Name: Donnavel Rosales

Reflection Paper – Social Group

The group focused their development sector on a plan in improving school and learning
outcomes. The Ambisyon Natin 2040 is envisioned to raise the living aspirations of most
Filipinos. However, there are still several gaps in terms of accessibility and quality of
services as well as providing quality education to Filipinos.

As observed, the enrollment rate increased during the previous administration but this
resulted in a compromised quality of education due to an imbalanced student-teacher ratio
and lack of learning facilities. Some of the development issues raised during the group’s
discussion were the lack of qualified trainers, lack of tools, facilities, and equipment, job
mismatch, and lack of competency skills of educators. These are not only applicable in
Zamboanga Peninsula but also in the other parts of the country.

Based on the 2017 GAA, the allocated budget for education in the Philippines is at Php 637
billion. The Department of Education received the highest among all government agencies
but why can’t the government afford to streamline the free college education bill?

Giving free education to all Filipinos would definitely cost millions or even billions and
maybe the government is not yet ready or prepared to take the risk. However, if our goal is to
make every Filipino functionally literate and achieve a high level of productivity and
competitiveness, I firmly believe that the cost would just be worth the risk. Solving the
problems in education may be hard but lifelong learning is the key to attaining both personal
and national goals.