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Greetings!
It is a great pride and honor to be invited as a guest speaker in today’s 60th Anniversary celebration of the United Nations Association of the Philippines. I would like to commend the UNAP under the leadership of its well-respected and competent President, Judge Aurora Reciña, for its continuing commitment to aid in the realization of United Nations ideals, particularly in the pursuit of peace and security, in the hastening of economic and social development and in the promotion of friendly relations among the nations of the world.
The United Nations continues to play the lead role in the stabilization of peace and security and in the promotion of a more harmonious relationship parallel to what is enshrined in its charter “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. It has conclusively been the “town hall of global affairs”.
Its achievements, however, cover a wide array of areas. One of which is the improvement of the quality of education among its member states, particularly in developing countries.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as the UN’s specialized agency for education, has worked tremendously in the advancement of education worldwide through technical advice, standard setting, innovative projects, capacity-building and networking.
Until now, the United Nations exerts continuing efforts to improve and sustain its contributions to the advancement of education among its member-states.
Millennium Development Goals
Adopted by all United Nations members during the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, the Millennium Development Goals provide a benchmark for the Philippines and other countries in setting goals and targets to significantly reduce if not fully eradicate poverty and ensure human development by the year 2015. Specifically, the Millennium Development Goals are directed toward eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability and developing global partnerships for development.
The Philippines, for its part, has committed to vigorously pursue all efforts to attain certain benchmarks to achieve each of the MDGs.
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Yesterday, in her speech during the launching of the 2007 Millennium Development Goal Report at the Manila Hotel, Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, together with Director-General Augusto Santos of NEDA cited very positive development in Education.
The Second Philippines Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals identified three major challenges and priorities for action that we, as a member state of the UN, must accomplish to realize the goal of achieving universal primary education. These include:
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improving our school-retention capacity;
- improving the quality of education; and
- improving governance and resource allocation and utilization.
Allow me at this point to share with you one real good news. After long years of seemingly recurring problems in Education, Her Excellency President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo made a firm resolve to greatly improve the educational system so we can produce globally-competitive workforce by mandating the harmonization and synchronization of the entire educational system through institutionalizing the system of national coordination, assessment, planning and monitoring of the entire educational system.
The President, in the exercise of her function as the Chief Executive, delegated the mandates of the National Coordinating Council for Education (which was created under E.O. 273) to the Presidential Assistant for Education and to the Presidential Task Force for Education through the issuance of the Executive Order No. 632 “Amending Executive Order No. 273 and Mandating a Presidential Assistant to Assess, Plan and Monitor the Entire Educational System” in July 2007 and the Executive Order No. 652 “Creating the Presidential Task Force to Assess, Plan and Monitor the Entire Educational System” in August 2007. Together, they will address the “growing need for a greater coordination among departments, a common approach to trans-subsectoral issues such as assessment mechanism and articulation between levels, and a more harmonized approach to total education planning and resource allocation”.
The Task Force has prioritized on setting goals for the main education highway and its vision for every family is to ensure that each son or daughter has an opportunity to get an education that will lead them to a productive and well-paying job. The Task Force has set the main goals at each level of education. For the pre-school stage, it aims to strengthen the current programs implemented by the DSWD day-care centers and pre-schools so that these will develop into more formal and effective pre-schools.
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For the Elementary level, the main goal of the Task Force is to eliminate drop-outs from the different grade levels and continuously improve student performance using the interventions of the parents and the community. In the tertiary level, the goal is to enhance the match between post-secondary/college education and the needed job qualifications of the industry.
The achievements of the Synergeia Foundation, particularly in Bulacan and Lipa City, confirmed the significant impact of the interventions from parents and the community in improving student performance in the elementary level. As presented by Fr. Dr. Bienvenido Nebres, the National Achievement Test Results (NATR) average of the students in Bulacan has climbed tremendously in 2006 from the recorded average in 2000. The NATR average of Lipa City likewise improved impressively in 2006 and 2007 from the recorded average last 2002 and 2003.
I also did a Study in the 90’s on Parent Learning Support System (PLSS), A School and Community Collaboration for Raising Pupil Achievement funded by UNESCO. The results indicated that the PLSS contributed significantly to improving the achievement levels and learning competencies of the pupils, even the poorest child. Similarly, it demonstrated that pupils with prior exposure to pre-primary education such as kindergarten classes obtained higher mastery levels compared to pupils without pre-primary preparation.
At this juncture, may I quote the Australian Shadow Minister for Education, His Excellency David Kemp, “Education has to be about excellence. If it is not about quality, then all our effort, all our expenditure will have been for nothing because we will not only have blighted the lives of our students, but damaged our ability to compete and survive in a world which does not owe us a living. We cannot have a world-class economy and world-class living standard without a world-class workforce. And we cannot have a world-class workforce without world-class education.”
Now, may I end by reaffirming the commitment of the Education sector to attain the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals, especially in achieving universal primary education and in addressing the challenges of improving our school-retention capacity, improving the quality of education, and improving governance and resource allocation and utilization, centering on achieving a globally-competitive education for the Filipinos.
Thank you very much and Mabuhay!
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