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President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's speech during the Opening Program of the First Biennial National Congress on Education
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tent City, Manila Hotel
Thank you.
Thank you Secretary Lapus for your introduction.
I'd like to greet everybody starting with Chairman of Basic Education in the House of Representatives, Congressman Del De Guzman. I visited their beautiful school in his district in Marikina, and how I would wish all schools in the country were like that; I'd like to greet also the Director General of TESDA and Chairman of TESDA, Secretary Buboy Syjuco (applause) and the Chancellor of Angeles University where I used to be a member of the board until my constitutional prohibition as vice president required me to resign, Chancellor Manny Angeles; (applause) I'd like to greet also our host this morning, Manila Hotel Chairman Don Emilio Yap; (applause) of course, I'd like to thank my Presidential Assistant for Education for her being the workhorse in putting this congress together, Undersecretary Mona Valisno; (applause) thanks to the diplomatic community for being here; Thanks also to all the different sectors that were enumerated in Manny Angeles' welcome remarks, but I would also like to give a special, special welcome to our teachers! (applause) Because when you think of education, you think of teachers.
Education is a core value of Philippine society and family life. The hardworking men and women of this country put their family first, don't we? And the best gift any family can give to a child, and the best gift any nation can give to its people is access to a good education.
Education is the foundation of economic prosperity and individual liberty, justice and self-worth.
For this reason, we issued Executive Order number 652 creating the Presidential Task Force for Education to assess, plan and monitor the entire educational system. We called this Congress to discuss the progress report of the task force which will be presented after the coffee break.
But, of course, it was not only the creation of the task force that started our attention to education. From the beginning of our administration, we have recognized education as the key to our next generation in order to get ahead and get a good job.
And it is recognized all over the world, one of the goals of the United Nations Millennium Development goals is to achieve universal primary education by 2015. And we have internalized that even before we read the millennium development goals.
In the year 2001 school year, to increase the chances of children finishing school, the Department of Education minimized the cost of going to school by stopping the collection of miscellaneous fees on enrollment day. That single act brought almost a million children to school.
Today, we have voluntary fees for the PTCA, the Red Cross and the Boy Scouts that have found their way back into the system.
Yesterday, I discussed this with Secretary Jing Lapus and I said that because the millennium development goals wants us to achieve universal primary education by 2015, let's not give any excuse for parents not to send their children to school at least up to fourth grade. So the fees -- PTCA, Red Cross, boys and girls scouts -- should only be collected starting grade 5 so that there will be no reason to keep children away from primary school. (applause)
In 2001, we also said in the state of the nation address that to reduce the time and money spent to actually travel to school; we will build classrooms starting in the far-flung barangays unserved by nearby schools. Within a year, we completed more than one thousand of those school buildings. And by 2006 we had achieved our more ambitious medium- term plan target ratio of one classroom for every 50 grade school students on double shift. And even if we achieved that, because eventually we want to go to 45 students per shift, in 2007 we added another 15,000 classrooms. (applause) This year, we will start the construction season for 10,000 classrooms by a series of groundbreaking activities starting this Saturday.
There are, of course, still a few instances of shortages in classrooms amid the nationwide sufficiency. The most famous or maybe infamous of these is the Batasan Elementary School in Quezon City which makes the front page every opening of the school year. The Department of Education, the Quezon City government and the DSWD, which owns the adjoining lot, are addressing this exception because the problem is that not that there are no funds but there is no space available. So Secretary Lapus has had to talk to Secretary Espie Cabral because that is going to require the use of the very property of the main office of the DSWD itself.
Speaking of photos, today while there was a photo of a supposed tent classroom in Albay, so immediately we checked the field. According to the field, the classroom project in that school has been completed. The tent is being used as a recreational shed of children of evacuees.
Anyway going back to attendance in schools. At day care centers, pre-schools and grade 1 in depressed areas, we initiated the food-for-school program which gives a kilo of rice per day to pupils in those levels. This program not only increased class attendance, it also helped dramatically cut hunger incidence as well as self-rated food poverty, which is now the lowest in our statistical history. Now, we will begin to harmonize day care centers and pre-schools so that they can provide the needed extra year of basic education.
As a further and more direct incentive to school attendance, late last year we launched the 'Ahon Pamilyang Pinoy' program of conditional cash donations to poor households who comply with rules that enhance learning and health. So we give the money because they are very poor, but the money... But the condition is that they have to send their children to school among other conditions.
Now, under the proposed fiscal stimulus program to keep us resilient from the anticipated US slowdown, I have instructed Secretary Andaya and Secretary Cabral to scale up this 'Ahon Pamilyang Pinoy' from 50 million pesos last year to five billion pesos this year. (applause)
Also to further reduce the time and money spent to travel to school, we now invite the local governments -- and I see representatives of local governments here -- to join us in a bike-for-school program similar to Thailand’s program to improve school attendance, and something we have already quietly piloted in the province of Eastern Samar. In this case, two siblings whose school is 10 kilometers away -- and I hope that there are not too many of those cases now -- can be provided a bicycle, which the family will amortize at one peso a day, and then the two siblings can bike to school. That will be at one peso a day that is less than one-tenth of the 13,200 pesos they would have to spend for fare for transportation if they have to take a ride ten kilometers away from home.
In 2001 we said, that to prepare our youth to be the next generation of knowledge workers, we would upgrade math and science teaching. By 2006, we had trained over 100,000 teachers to improve math and science instruction. Now we can afford one billion pesos for teacher training this year, (applause) but 500 million of that will go to English training. (applause) We want all teachers to have 24 units of English, whether you get it in the course of getting your degree, or if you were not able to get 24 units during your degree years to get it in service.
In 2001, we said that to improve the quality of education as required by a new economy, we would increase the number of textbooks per student. Within a year, we distributed 54 million textbooks to 16 million elementary and high school students up to second year high school. By 2006, we had achieved an initial target, our initial target of one-to-one textbook-student ratio in priority subjects up to second year high school. And in 2007, we distributed more than 14 million textbooks, teachers’ manuals and instructional materials.
I would like to congratulate the Department of Education’s governance reforms that reduced the average cost per textbook and ensured correct and prompt deliveries, as monitored by NGOs including NAMFREL and the boy and girl scouts. (applause)
But we recognized that there have been long standing problems of learning materials with erroneous or inappropriate content. If we cannot even ensure that textbooks are error-free, it would be extremely difficult to get the rest of our education program right. So sometime ago, I instructed Jing Lapus to create a high-level textbook review task force to rid learning materials of erroneous or inappropriate content, and I asked him to seek guidance and assistance from the members of the presidential council on values formation, as well as the leading institutes of education and science and technology.
In 2001, we said we would hire more teachers. Within a year, we hired 15,000 new teachers compared to 2,000 a year before... Ah, compared to 5,000 in year 2000 before I became President. Between 2002 and 2007, we've hired more than 50,000 teachers.
We have installed internet-linked computers in dozens of public high schools. We are now aiming for distance learning and cyber education where we hope to install computer linkage in every public high school especially in the rural areas, which will become community centers outside school hours. (applause)
You know, I was inspired in the Davos World Economic Forum because there was great support for this project among the information technology governors of the WEF, including Microsoft and Hewlett Packard. In fact, it was Hewlett Packard who raised it during our roundtable, not even me. So I'm very happy and I have validation that it is something that we should do and is very desirable. (applause)
On high schools, we have a lack of public high schools but we have a surplus of private high schools. We recognize the pivotal role of private high schools in national life. That is why instead of building more public high schools, we are expanding high school scholarships for the private schools. (applause) We are doing this through the voucher system and the government assistance to teachers and students in private education or GATSPE. We will build public high schools only in the jurisdictions where there are no private high schools available. So GATSPE and high school vouchers will be the key for high school education.
Likewise, in tertiary education and technical education, we have raised the number of scholarship grants and loans to give the poor access. We have increased to one billion pesos the allocation for TESDA’s training program and we are encouraging scholarships in ladderized education.
I wanted to make an announcement today as far as TESDA is concerned, but I don't want to make any announcements until I confer with Secretary Nonoy Andaya. So you have something to wait for Secretary Syjuco.
Why are we are able to do all these increases? We're able to do all these because for the first time in a generation, less of our revenue is being used to service debt and more resources are being directed towards investment in human and physical infrastructure including education, health care and training aside from new roads, bridges and ports.
And we are also able to do this because of the contributions to the classroom building program and computer linkage program of development-minded citizens and entities, including the chambers of commerce represented here today, including the corporate foundations, including the local governments, and including our overseas Filipinos. And we thank them all for their contribution to our human infrastructure. (applause)
And we are able to do this, the large portion that still comes from national government funds, because the Philippine economy has turned around with 28 consecutive quarters of growth, topped off by seven percent in 2007. (applause)
Our stock market is up, seven million jobs were created in seven years, and our currency is one of the strongest in Asia. Investments and many are surging and many new companies are investing in US. We're one of the best values in Asia right now, and we can be the best value if we are able to match education and job requirements. (applause)
Poverty alleviation is our overarching goal. We will continue to focus on it. Balancing the budget is just the first step. Over the next few years, we will translate the positive results of our reforms to real benefits for the people, a number one benefit is education.
We will continue to invest in new school construction at the elementary school level. We will bolster our scholarship program for high school students and for those ready for higher education.
In return, we ask colleges and universities to update themselves about the current market demands in the local and international market, and to offer the courses that fit their graduates to the skills requirements of available jobs. Maybe no more customs administration or maybe a little bit less of business management, more of entrepreneurship, things like that.
And we instruct the professional regulatory commission to update licensure examinations to reflect technical and scientific requirements of business and industry.
We ask local government colleges and universities to comply with the standards of CHED.
Now to the teachers. You know, I asked Mona yesterday or the day before yesterday, "Mona, how many teachers are attending our congress?" "Well, not that many," she said, "Mostly, administrators." "Mona," I said, "I want my speech to be primarily a speech to the teachers. They make up the backbone of our education system. I want them to be the majority of the attendees in the congress." (applause)
So I'm glad to see all these uniformed ladies and gentlemen around here because I want to say that the teachers indeed are the backbone of the educational system. And without you, our selfless men and women, our children would fall short of their dreams and aspirations.
I remember when I was a little girl in Iligan, my idol aside from Prinsesa Tarhata of Sulu who was like Princess Diana for me. You know, well, what Princess Diana was for many, later on at that time she was for me, my other idol was the teacher in Buroon elementary school in our barangay. (applause)
And we are deeply indebted to the hard work and dedication of all our teachers. Your work is noble and patriotic. You deserve the praise and respect of every Filipino. That's why you received additional compensation in 2006 and a 10 percent salary increase in 2007. (applause)
That's why unlike in previous years, in our administration, teachers now receive at least the same amount of the ever increasing bonus that national government workers receive. In fact, Jing Lapus tells me your second installment of your bonus is coming soon to complete your 10,000 pesos.
And also that is why teachers are included in our administration bill for a third round of salary standardization and increase. (applause) So let us all work, Congressman De Guzman, let us all work for congress to pass this bill. It's already in the 2008 budget. (applause)
Teachers, but above all... But every participant also, every participant here is a stakeholder in our national effort to fight poverty by working towards a relevant and highly.... And a high-quality educational system.
And so let us all move forward together.
Labanan ang kahirapan, isulong ang karunungan.
Maraming salamat sa inyong lahat. (applause)
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