Saint Louis College

City of San Fernando (La Union)

SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDIES
Master of Arts in Education
Educ 226 – Current Issues and Problems of Education
Second Term, School Year 2021-2022

Names: Siegfred O. Poyaoan Professor: Dr. Danilo D. Romero

Reading 1.2: Analysis and Reflection on Philippine Crisis on Education

COVID-19: A Factor That Worsens the Philippine Education Crisis

The Philippine Education System has already been battling and coping a lot of issues even
before the COVID-19 struck and caused challenges to the Filipinos. It might have just been worsened
by the pandemic as what it has been doing to the current state of the country. Students, schools,
colleges, and universities have been deeply impacted. According to UNESCO, over 800 million learners
around the world have been affected, 1 in 5 students cannot attend school, 1 in 4 cannot attend in
higher education classes, and many countries have ordered school closure. As a result, distance
learning modes via the internet or printed materials were ordered which bring another issue in the
current system. The associated consequences of the school closures are learning loss, mental distress,
missed vaccinations, and heightened risk of drop out, child labor, and child marriage which are
evidently true at present time. Secretary Briones has always reminded us that in the past when there
were military sieges or calamities, learning continued but has it this time? Yes, it is, technically but when
we look into the wider perspective, as an educator, the prolonged closure of schools and distance
learning can impact the learners’ future. Without the resumption of classes, there are fears of a lost
generation. It is also critical in the children’s economic potential and productivity in adulthood, thus
undermining the country’s competitiveness. The crisis in education is something that needs a solution
because if it is not solved, the country’s future will suffer. The issue, in the end, will boil down to the idea
of “how did we get here and what we can do about it.” We need to ask ourselves; do we have good
quality education in our country? When we hear the phrase “the state of education in the Philippines”,
it can be best believed that a lot of people would say that the quality of education in the Philippines
is not as good as it should be. Now, it is best to go back to the roots of full-grown branches of
skyrocketing issues, what put us into this ‘catastrophe’?

As fresh as the issue on distance learning, using blended learning programs, the new learning
pathways rely now on students and teachers having access to the internet. But how can this be
possible when students do not have the digital tools to make learning worthwhile? It’s still vivid to me
when I went home in our hometown, while I was waiting on queue in a grocery store, I overheard a
parent who is a farmer when he asked the seller to lend him a smart load for his son’s online class. To
convince the seller, he insisted that he’ll pay it when he gets his salary for the whole week service in
the field. This was disheartening because we can see that online distance learning is not favorable to
the households having limited income or least economic means. Indeed, it’s clear that there is a class
divide between rich and poor students in the country.

Furthermore, crisis in our education system can be seen in the results of international assessments
that we have been participating for years. Recently, there was a report about an issue on World Bank
not following protocol in releasing a report on the Philippines’ poor state of education based on the
three international assessments our country participated which the data are claimed to be outdated
 Saint Louis College
City of San Fernando (La Union)
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDIES
Master of Arts in Education
Educ 226 – Current Issues and Problems of Education
Second Term, School Year 2021-2022

by the DepEd. The issue made me realized that more than thinking of how an issue will reflect its
concern subject, it is more important to appreciate how this issue points out our shortcomings and
clarify where we lack something that might be our driving force to take actions. The World Bank might
have not followed the protocol of not giving prior knowledge to the DepEd regarding the release of
data but it is more alarming to learn that the education in our country is failing our children. The World
Bank Report must not be claimed as outdated because the result was from the assessment in 2018 and
2019. The crisis was a result of many factors based on the analysis made about the report. (1) One is
economic status. It was found out that richer students perform better than the unfortunate ones. (2)
Our students lack proper nutrition and support at home. When students go to school, they have to be
prepared but apparently, they’re not whether physically or intellectually. They also lack learning
resources so they don’t study what they should get to study. (3) Bullying is prevalent in Philippine
schools. 45% of Grade 4 pupils experienced weekly bullying compared to the 8% world average (TIMSS,
2019). 40% of 15-year-old students were frequently bullied compared to the 8% world average (PISA,
2018). And 22% percent of Grade 5 students do not feel safe at school compared to the 13% world
average (SEA-PLM, 2019). It is heartbreaking that one of the places that students should feel safe is not
conducive anymore. It affected the morale and self-esteem of the pupils. (4) Another fact is that the
government is not spending enough on education. According to the Sustainable Development Goals
set forth by the United Nations, a country should be spending at least 4% or an average of 5% of its
GDP in the education sector but sadly, the Philippines spent 3.2% as of 2019. If we are going to take a
look at the current set of our budget, it is evident that the education sector is one getting the highest
amount of chunk in the National Budget. It is true that the budget for education has gone up but still
not enough because we’re under 4% which is the bare minimum of what we should be spending. (5)
Another is that we spend the greatest number of hours of class time compared to other countries but
yet we’re dead last in Science. Spending so much time in the classroom won’t necessarily translate to
higher assessment scores, it can be counterproductive. (6) Lastly, most Filipino students do not have a
growth mindset. Only 31% of students believe that they can do better when the global average is 63%.
It is also seen in our culture as “smart-shaming”. A lot of students when they see someone excelling,
they call him names like a nerd, “four-eyes”, and the like. This is related to the bullying report. These are
the crucial factors why Filipino students barely meet the minimum standards of education. This issue
can’t be just overlooked, the government must do something.

In addition to that, one crisis that the Philippine education struggles to cope with is budget. We
know that nothing’s going to happen without support. The country remains to have one of the lowest
budget allotments to learning among ASEAN countries. Why are we really in crisis? It is sad to know that
in 2020, spending on education was 13.5% of the government national budget lower than what was
spent in 2017 which is 17% where the ideal percentage should be 20%. Our national budget is heavily
skewed towards other sectors particularly the defense department that results in a lack of budget in
the health and education sectors. Even the education sector has one of the biggest allocations of
budget, it was going down in the past few years which is seen in our lack of facilities and teacher
support. Also, teachers are not compensated enough. Not to discredit the yearly salary increase of
public-school teachers but compared to other countries, their teachers were valued by giving them
 Saint Louis College
City of San Fernando (La Union)
SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDIES
Master of Arts in Education
Educ 226 – Current Issues and Problems of Education
Second Term, School Year 2021-2022

proper compensation. The World Bank was right. The pandemic has aggravated the learning crisis that
we have. So, what can be done about the learning crisis? A lot of these would bear on the hands of
the government. The budget has to be raised, there must be proper allocation that the teachers
desperately needed, teachers’ wages should be raised and get more support and most importantly,
students should learn in a safe and holistic environment and be provided with proper nutrition. Apart
from these, other concerns should be addressed like getting more people to be vaccinated. Now,
UNICEF urges governments to reopen schools for in-person learning as soon as possible, and to provide
a comprehensive recovery response for students. Together with the World Bank and UNESCO, UNICEF is
calling for governments to focus on three key priorities for recovery in schools: (a) to bring all children
and youth back in school to meet their needs for their holistic well-being; (b) effective remedial learning
to help students catch up on lost learning; and (c) to support teachers to addresses learning gaps and
losses.

Having mentioned all those crises in our education system, some essential contributing factors
to our problems are the growing rate of out-of-school-youth (OSY) due to the pandemic and the
mismatch of training and actual jobs resulting to a large number of jobless or underpaid people. All
the mentioned challenges add to the big picture of the growing and alarming concerns in our country.
If we cannot address all these concerns, there is very little hope for our education to be better than it
was before. If we want to an education that that promotes cultural diversity; is free from bias; offers a
safe space and respect for human rights; and forms traits, skills, and talent among others, we need to
call out our leaders because it is high time that we give our education sector the priority it deserves. At
the end of the day, the government should realize that “Given the essential role they play, addressing
the learning crisis requires supporting teachers, who are the single most important driver of how much
students learn in school", said Jaime Saavedra (Senior Director, Education Global Practice, World
Bank).