MANILA — The Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) on Wednesday said the state of education nationwide has progressed in terms of accessibility but still has a long way to go when it comes to delivery of quality learning for the success of every learner.
“We have not done so well in some aspects of education ensuring, in particular, that learning happens in the classroom and that graduates are job ready,” PBEd chair Ramon del Rosario said in a press briefing.
Founded in 2006, PBEd is an advocacy group which conducts an annual assessment of the Philippine educational system to ensure it provides quality learning in the context of global economy.
Del Rosario explained that “more Filipinos are getting educated” as the government continues to invest in education but such progress has not translated into actual learning in the classroom and the labor market.
PBEd executive director Love Basillote said this can be attributed to many factors such as prevalence of malnutrition and lack of appropriate learning tools.
“Our children are not ready to learn, students have low listening comprehension and reading comprehension skills and they have stagnated learning resulting to downtrend scores in achievement tests,” she said.
Basillote added that many college graduates are not work-ready due to lack of socio-emotional skills.
“Our recommendation is we focus on learning by starting early, monitoring learning, raising accountability and aligning actors,” she said.
Basillote suggested that the country must participate consistently in international learning assessments to make Filipino learners and graduates globally competitive.
“Starting with PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 2018 and the 2019 TIMMS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and internally, consistently conduct the NAT (National Achievement Test), release the scores in a timely manner for diagnostic purposes,” she said.
To ensure that qualified professionals are deployed in the classrooms, Basillote suggested for the immediate release of licensure exam questions for teachers for quality assurance.
“Just to define if it’s really a good screening mechanism to differentiate between those who are really ready to teach in the classroom and those who might need additional training,” she said.
Basillote said PBEd’s studies on teacher education programs revealed that many programs have been underperforming in the past 10 years so they have requested the government to close them down. (Ma. Teresa Montemayor/PNA)
