to resolve such problems as the perennial shortage of classrooms, teachers and other facilities to cope with the annual increase in enrollment.

He added that such an increase, though not as comparable with neighboring countries in the region will do a lot to improve the delivery of education in the country, which he said is in “crisis” despite the efforts of the department.

He said that currently, the national government is allocating only 2 percent of the country’s GDP to the education sector, a far cry from the 6 percent as called for by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).

Boransing said aside from these shortages, the Education department is also confronted by the problem in the participation rate adding that in the last two years, the participation rate in the elementary and secondary level stood at 85 and 61 percent respectively.

“This shows that 15 percent are not enrolled in the elementary level and close to 40 percent in the secondary level,” Boran-sing said in describing the current education crisis.

Earlier, Education assistant secretary and spokesman, Jonathan Malaya, said they would be seeking a 105 percent budget increase in 2011 compared to this year’s allocation.

This year, the department was allocated P172.84 billion, P1 billion lower than the previous year’s P174 billion. Of this amount, P141 billion goes to personnel services, P22 billion to the maintenance and operating expenses and P12 billion to capital outlay.

It originally requested a budget of more than P190 billion to plug shortages in classrooms, teachers, textbooks and other equipment.

The Education department aims to cut the dropout rate in the country’s more than 44, 000 public schools to 9 percent this school year. The 2010 target reflects a consistent decline from the 8.35-percent drop out in school year 2006 to 2007 and 7.45 percent in 2007 to 2008.

In school year 2009-2010, the department said there is an increase in the participation rates in the elementary from 85.1 percent in school year 2008 to 2009 to 86.5 percent in that school year, while in the secondary level, the rates have also saw a marked increase from 60.7 percent in school year 2008 to 2009 to 65.8 percent in school year 2009 to 2010.

Education experts have pointed out that out of 100 students, only 66 will finish elementary education, 42 will finish high school, and only 25 will go to college.

To ensure the maximum num-ber of enrollees, the department has ordered principals and teachers to accept enrollees with incomplete documents.

Antonio Tinio, national chairman of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers said the Education department is facing a shortage of 54,060 teachers, 4,538 principals, and 6,473 head teachers; 61,343 classrooms, 816,291 seats, and 113,051 water and sanitation facilities this school year.

It will also need some P400 million to address the textbook shortage adding that to resolve these myriad of problems, the government needs to boost the department’s budget by as much as P91 billion. –Manila Times