CHALK DUST: A DISCOURSE ON THE STATUS OF THE PHILIPPINE EDUCATION SYSTEM By Eugenio, Ivan Ignatius Miraflor, James Matthew Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the course, Statistics 130 (Non-parametric Data Analysis) Laboratory April 04, 2005

Introduction In any developing nation, one of the biggest components of the enabling environment

for industrial growth and capital expansion is the general educational state of the people. The concept is not alien at all to the civilized world. In fact, most liberal democracies often allocate a huge amount of its budget for the education and training of its citizens.

The Philippines is not an exemption. A huge portion of the budget allocation goes to the

education sector, especially in elementary and secondary public schools. It has been stipulated by the Philippine constitution that education should remain to be the country’s top priority. With such prioritization, one can only imagine the Philippine education sector as the most dynamic and developed sector in the country.

The quality of education in the Philippines, however, seems to prove otherwise. Despite

having considerable figures for literacy rate and other benchmarks, the popular notion is that the functional literacy of the people still lags behind. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear comments, surveys, news, indexes and competition results showing that the Philippines is not doing well in aspects like training its citizens in mathematics, natural sciences or even in some technical skills.

Whether such claims of lack of quality in the Philippine Education Sector are true or not

then just depend on a number of factors. First factor is number of graduates produced by the educational institutions, primarily the tertiary level institutions that produce the workforce. If the input is considerably higher than the output, i.e. the number of graduates is higher than the enrollees; it just clearly shows that the drop-out rate is high. This implies three things – (1) either the standards of the schools is very high and/or their resources is very limited, (2) the quality of the students produced by the secondary level of education is very low, or (3) the students do not have the necessary means to sustain their education. Either way, the problem boils down on the seemingly of lack quality of education which may have been the result of the lack of resources of both parties.

Second factor, is how the government distributes the resources allocated for education.

The second factor is directly linked to the first one by saying that the deficiency of the tertiary education may have been caused by allocating more the scarce educational resources to the elementary and secondary education. The question here is where the government should allocate more now given the present socio-economic demands. Which option would give the country a better chance to survive its fiscal and social crises?

The third and most ambiguous factor is the relevance of education itself in the lives of

the Filipino people? Given the quality and accessibility of education, and the availability of work afterwards, is it still necessary to send children to school? Here, what will be investigated is whether current government actions is mitigating the gap between the new jobs created and workers produced or not.

These three factors will determine whether the real status of the Philippine educational

sector. It is thus the objective of this paper to explore these matters more thoroughly through quantitative and qualitative analysis of both data and legislative measures, of both student statistics and the factors which affects it, and of both trends and their causes.

It is hoped that this investigation will lead to further inquiries on the matter, and with

those inquiries will come an exhaustive search for solutions for problems or rectification of the better aspects of education.

Background

The Philippines has long been a leader in the region with respect to achievements in

education. By 1970, the Philippines had achieved universal primary enrollment. By 1995, it was ranked one of the most-schooled nations in Asia, after Brunei and Korea.

These successes, however, mask a long-term deterioration in access and quality, and the

national figures obscure wide regional differences. Nationally, two-thirds of children in primary school fail to complete the cycle, but this varies widely from region to region. In Manila, close to 100 percent of students finish primary school, whereas in Mindanao and Eastern Visayas less than 30 percent of students finish. A recent study showed that scores for Filipino children between 9 and 14 in math, science and reading were two standard deviations below the international mean. Not surprisingly, urban/rural differences were especially pronounced.

For many years, the Philippines failed to capture the benefits of education – productivity growth, poverty reduction, and social development. Slow-growth and import-substitution policies failed to generate jobs, and 4 million Filipinos went abroad. The new emphasis on export-led growth, however, has increased the demand for skilled labor, and exposed the deteriorating quality of education.

Apart from the regional disparities, the school system is socially regressive. Children

from poor families have little choice but to go to the public schools. Wealthier families send their children to private schools, where the quality tends to be better than in the public system. Furthermore, parents must contribute one-third of the costs of their child’s education, which is proportionately a greater burden on poorer households.

The main challenge facing the education system in the Philippines will be to redress these inequities between regions and between income levels. This will require improving the readiness of poor children for school, redressing inequities in access to textbooks, and experienced teachers, repairing the physical plant of the school system. The Government has already begun implementing a decentralization program, which is intended to redress these inequities, in part, by leveraging more resources for the education sector. Additional resources, from the private sector, or wealthier local government units, would free up existing government resources to be targeted to the poorer areas.

The Challenges of the Crisis

The economy is experiencing a slow-down due to the Asian financial crisis and El Niño. Growth in the first quarter of 1998 slowed to 2.5 percent, compared to 5.4 percent in the first quarter of 1997. The El Niño-induced drought may prevent a quick resumption of agricultural

production, and it is unclear how long the country will be able to rely upon export revenues from Japan and the United States.

The Philippines managed to avoid the early extreme effects of the crisis, unlike Indonesia or Thailand where the crisis hit almost without warning. So, despite the slowdown, the Government of the Philippines has been able to concentrate on medium-term strategy, and on cushioning the expected impact of the crisis on the poor while maintaining macroeconomic stability.

As economic growth slows, and even contracts, households will feel the impact of the crisis through reduced incomes, rising prices, and reduced government support for social programs. The long-term impact of the crisis on human capital will depend on how households cope with their reduced purchasing power and access to public services.

Inflation in June reached 9.9 percent, but local reports suggest that prices on key

commodities, such as food, had already doubled by the beginning of the year from their mid-1997 level. On the income side, wages are being reduced and regular workers are being replaced by lower paid and less secure contract workers. Unemployment in the National Capital Region (NCR) reached 15 percent, and the unemployed in the NCR account for roughly half the total number of unemployed nation-wide. There is evidence that informal sector earnings have also dropped, largely because of increased competition for fewer jobs. The fall in urban incomes is expected to spill over to the rural poor as remittances to rural households from relatives in urban areas decline.

The impact of the crisis on education, and the long-term impacts on the children, will

depend on how households cope with their falling purchasing power. Many households are curtailing food expenditures. To the extent that the children in these households are still going to school, the lack of proper nutrition can affect their attention span, learning ability, and ultimately, their school performance. Other households are pulling children out of school because the households can not afford the fees, or lunch money, or need the children to work at home or for money.

The challenge posed by the crisis to priorities in education will then depend on the

projected impact of the crisis and the specific coping mechanisms adopted by households.

Computations and Discussion of Results The first test actually explores whether there is a trend towards the decrease in the

number of ratio between enrollees and graduates. If such is the case, then we may be dealing with a declining rate of educated laborer production. As it has been said in the introduction, this implies three things, the standards of the schools is very high and/or their resources is very limited, the quality of the students produced by the secondary level of education is very low that they do not survive college, or the students do not have the necessary means to sustain their college education, which means that college education is expensive (which may have been an offshoot of the first implication, given that the resources of schools are very limited).

The data below have been taken from PM’s RP education primer:

Enrollment by Discipline Group and Academic Year (1994-2000) Discipline Group 1994-1995 1995-1996 1996-1997 1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000

General 113,286 110,175 107,351 108,941 105,467 122,183

Education and Teacher Training

236,464 278,443 301,148 316,293 307,311 453,856

Fine and Applied Arts 8,266 9,168 10,922 9,394 10,689 7,669

Humanities 6,105 8,484 14,014 9,227 12,558 10,812

Religion and Theology 7,713 8,392 8,397 7,079 8,971 7,130

Social and Behavioral Science

27,158 35,044 41,873 34,735 43,154 36,754

Business Administration and Related

545,982 593,402 615,817 620,681 687,253 793,884

Law and Jurisprudence 14,950 14,248 15,892 16,481 16,009 18,374

Natural Science 18,475 24,400 23,031 21,914 24,483 22,872

Math and Information Technology

97,853 130,859 153,505 166,329 183,267 211,306

Medical and Allied 274,941 240,075 200,122 164,784 179,625 188,215

Trade Craft and Industrial 195 399 273 2,519 1,512 6,523

Engineering 287,821 295,172 305,843 299,226 309,950 335,484

Architectural and Town Planning

21,665 23,066 22,268 23,901 24,172 25,251

Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Veterinary Medicine

59,400 68,760 71,228 64,760 73,869 76,511

Home Economics 2,577 5,106 4,826 5,562 5,684 6,929

Service Trades 7,134 6,883 8,169 7,666 8,757 7,410

Mass Communication and Documentation

10,613 14,602 12,004 12,445 14,572 14,381

Other Disciplines 131,048 151,294 144,617 176,028 190,285 190,070

Total 1,871,646

2,017,972

2,061,300

2,067,965

2,207,588

2,535,614

Table 1.0 - Enrollment by Discipline Group and Academic Year (1994-2000)

Source: Partido ng Manggagawa – The State of Philippine Education: A Primer on RP Educational System Number of Graduates by Discipline Group and Academic Year (1994-2000)

Discipline Group 1994-1995 1995-1996 1996-1997 1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000 General 13370 16905 17163 15292 14973 18090 Education and Teacher Training

43674 45545 42197 42325 41741 49073

Fine and Applied Arts 655 717 2482 1735 1924 2658

Humanities 507 1198 2809 2181 2505 3124 Religion and Theology 1088 1266 2707 2074 2249 2726

Social and Behavioral 2703 5392 7603 6814 7600 8532

Science

Business Administration and Related

85781 96665 90942 97861 102633 100098

Law and Jurisprudence 2111 2206 3219 2665 2742 3293

Natural Science 2134 3791 5835 4805 5220 6466 Math and Information Technology

21338 19494 25055 27636 31144 26888

Medical and Allied 49802 47483 36206 40501 37966 38003

Trade Craft and Industrial 14 71 3817 2215 2627 3965

Engineering 46090 38919 40639 39586 38251 44718 Architectural and Town Planning

1947 1599 1811 1626 1499 1956

Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Veterinary Medicine

12178 15633 11861 14734 15679 15373

Home Economics 362 977 2396 1722 1942 2823

Service Trades 626 761 1906 1355 1468 2150 Mass Communication and Documentation

937 1818 4148 3213 3642 4777

Other Disciplines 27350 27680 32461 34211 37022 35815

Total 312,667 328,120 335,257 342,551 352,827 370,528

Table 1.1 - Number of Graduates by Discipline Group and Academic Year (1994-2000) Source: Partido ng Manggagawa – The State of Philippine Education: A Primer on RP Educational System

We then derive from the former tables the table below:

1994-1995 1995-1996 1996-1997 1997-1998 1998-1999 1999-2000 Total Graduates 312,667 328,120 335,257 342,551 352,827 370,528

Total Enrolled 1,871,646 2,017,972 2,061,300 2,067,965 2,207,588 2,535,614

Ratio 0.167054561 0.162598886 0.162643477 0.165646421 0.159824659 0.146129498

Table 1.2 – Ratio of Number of Graduates and the Total Enrolled

Ratio of Number of Graduates and the Total Enrolled versus Year

0.1350.14

0.1450.15

0.1550.16

0.1650.17

1994-1995

1995-1996

1996-1997

1997-1998

1998-1999

1999-2000

Year

Ratio

of N

umbe

r of

Gra

duat

es a

nd th

e To

tal

Enro

lled

Ratio

Chart 1.0 – Ratio of Number of Graduates and the Total Enrolled It is obvious from the Chart 1.0 that there is a downward trend, though we still need to

analyze the data through a statistical test if the trend is significant using Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient Test, which is a non-parametric test for association.

Year (Xi) Ratio (Yi) R(Xi) R(Yi) Di = R(Xi) - R(Yi) Di2

1994 0.1670546 1 6 -5 25 1995 0.1625989 2 3 -1 1 1996 0.1626435 3 4 -1 1 1997 0.1656464 4 5 -1 1 1998 0.1598247 5 2 3 9 1999 0.1461295 6 1 5 25

Total (D) 62

Table 1.3 – Computations for Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient Test

Ho : Ratio and year are independent (no trend exists).

Ha : Ratio and year are directly related (trend exists).

α : .05 (right-tailed)

Test Statistic : n = 6, D=62

rs = 1-6D/(n (n2-1)), D sum of square of ranks

rs = 1-6(62)/(6(35))

rs = -0.771428571428571

Critical Region

: Reject if: (rs > rs*)

rs* = 0.7714

Decision : Do not reject Ho (-0.7714<0.7714).

Conclusion : Ratio and year are independent (no trend exists).

Interpretation

This means that there is no significant correlation between the year and the ratio of graduates and enrollees. Thus, there is no significant decrease in the ratio even if our chart says so. This implies that during the five-year interval, there has been no significant change in proportion of the input of students to the tertiary education and the output of the tertiary education to the workforce.

As we can see, however, the ratio remains significantly low, meaning that the much

needed improvement did not happen as well. Considering that schools only produces 17 at most graduates for every 100 enrollees, the situation is still very much appalling.

The second test analyzes the current priorities of the government within the education

sector, i.e. how it distributes and utilizes its money that is allocated for education. This will be very important for such priorities determine on how the government sees the education as an aspect of the socio-economic environment.

This can be explained by saying that if the government for example, focuses more on the

tertiary level education, i.e. those students who has an immediate use for the economy and the industry, it just shows that the government sees the education sector as a producer of workforce. Thus, all of its decisions will be based on the paradigm of industrialization of education, which involves molding it to answer the demands of the corporate-industrial sector.

If, on the other hand, the data says that the government focuses more on the secondary

level education, which are those in the high school level, this may actually mean many things. First, is that the government is just answering a need. Responsiveness to an immediate concern is actually a political prerequisite for candidates with electoral positions. Second, is that the government believes in a future base of a mass produced educated workers, which can be derived from the elementary level.

The table below is original Number of Government and Private Schools by Level of

Education lifted from Partido ng Manggagawa’s primer:

Number of Government and Private Schools by Level of Education

Year

Total Secondary Tertiary Total Percentage Total Percentage Total Percentage

Number Public Private Number Public Private Number Public Private 1965-66 3260 37.0% 63.0% 2537 36.4% 63.6% 527 16.5% 83.5%

1970-71 5027 48.6% 51.4% 4111 51.7% 48.3% 728 15.9% 84.1% 1975-76 5662 53.1% 46.9% 4908 58.7% 41.3% 754 16.7% 83.3% 1980-81 6302 55.1% 44.9% 5218 60.6% 39.4% 1084 28.5% 71.5% 1985-86 6453 56.6% 43.4% 5375 62.5% 37.5% 1078 27.2% 72.8% 1990-91 8883 47.7% 52.3% 5550 61.2% 38.8% 2071 24.6% 75.4%

Table 2.0 - Number of Government and Private Schools by Level of Education

Source: Partido ng Manggagawa – The State of Philippine Education: A Primer on RP Educational System

From these data, we can derive the following information.

Number of Schools in Government and Public Schools

Year Total Secondary Tertiary 1965-66 1206.20 923.47 86.96 1970-71 2443.12 2125.39 115.75 1975-76 3006.52 2881.00 125.92 1980-81 3472.40 3162.11 308.94 1985-86 3652.40 3359.38 293.22 1990-91 4237.19 3396.60 509.47

Table 2.1 - Number of Schools in Government and Public Schools

Since we will be measuring whether the government’s focus is just proportionate to the

demand, we then obtain the following data:

Total Secondary and Tertiary Enrollment

Year

Total Secondary Tertiary Total (‘000) Percentage

Total (‘000) Percentage

Total (‘000) Percentage

Number Public Private Number Public Private Number Public Private 1965-66 1700 29.5% 70.5% 1173 37.7% 62.3% 527 11.2% 88.8% 1970-71 2370 35.0% 65.0% 1719 44.4% 55.6% 651 10.3% 89.7% 1975-76 3012 37.1% 62.9% 2240 45.1% 54.9% 772 13.7% 86.3% 1980-81 4273 42.1% 57.9% 3019 53.5% 46.5% 1254 14.8% 85.2% 1985-86 4671 46.2% 53.8% 3269 59.7% 40.4% 1402 14.9% 85.1% 1990-91 5742 49.0% 51.0% 4033 63.6% 36.4% 1709 14.8% 85.2%

Table 2.2 – Total Secondary and Tertiary Enrollment

Source: Philippine Education Indicators 1965-1985, Research & Statistics Division, Office & Planning Service (1986-1993)

Again, we simplify the information by taking the data only for the Public Schools:

Number of Schools in Government and Public

Schools Year Total Secondary Tertiary

1965-66 501.50 442.22 59.02 1970-71 829.50 763.24 67.05 1975-76 1117.45 1010.24 105.76 1980-81 1798.93 1615.17 185.59 1985-86 2158.00 1951.59 208.90 1990-91 2813.58 2564.99 252.93 1995-96 4492.69 3675.39 520.88

Table 2.3 – Number of Schools in Government and Public Schools

Given these tables, we can now derive a table of ratio

Ratio of Public/Government Schools and Total Enrollment for Secondary and Tertiary Schools

Year Secondary Tertiary 1965-66 0.24% 0.21% 1970-71 0.29% 0.28% 1975-76 0.27% 0.29% 1980-81 0.19% 0.20% 1985-86 0.17% 0.17% 1990-91 0.15% 0.13%

Table 2.4 – Number of Schools in Government and Public Schools

We can now test then, using Mann-Whitney non-parametric statistical test, whether both

populations are identical with respect to location.

Secondary Tertiary Ratio Ranks Ratio Ranks

0.132421672 1 0.150597850 2 0.169249055 3

0.172135020 4 0.193025644 5

0.195776159 6 0.208824999 7

0.240518445 8

0.269051557 9 0.278470486 10 0.285179363 11

0.294529476 12 Sum of Ranks 39

Table 2.5 – Computation of Test Statistic W for Mann-Whitney

Ho : The two populations are identical (M1 = M2).

Ha : The two populations differ with respect to location (M1 ≠ M2).

α : .05

Test Statistic : n1 = 6, n2 = 6

WC = S – (n1 (n1+1))/2, S sum of ranks

WC = 39 – (6(6+1)/2)

WC = 18

Critical Region

: Reject if:

WC>W1-α/2

W1-α/2 = n1n2 – Wα/2

Wα/2 = 6

W1-α/2 = 36 – 6 = 30

Decision : Do not reject Ho (18<36).

Conclusion : The two populations are identical.

Interpretation

This means that the government allocation of funding is just equal for both Secondary and Tertiary schools, given the demand for both. As we can see from the test, the populations are nearly identical. We can then say that the government, as composed on entities with political (electoral) goal is merely satisfying the interests of their constituents.

This may imply, however, that the government has no clear plan on the whole

educational system, given the lack of focus for either the Secondary and Tertiary school systems.

The third test measures the relevance of education. It is tested whether the workforce is being less saturated or not. This is measured by analyzing the new laborer-job ratio. If it will be found out that the entrants can no longer be accommodated, or there is a trend towards less accommodation, this reveals that education may no longer be a factor of help for the persons, primarily since no job will be available for them anyway afterwards. If the opposite is found to be true, then the education is still a competitive advantage for persons who have invested in it.

We look at the table:

New Jobs and New Entrants to the Labor Force

1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 Average

New Jobs Created 703 781 686 650 644 692.8

New Entrants to the Labor Force 1787 659 589 775 726 907.2

New Laborer-Job Ratio 2.5 0.8 0.9 1.2 1.1 1.3

Table 3.0 - New Jobs and New Entrants to the Labor Force Source: Partido ng Manggagawa – The State of Philippine Education: A Primer on RP Educational System

We then test using Wilcoxon Signed-ranks Test (one-sample) whether we can conclude using the following data for Laborer-Job ratio is equal to the ideal 1.0. The test will be as follows:

L:J Di = Yi -

Mo |Di| Rank of

|Di| Signed Rank of

|Di| Separated Ranks 2.5 1.5 1.5 5 5 5 0.8 -0.2 0.2 3.5 -3.5 -3.5 0.9 -0.1 0.1 1.5 -1.5 -1.5 1.2 0.2 0.2 3.5 3.5 3.5 1.1 0.1 0.1 1.5 1.5 1.5

Total Rank (D+, D-) 10 -5

Ho : The population is ideal (M = 1.0).

Ha : The population is not ideal (M ≠ 1.0).

α” : .125

Test Statistic : D = smaller of D+ and D- since two-sided

D = 5 (absolute value of D-)

n = 5

Critical Region

: Reject if:

D < Dα” or D = Dα”

Dα” = 2 (α”=.125 – closest to .05, n=5)

Decision : Do not reject Ho (5<2).

Conclusion : The population is still ideal.

Interpretation

This means that from 1991-1995, the laborer-job ratio is still, or close to, the ideal 1.0. Thus, since people can still be accommodated in the labor-force, education will still be of use for the Filipino people. This is more important in the present, since we are moving from industrial-machinery-based work towards a knowledge-based one. Education will then facilitate the production of workers sophisticated and learned enough to thrive in this kind of environment.

Conclusion and Recommendation We have successfully proven three things. First is that there is no change in ratio of enrollees to graduates, and it remains significantly low by inspection. Second is that government appropriation of funds to secondary and tertiary schools are equal. And third, the laborer-job ratio is still close to ideal. What do these results imply? This means that industries are already close to saturated (with almost 1:1 ratio to demand and supply of jobs) and that the relative output of tertiary education is low and remains to be low. This presents us with a dilemma. If the tertiary institutions will have a better output rate (there will be an improvement in the ratio), the industries may not be able to absorb the new entrants. A good solution to this is to increase the number of industries concurrently with an increase in funding in the tertiary. This will of course, reduce the allocation for the secondary education institutions, but if we are to focus more on the immediate problems of the economy, then the government should focus more on the available, ready-to-be-tapped, labor potential. It is recommended too, however, that further study and analysis about the subject be done.

Sources The Department of Education Website

http://www.deped.gov.ph/about_deped/organizationlinks.asp?id=11 Official Unesco Website

http://www2.unesco.org/wef/en-news/philippines.shtm The World Bank

http://www.worldbank.org/eapsocial/countries/phil/educ1.htm http://www.worldbank.org/education/economicsed/tools/seminars/

The State of Philippine Education: A Primer on RP Educational System

prepared by: Partido ng Manggawa (PM)

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