Education in the Philippines

The UN has three main goals for Global Education First Initiative. Every child attends school,

Quality of learning must be up to a certain standard to truly benefit children, and by doing this

we should Foster Global Citizenship. These goals are being actively worked towards and results

are being seen in the Philippines. However, there is still a large disparity in terms of education

quality and access for different areas of the country. By highlighting both the great strives made

and the drawbacks of working to achieve these goals for education in the Philippines, I hope to

give a clear picture of the situation.

Before WWI, the Philippines was at 20% in terms of literacy of the people living there. That

changed with the influence of the US and radically changed the education system by making

Literacy one of the main goals. Various policy reforms and programs within schools such as

access to libraries for children and mother tonguebased multilingual education (Cristobal

2015), which is used to

help reaffirm home

language learning skills

to learn a second

language; laws that make

kindergarten a

requirement and

establishment of schools
Figure 1: The graph above shows the steady decline in enrollment rates starting from
the early 2000s onward, this marks the beginning of the reforms towards reaching the
in rural areas. All of these first two goals of GEFI.

have worked towards raising the standard of education and the rate of literacy, By 2000,
organizations inside and outside of the Philippines measured youth literacy rates between 95%

and 96.6% (Cristobal, 2015).

Following this however, there has been a decrease in

both access and completion of school for many

students from Elementary to High school in recent

years. This shows us that simply having schools is not

enough, there must be equal access and opportunity to

learn for everyone for the first two goals of the GEFI

to even be achieved. To combat these issues a number

of school reforms are taking place, one in particular

being the change from a 10 year program to a 13 year

Figure 2: This chart explains the new way in which
the Filipino School system will work in hopes of program (Fig 1). This change hopes to decrease the
decreasing drop out rates.
high dropout rates and create students that are better

prepared for the school system, as students that feel underprepared tend to have a harder time

moving forward. There is a bit a backlash to these large changes similar to that with Common

Core here in America. Many parents, teachers, and school officials worry that these ambitious

changes will come with burdensome finical repercussions that will only add to the difficulties in

getting their child an education, according to an article in International Literacy Daily.

Establishing a sense of Global Citizenship is another top priority that is also being addressed

in terms of school curriculum. According to an article in World Education News & Reviews,

curriculum for Filipino Secondary schools is as follows: Communication arts (English and

Filipino), social studies (including anthropology, Philippine history and government, economics,

geography and sociology), mathematics, science and technology, youth development training
(including physical education, health education, music and citizen army training), practical

arts (including home economics, agriculture & fisheries, industrial arts, and

entrepreneurship), values education and some electives including both academic and

vocational subjects. This wide range of subjects gives every students the chance to find

something they can enjoy and truly learn about, the bolded subjects are those that can especially

lead to global thinking and creating aware and well-rounded citizens.

Overall, the Philippines is working to make strides in reforming its education system. There

are obvious problems such as the difference in education quality from area to area or the

backlash from sudden reforms and the worries that change brings but overall we leave this on a

positive note. Literacy is higher than ever in the Philippines, higher education is important many

students study home or aboard which creates so many opportunities for them either way. There is

still a long road ahead of us but the fact that there have been such efforts already in educating the

Philippines shows us that things are looking up.

 References

Clark, N. (2015, July). Education in the Philippines. Retrieved July 29, 2017, from
http://wenr.wes.org/2015/06/education-philippines
Citation for both information and infographic images (Fig 2)

Cristobal, L. (2015, August 6). Literacy in the Philippines: The Stories Behind the Numbers.
Retrieved July 29, 2017, from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-
daily/2015/08/06/literacy-in-the-philippines-the-stories-behind-the-numbers

Drop Out Rates in the Philippines. (n.d.). Retrieved July 29, 2017, from
http://www.investphilippines.info/arangkada/climate/education/