Education crisis looms

UNDP blames falling enrolment, shortages 
 
The Philippines may face an “education crisis” because of falling enrolment as well as shortages in classrooms, books and teachers amid the government’s tight fiscal situation, experts warned Wednesday during the launching of a UN report.

To make matters worse, the UN report also said the Philippines was wasting millions of pesos on salaries for “excess” government.

In a forum on Wednesday, Solita Monsod, founding president of Human Development Network and economics professor at the University of the Philippines, said the weak basic education enrolment was an indication of an “education crisis.” The network wrote the report that was commissioned by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Based on the Philippine Human Development Report 2008/2009, public elementary students enrolment dropped to 12.03 million between 2007 and 2008, from 12.08 million between 2006 and 2007.

For private elementary schools, enrolment stood at 1.09 million between 2007 and 2008, slightly higher from 1.03 million between 2006 and 2007.

For high school students, enrolment moved up slightly to 5.12 million in public schools and 1.33 million in private institutions.

Winfred Villamil, president of Economists Society of the Philippines, said the basic education enrolment hardly improved, staying steady at 91 percent between 2002 and 2004.

He added that the worrisome declines were observed in North Cotobato, Kalinga, Zamboanga del Norte, Tawi-Tawi and Davao Oriental—where enrolment dropped 10 percentage points or more.

UN lists shortages

The UN report, which was released at the same forum, said classroom shortages in the Philippines currently range from a few thousand to tens of thousands, depending on whether one assumes a single or double shift.

Teacher shortages could range from 9,000 to 30,000—depending on the assumed class size, the report added.

“The extent of textbooks shortages also varies, depending on whether textbooks for music, arts, and physical education are counted on top of books for the regular subjects English, Filipino, Mathematics, science and social studies. Shortages are driven by the level of public funding relative to the demand for services. The demand for services is in turn driven principally by rapid population growth,” according to the UN report.

“If the level of education budget does not increase quickly enough to meet the demands of our public schools, shortages are the inevitable result.”

From 1995 to 2008, the report added that the Department of Education’s share of the national budget was almost constant at 13 percent. In 2007, the department’s budget was P139.4 billion, up from P118.75 billion in 2006.

“On a per-student basis, however, investment was declining in real terms. Stagnant or falling real expenditures per students have been a recurrent problem and will likely to persist because of the government’s fiscal situation,” the report said.

Poverty worsens

The UP economist argued that the Arroyo administration was a “failure” in reducing poverty incidence in the Philippines.

“The GDP [gross domestic product] improved at a faster pace, but this did not reflect on incomes. It seems that the increasing income went to everybody else,” Monsod said.

In 2007, the economy, as measured by GDP expanded by 7.2 percent and 4.6 percent in 2008. GDP is the total cost of all goods and services produced in the country in a year.

“But in fairness to her [President Gloria Arroyo], the poverty increases started in 1997,” she added. Poverty incidence started in 1997, increasing from 25.2 percent to 26.4 percent in 2000. Between 2003 and 2006, poverty incidence rose 25.6 percent to 27 percent.

“Definitely, there’s no way that 10 million Filipinos will be out of poverty by 2015,” Monsod said. The year 2015 is the deadline for the so-called Millennium Development Goals that aim to eradicate extreme poverty worldwide.

Villamil said the average real per capita income of Filipinos have been declining with an of P24,727 in 2006 or about 10 percent lower than the estimate in 2003.

“Curiously, the national income accounts reported a steady positive growth in per capita GDP . . . indicating a disconnect between the behavior of the macro economy [its expansion] and per capita income levels.”

Meanwhile, Benguet topped the Human Development Index for 2008/2009 with a score of 0.787, followed by the provinces of Rizal, Cavite, Bataan, Laguna, Pampanga, Ilocos Norte, Batanes, Nueva Vizcaya and La Union.

The bottom 10 listed Sulu with the lowest index of 0.301, followed by the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) provinces of Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Basilan and Lanao del Sur.

The UNDP defines the Human Development Index as a summary measure of human development that seeks to measure the average achievement in a country in three basic dimensions—a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living.

Bloated bureaucracy

In the same report, the UN said 13 out of 24 departments had to many undersecretaries and assistant secretaries.

“A total of 222 incumbents are drawing salaries when only 131 is prescribed by law, executive order or administrative order,” according to the report, which added that of the 222 incumbents, 56 percent have no executive service eligibility.

The UN report refers to eligibility as the result of passing a merit and fitness test, such as that conducted by the Civil Service Commission and other institutions like the Professional Regulatory Commission, Career Executive Board and the Supreme Court.

The report added that assuming that a total of 81 incumbents were grossing P722,000 a year in salaries, allowances and discretionary funds, the government was paying out an excess of P58 million.

The report noted that the Office of the President has the most number of excess undersecretaries and assistant secretaries with 31 or 38 percent of the total number of incumbents. Of that number, 89 percent were “ineligible.”

The Department of National Defense followed with eight too many officials; Department of Agrarian Reform, seven; and five each for the Department of Justice, Department of Health, Department of Interior and Local Government, and Department of Affairs.

“An increase in appointments of presidential consultants or advisers was observed in 2002 after a series of declines, beginning in 1994, which overlapped the [Fidel] Ramos, [Joseph] Estrada and the first part of the Arroyo Administration,” the report said.

Two problems were pointed out by the study, first the residual powers of the president and the creation of the ad hoc bodies.

The residual powers of the President state, “When the law does not stipulate the appointing authority, that power is presumed to rest with the president.”

The study said the Civil Service Commission could not veto a presidential decision if the subject was a presidential appointee. And a career civil servant does not have security of tenure.

The study also stated that the creation of ad hoc bodies and the appointment of consultants and advisers was a practice that creates pecuniary gains.

The UN report cited the National Broadband Network project awarded—but later scuttled—to the Chinese firm ZTE Corp. as a model to further explain the practice. If the deal were pursued, the project cost would have bloated to $330 million from the original $130 million.

Consultants of the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) informally evaluated the project, a job that was originally reserved to the technical bodies of the Investment Coordinating Council.

Special consultants were hired by the head of the agency despite having whole technical plantilla or organizational structure at his or her command.

“It stands to reason that the same access and liberties are likely given to consultants appointed by the head of state,” the study added.

Between 2001 and 2003, Presidential Commission on Effective Governance regulates the number of agencies created, but the agency ceased to exist in 2004. — Darwin G. Amojelar With Michaela Sarah De Leon, Manila Times