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Philippine students suffer in wilting heat, thwarting education efforts

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Philippines students are told to stay home as Southeast Asia copes with heat wave

Southeast Asia is coping with a weekslong heat wave as record-high temperatures have led to school closings in several countries and urgent health warnings throughout the region

MANILA, Philippines -- Southeast Asia was coping with a weekslong heat wave on Monday as record-high temperatures led to school closings in several countries and urgent health warnings throughout the region.

Millions of students in all public schools across the Philippines were ordered to stay home Monday after authorities canceled in-person classes for two days. The main advice for everyone, everywhere has been to avoid outdoor activities and drink plenty of water, but the young and the elderly were told to be especially careful.

Cambodia this year is facing the highest temperatures in 170 years, Chan Yutha, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, told The Associated Press on Monday. His agency has forecast that temperatures in most parts of the country could reach up to 43 degrees Celsius (109 degrees Fahrenheit) this week.

Myanmar’s meteorological department said Monday that seven townships in the central Magway, Mandalay, Sagaing and Bago regions experienced record-high temperatures. Several towns in Myanmar last week were on lists of the hottest spots worldwide.

Chauk township in Magway, historically the country's hottest region, saw Myanmar’s highest temperature at 48.2 degrees Celsius (118.8 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking the previous record of 47.4 degrees Celsius (117.3 degrees Fahrenheit) set in 1968.

The Philippines is among the nations worst affected by the sweltering weather in Southeast Asia, where the intense tropical summer heat worsened by humidity forced class cancellations in recent weeks and sparked fears of water shortages, power outages and damage to agricultural crops.

The Department of Education ordered students in more than 47,000 public schools to switch to home-based and online learning due to health risks from record-high temperatures and a three-day strike starting Monday by drivers who oppose a government program they fear would remove dilapidated passenger jeepneys from streets.

Large crowds have sought relief in air-conditioned shopping malls in Metropolitan Manila, the congested capital region of more than 14 million people where the temperature soared to 38.8 degrees Celsius (101.84 Fahrenheit) Saturday, surpassing the record set decades ago, according to weather officials.

In Thailand, temperatures have topped 44 C (111 F) in some areas in the northern parts of the country, while the capital Bangkok and metropolitan areas have seen temperatures go above 40 C (104 F). The forecast from the Meteorological Department said this year’s summer, which usually lasts from late February to late May, is expected to be 1-2 degrees hotter than last year, and rainfall will be lower than average.

Thailand’s Department of Disease Control said last week that at least 30 people have died from heatstroke so far this year, compared to 37 for all of last year.

Scientists have said the number of heat-related deaths around the world has been rising significantly in recent years along with temperatures, but the trend in Asia this year so far is unclear, partly because of the question of how to classify deaths that appear to be heat related.

At least 34 people have fallen ill due to the extreme heat in the Philippines so far this year, including six who died. The Department of Health said it was verifying what exactly caused the deaths.

Media in Bangladesh reported that in a five-day period earlier this month, at least 20 people died from heatstroke.

In Cambodia, however, officials indicated there were few if any heat-related fatalities. The Khmer Times, an online news platform, quoted the head of the Health Department of Phnom Penh, the capital, saying there had been no heat-related deaths or collapses.

Associated Press writers Sopheng Cheang in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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Filipino children continue missing education opportunities in another year of school closure, together with four other countries, the philippines has kept its schools closed nationwide since the covid-19 pandemic.

MANILA,25 August 2021-- A child's first day of school—a landmark moment for the youngest students and their parents around the world—has been delayed due to COVID-19 for an estimated 140 million young minds, UNICEF said in a new analysis released as summer break comes to end in many parts of the world.

The Philippines is one of the five countries in the world that have not started in-person classes since the pandemic began, affecting the right to learn of more than 27 million Filipino students. While new variants are causing a rise of infections, UNICEF is advocating for a phased reopening of schools, beginning in low-risk areas. This can be done on a voluntary basis with proper safety protocols in place.

"The first day of school is a landmark moment in a child's life—setting them off on a life-changing path of personal learning and growth. Most of us can remember countless minor details—what clothes we wore, our teacher's name, who we sat next to. But for millions of children, that important day has been indefinitely postponed," said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. "As classes resume in many parts of the world, millions of first graders have been waiting to see the inside of a classroom for over a year. Millions more may not see one at all this school term. For the most vulnerable, their risk of never stepping into a classroom in their lifetime is skyrocketing."

For an estimated eight million students around the globe—who should have been in the first grade— the wait for their first day of in-person learning has been over a year and counting, as they live in places where schools have been closed throughout the pandemic.

The first grade sets up the building blocks for all future learning, with introductions to reading, writing, and math. It's also a period when in-person learning helps children gain independence, adapt to new routines, and develop meaningful relationships with teachers and students. In-person learning also enables teachers to identify and address learning delays, mental health issues, and abuse that could negatively affect children’s well-being.

“In 2020, schools globally were fully closed for an average of 79 teaching days, while the Philippines has been closed for more than a year, forcing students to enroll in distance learning modalities.  The associated consequences of school closures – learning loss, mental distress, missed vaccinations, and heightened risk of drop out, child labour, and child marriage – will be felt by many children, especially the youngest learners in critical development stages,” UNICEF Philippines Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov says.

While countries worldwide are taking some actions to provide remote learning, at least 29 per cent of primary students are not being reached. In addition to lack of assets for remote learning, the youngest children may not be able to participate due to a lack of support using the technology, a poor learning environment, pressure to do household chores, or being forced to work.

Studies have shown that positive school experiences during this transition period are a predictor of children’s future social, emotional and educational outcomes. At the same time, children who fall behind in learning during the early years often stay behind for the remaining time they spend in school, and the gap widens over the years. The number of years of education a child receives also directly affects their future earnings.

Unless mitigation measures are implemented, the World Bank estimates a loss of $10 trillion in earnings over time for this entire generation of students. Existing evidence shows the cost of addressing learning gaps are lower and more effective when they are tackled earlier, and that investments in education support economic recovery, growth and prosperity.

UNICEF urges governments to reopen schools for in-person learning as soon as possible, and to provide a comprehensive recovery response for students. Together with the World Bank and UNESCO, UNICEF is calling for governments to focus on three key priorities for recovery in schools:

• Targeted programmes to bring all children and youth back in school where they can access tailored services to meet their learning, health, psychosocial well-being, and other needs;
• Effective remedial learning to help students catch up on lost learning;
• Support for teachers to address learning losses and incorporate digital technology into their teaching.

"Your first day of school is a day of hope and possibility—a day for getting off to a good start. But not all children are getting off to a good start. Some children are not even starting at all," said Fore." We must reopen schools for in-person learning as soon as possible, and we must immediately address the gaps in learning this pandemic has already created. Unless we do, some children may never catch up."

In the following weeks, UNICEF will continue to mobilize its partners and the public to prevent this education crisis from becoming an education catastrophe. Online and offline campaigns will rally world leaders, teachers, and parents around a common cause: reopen schools for in-person learning as soon as possible. The future of the world’s most vulnerable children is at stake.

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UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.

For more information about UNICEF and its work for children in the Philippines, visit www.unicef.ph .

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The Philippines Still Hasn’t Fully Reopened Its Schools Because of COVID-19. What Is This Doing to Children?

I f 17-year-old Ruzel Delaroso needs to ask her teacher a question, she can’t simply raise her hand, much less fire off an email from the kitchen table. She has to leave the modest shack that her family calls home in Januiay, a farming town in the central Philippines, and head to an area of dense shrubbery, a 10-minute walk away. There, if she’s lucky, she can pick up a phone signal and finally ask about the math problem in the self-learning materials her mother picked up from school.

“We’re so used to our teachers always being around,” Delaroso tells TIME via the same temperamental phone connection. “But now it’s harder to communicate with them.”

Her school, Calmay National High School, is among the tens of thousands of Philippine public schools shuttered since March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Delaroso is one of 1.6 billion children affected by worldwide school closures, according to a UNESCO estimate.

But while other countries have taken the opportunity to resume in-person classes, the Philippines has lagged behind. After 20 months of pandemic prevention measures, amounting to one of the world’s longest lockdowns , only 5,000 students, in just over 100 public schools, have been allowed to go back to class in a two-month trial program—a tiny fraction of the 27 million public school students who enrolled this year. The Philippines must be one of a very few countries, if not the only country, to remain so reliant on distance learning. It has become a vast experiment in life without in-person schooling.

Read More: What It’s Like Being a Teacher During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“[Education secretary Leonor Briones] always reminds us that in the past when there were military sieges, or volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, typhoons, floods, learning continued,” says education undersecretary Diosdado San Antonio.

But has it this time? Educators fear that prolonged closure is having negative effects on students’ ability to learn, impacting their futures just a time when the country needs a young, well-educated workforce to resume the impressive economic growth it was enjoying before the pandemic hit.

Globally, COVID-19 will be impacting the mental health of children and young adolescents for years to come, UNICEF warns. School shutdowns have already been blamed for a rise in dropout rates and decreased literacy, and the World Bank estimates that the number of children aged 10 and below, from low- and middle-income countries, who cannot read simple text has risen from 53% prior to the pandemic to 70% today.

If the pilot resumption of classes passes without incident, there are hopes for a wider reopening of Philippine schools. But without it, there are fears of a lost generation .

How COVID-19 impacted Philippine education

From March 2020 to September 2021, UNICEF tallied 131 million pre-tertiary students from 11 countries who had been trying to learn at home for at least three quarters of the time that they would normally have been in school. Of that number, 66 million came from just two countries where face-to-face classes were almost completely nixed: Bangladesh and the Philippines. (Bangladesh reopened its schools in September.)

Amid the initial COVID-19 surge of March 2020—just weeks shy of the end of the academic year—the Philippines stopped in-person classes for its entire cohort of public education students, which then numbered some 24.9 million according to UNESCO. The start of the new school year in September also got pushed back, as President Rodrigo Duterte imposed a “no vaccine, no classes” policy.

When schooling finally resumed in October 2020, the education department’s solution was a blend of remote-learning options: online platforms, educational TV and radio, and printed modules. But social inequalities and the lack of resources at home to support these approaches have dealt a huge blow to many students and teachers.

A departmental report released in March 2021 found that 99% of public school students got passing marks for the first academic quarter of last year. But other surveys claim that students are being disadvantaged. Over 86% of the 1,299 students polled by the Movement for Safe, Equitable, Quality and Relevant Education said they learned less through the education department’s take-home modules—so did 66% of those using online learning and 74% using a blend of online learning and hard-copy material.

Read More: Angelina Jolie on Why We Can Let COVID-19 Derail Education

Even though she’s an academic topnotcher—getting a weighted grade average of 91 out of 100 last year—Delaroso also feels that remote learning is inferior.

At Delaroso’s high school, teacher Johnnalie Consumo, 25, has detected a lack of eagerness to study, with some parents even filling in worksheets on their child’s behalf—going by the evidence of the handwriting.

“They have a hard time forcing the kid to answer modules because the kid isn’t intimidated by their parents,” she tells TIME. “The way a teacher encourages is very different from how a parent would.”

Consumo sometimes visits the homes of under-performing students and finds that they are out doing farm work—harvesting sugar cane, say, or making charcoal—to augment a family income that has been slashed by a suffering economy and a rising unemployment rate . Exercise books have been turned in blank, she says. Or students appear to pass their modules, only for her to find that they copied the answers. The frustration is enormous.

“It’s hard on our part,” Consumo tells TIME, “because we really try our best.”

Poverty and education in the Philippines

Internet access is a huge challenge. In urban areas, instructors can give lessons over video conferencing platforms, or Facebook Live, but 52.6% of the Philippines’ 110 million people live in rural areas with unreliable connectivity. It doesn’t come cheap either: research from cybersecurity firm SurfShark found that the internet in the Philippines is among the least stable and slowest, yet the most expensive, of 79 countries surveyed.

Internet access assumes, of course, that the user has a device, but in the Philippines that’s not a given. Private polling firm Social Weather Stations found that just over 40% of students did not have any device to help them in distance learning. Of the rest, some 27% were using a device they already owned, and 10% were able to borrow one, but 12% had to buy one, with families spending an average of $172 per learner. To put it into perspective, that’s more than half the average monthly salary in the Philippines.

“Some of them don’t have cell phones,” says Marilyn Tomelden, a teacher in Quezon province, three hours away from the Philippine capital Manila, who first noticed the digital divide when many of her sixth graders were unable to comply with what she thought of as a fun homework assignment: submitting videos of themselves performing dance moves she had demonstrated in an earlier video.

“Because we’re in public school, we cannot demand that they buy phones,” Tomelden says. “They don’t have money to buy their own food, and they’re going to buy their own cell phone for learning? Which is more important to live—to eat or to study?”

Instructors need to be equipped with the right resources too. A study from the National Research Council of the Philippines found that many teachers have had to shell out their own money to support their students in remote learning.

Read More: The Long History of Vaccinating Kids in School

Government agencies do what they can to help. Earlier this year, the customs bureau donated phones and other gadgets it had confiscated to the education department for distribution to needy students. But it’s a drop in the ocean.

“It’s something that is beyond [our] capacity to address—the inequality in terms of availability of resources of learners, depending on the socioeconomic status of families,” says education undersecretary San Antonio.

Some students are so exhausted by the struggle to study remotely that they are calling for long breaks between modules. Many parents and pressure groups are going even further, demanding total academic suspension until a clearer post-pandemic education system is ironed out.

Congresswoman France Castro is a member of ACT Teachers Partylist, a political party representing the education sector. She says a complete freeze would cause more problems than it solves.

“Education is a right,” she tells TIME. “Whatever form it will be, whether blended learning or modular, it’s better to continue it than to stop.”

But in the meantime, with their workloads multiplied, it is students and teachers paying the price. Consumo, the teacher from Januiay, regularly stays up late completing the reams of new paperwork generated by the distance learning system.

“You won’t be able to sleep anymore, just thinking about the deadlines and the work that still needs to be done,” she says. “I cry over that.”

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UNESCO and DepEd launch the 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report in the Philippines

MANILA, 25 November 2020. Along with government officials, international aid agencies, education and humanitarian experts, policymakers, teachers and learners, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Department of Education (DepEd) launched the 2020 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report on 25 November 2020 virtually.

With the theme “Inclusion and education: All means All,” the national launch was organized to increase awareness of the Report’s messages and recommendations on inclusion in education with a wider education community, with those working on humanitarian responses, and with government officials and policymakers. The event was broadcasted live on the official Facebook of UNESCO Jakarta and the Philippines’ Department of Education.

As part of its progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4)and its targets, the 2020 GEM Report ( https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373721 ) provides an in-depth analysis of key factors in exclusion of learners in education systems worldwide, such as background, identity and ability (i.e. gender, age, location, poverty, disability, ethnicity, indigeneity, language, religion, migration or displacement status, sexual orientation or gender identity expression, incarceration, beliefs and attitudes).

One of the numerous examples highlighted in the report is the gender-responsive basic education policy created by DepEd. The policy calls for an end to discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity by defining ways for education administrators and school leaders such as improving curricula and teacher education programmes with the content on bullying, discrimination, gender, sexuality and human rights.

The Report also identifies the heightening of exclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic, where it has shown that about 40% of low and lower-middle income countries have not supported disadvantaged learners during temporary school shutdown. The event featured speeches and presentations from experts on inclusion from both government and non-governmental organizations, policy makers and practitioners, including a message from UNESCO’s Global Champion of Inclusive Education, Ms Brina Kei Maxino, and performances by the world-renowned and 2009 UNESCO Artist for Peace, the Philippine Madrigal Singers.

The highlight of the event was the live discussion between DepEd Secretary, Professor Emeritus Leonor Magtolis-Briones, and the Director of UNESCO Jakarta, Dr Shahbaz Khan, as they explored the findings of the report and deliberated on issues such as inclusion and education and its implementation; adjustment on the school policies during Covid-19; a horizontal collaboration between government and non-government stakeholders; education budget and spending; grants for students; and, social programs to support education.

Alongside today’s publication, UNESCO GEM Report team has also launched a new website called Profiles Enhancing Education Reviews (PEER) that contains information on laws and policies concerning inclusion in education for every country in the world. According to UNESCO, PEER shows that although many countries still practice education segregation, which reinforces stereotyping, discrimination and alienation, some countries like the Philippines have already crafted education policies strong on inclusiveness that target vulnerable groups.

The 2020 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report urges countries to focus on those left behind as schools reopen to foster more resilient and equal societies.

• Global Education Monitoring Report

Related items

• Education for sustainable development
• Country page: Philippines
• UNESCO Office in Jakarta and Regional Bureau for Science
• SDG: SDG 4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
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This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

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Philippines Closes Schools as Heat Soars to ‘Danger’ Level

Scorching temperatures coincided with a nationwide strike of jeepneys, the main mode of public transport in the country.

By Jason Gutierrez

Reporting from Manila

The Philippines closed all public schools on Monday and Tuesday because of dangerously high temperatures, moving classes online in a country where schools are typically shut because of tropical storms.

Over the past week, average temperatures in many parts of the country topped 40 degrees Celsius, or more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Extreme heat is forecast this week to blanket almost the entire country, with the heat index in some regions rising to at least 42 degrees Celsius, or “danger” level, according to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration. That designation is the second highest on the agency’s heat index scale. It advised people to avoid exposure to the sun or risk heat stroke, heat exhaustion and cramps.

In metropolitan Manila, where the heat index is forecast to hit 45 degrees Celsius early this week, residents in overcrowded slums have been cooling off by setting up colorful inflatable pools on busy roads. Others in this megacity have been dipping into Manila Bay, flouting rules that prohibit swimming in its polluted waters.

In its advisory on school closures, the Department of Education on Sunday said the extreme weather coincided with a nationwide strike of jeepneys, the colorful, open-air vehicles that are the main mode of public transportation in the Philippines. Jeepney drivers are protesting a government plan to phase out their rides — which trace their origins to U.S. military jeeps — and replace them with modern, more energy-efficient minibuses.

The extreme heat had already forced some schools to cancel classes before the government’s call for closures. The Jesus Good Shepherd School in Imus, a city south of Manila, last week sent students back home because of soaring temperatures, even though the private institution is among the small minority of schools in the country that has an air conditioner in every classroom.

“It is hard for the students and teachers alike to concentrate, because the air-con is struggling, too,” said Ana Marie Macarimbang, a fifth-grade teacher at the school who has taught for nearly two decades. “We are in a tropical country, yes, but the heat now is more intense than I can remember.”

Weather-related school closures in the Philippines have historically been more common during the typhoon season, which peaks between July and October . The current closures, teacher’s groups have contended, could have been avoided had the authorities not changed the school calendar after the pandemic. The school year now runs from August to May, roughly, rather than the former June-to-March schedule.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has said that he has no objections to readjusting the school calendar, and blamed climate change for the extreme heat. The government “really didn’t expect it to be like this,” Mr. Marcos said earlier this month.

Extreme temperatures are also disrupting everyday life in other parts of Asia, including Cambodia and Vietnam . Earlier this month, a heat wave forced schools in Bangladesh and India to close.

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Why the Philippines’ education system needs an ‘overhaul’

Group says k to 12 ‘failure’ evident in low employment rate among shs grads.

A group of education workers has reiterated the need to overhaul the country’s education system, with a special focus on the K to 12 Program, especially amidst the low employability rate of its graduates.

“There is no point in continuing a program that not a single study has found to be effective,” said the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) in a statement.

READ: 

https://mb.com.ph/2023/8/10/k-to-12-program-to-continue-dep-ed

ACT Chairperson Vladimer Quetua lamented that the K to 12 program only aims to make the Philippines competitive against underdeveloped countries in producing a steady stream of the semi-skilled labor force for foreign capital.

“These jobs are largely contractual in nature and the lowest paying in different industries,” he added.

ACT issued the statement following the directive of President Marcos, Jr. to integrate skills training into the K to 12 curriculum to increase the employability of Senior High School (SHS) graduates.

In the 2022 Labor Force survey conducted by the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (PIDS), it was noted that only a small proportion of SHS graduates (a little over 20 percent) were able to enter the labor force. The majority (more than 70 percent) opted to continue with their education.

https://mb.com.ph/2023/5/12/dep-ed-creates-a-national-task-force-to-review-shs-program-find-out-why

Wake-up call

For ACT, any reform to the K to 12 curriculum will only “replicate failures as the program is not designed to bolster a genuine national development program and only aims to produce cheap and docile labor force for foreign employers that is bound to be underpaid, contractual or unemployed.”

Citing the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), Quetua said that the “starkly low employment rate of our K to 12 graduates and attrition rate of those employed is high.”

He added that the majority of the annual K to 12 graduates only contribute to the huge number of unemployed or are employed temporarily as contract workers who are paid wages below livable levels.

“This should serve as a wake-up call to redesign our education system towards supporting national development and aligning our economic program towards developing local production to create more jobs,” Quetua said.

Moreover, Quetua pointed out that the practicum component for skills development, which would be added to the subjects based on available resources in particular areas and regions, is 'equally disheartening.'

“This only implies that the government has no plans to address the needs, particularly in far-flung areas, and allocate the necessary budget to capacitate schools in implementing the program,” Quetua said.

Given this, ACT reiterated that the whole education system needs to be "overhauled" to serve the aspirations of Filipinos for national development, agricultural advancement, and the establishment of national industries.

RELATED STORIES: 

https://mb.com.ph/2023/6/4/why-senior-high-school-program-is-a-necessary-sacrifice-2

https://mb.com.ph/2023/5/29/unfair-to-say-k-to-12-program-has-failed-pb-ed

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An education system in crisis: What is the way forward under a Marcos presidency?

The 1987 Philippine Constitution upholds the right of every Filipino child to free education. However, high dropout rates and poor performance in national and international achievement tests continue to hound the country’s education system.

Since colonial days, the same fundamental issues are afflicting Philippine education. These include high dropout rates, low pupil performance, poor teacher quality in a system where teachers are central to the education process, irrelevant learning materials, excessive centralization, and inadequate financial resources.

Through the decades, educational surveys and assessments have identified the same problems. In recent years, the work of reforming the problematic educational system has been guided and assisted by several large-scale reform programs and projects. A few of them were state-of-the-art interventions that were effective, at least in a pilot or experimental setting. But, unfortunately, they have not been successful on the whole for various reasons.

Extant literature as well as the analysis of education statistics divulges the continuance of these issues and concerns, which prompted leading educationists to facetiously say that the education landscape had not changed since colonial days.

At this time, about 72 percent of 15-year-old Filipinos are low achievers in the subjects of reading, math, and science. They ranked last in reading comprehension out of 79 countries. They also ranked 78th in science and math (Pisa, 2018). This implies that many Filipinos cannot read or do simple math.

Likewise, the assessment by the World Bank (2018-2019) indicates that 80 percent of Filipino students fall below the minimum proficiency levels. The World Bank discloses that the Philippines is ranked 103 among 173 countries in the Human Capital Index. The average length of schooling is 12.9 years, but what Filipino learners know is only equivalent to 7.5 years of schooling.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the level of “learning was already low,” where 70 percent of 10-year-olds could not read. Citing World Bank estimates, this figure is “now at 90 percent” amid the pandemic.

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the situation. From the latest data released by the Department of Education in July 2020, only 23 million have enrolled in both public and private schools, a significant reduction from the 27.7 million enrollees in 2019. As a result, close to 4 million students were not able to enroll for SY 2020-2021. The 2.75 million of the 4 million who did not enroll were private school students. The 1.1 million students were from public schools.

With this, the number of out-of-school youth continues to grow, making it a serious issue needing to be checked to avoid worse problems in the long run. Furthermore, 865 out of 14,435 private educational institutions (2019 data) suspended operations for SY 2020-2021, displacing around 4,400 teachers and affecting at least 56,000 students.

When 90 percent of our 10-year-old children cannot read, EDUCATION IN THE PHILIPPINES IS SERIOUS CRISIS. This affects not just the young generation’s future but also the nation’s economic growth prospects. Can you imagine what kind of manpower we will have in 10 years when these children will be manning our service sector, our industrial sector, etc.?

Is there a way forward from a deep-rooted and complex education crisis caused by the government’s “mismanagement” that is made even worse by the coronavirus pandemic? One thing is alarming in the education sector when online learning becomes a permanent part of education. Zoom lectures are destroying the university experience.

Given the challenges presented above, is there a ray of hope with Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. as the country’s president?

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• Geopolitics
• Environment

Philippines needs to improve its education system

The research arm of Switzerland-based business school, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) recently released the results of its survey on the talent competitiveness of 63 countries from around the world. Based on the rankings, the Philippines managed to jump up to 49th place from 55th last year. 

Regardless of the jump, the ASEAN country, unfortunately, still performed the worst when compared to other bloc members. In order to understand how this happened, it’s important to look at what the study uses for its indicators.

The World Talent Ranking looks at three main factors when determining how to rank a country. The investment and development factor, which measures resources used to cultivate homegrown human capital;  the appeal factor, which evaluates the extent to which a country attracts and retains foreign and local talent; and the readiness factor, which looks at the quality of skills and competencies of a country’s labour force.

While a simple example of the investment and development factor would be whether a country is able to provide education to its citizens, the readiness factor seems to indicate that it is also important to look at the quality of the education provided. This, according to the study, is where countries like the Philippines fall short.

Quality of education

For the three factors, the Philippines scored 31st for appeal, 61st for investment and development, and 26th for readiness. Similarly, last year, the Philippines scored lowest for investment and development.

In 2018, the IMD World Competitiveness Center’s director, Arturo Bris told the media that the Philippines’ labour force is not as equipped with skills that firms are looking for.

He acknowledged that it was true that the Philippines was making progress in managing its talent pool and is, in fact, one of only two countries in Southeast Asia along with Malaysia which has improved government investment in education as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

“However, in 2018, The Philippines witnessed a deterioration of its ability to provide the economy with the skills needed, which points to a mismatch between school curriculums and the demands of companies,” he said.

But it isn’t just a Swiss business school that thinks the Philippines needs to improve its quality of education. In June last year, local media reported the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) as saying that while the state of education nationwide has progressed in terms of accessibility, it still has a long way to go when it comes to delivery of quality learning for the success of every learner.

PBEd executive director, Love Basillote said this can be attributed to many factors such as prevalence of malnutrition and a shortage of appropriate learning tools, adding that many college graduates are not work-ready due to a lack of socio-emotional skills.

“Our recommendation is we focus on learning by starting early, monitoring learning, raising accountability and aligning actors,” she said, also suggesting that the country participate consistently in international learning assessments to make Filipino learners and graduates globally competitive.

The World Talent Ranking 2018 cited the country’s top weaknesses in the areas of total public expenditure on education, pupil-teacher ratio in primary and secondary schools, and remuneration in service professions and labour force growth.

Upgrading digital skills

The World Economic Forum (WEF) head of Asia Pacific and Member of the Executive Committee, Justin Wood noted that Industry 4.0, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, was unfolding at accelerating speed and changing the skills that workers will need for the jobs of the future.

On 19 November  last year, a coalition of major technology companies pledged to develop digital skills for the ASEAN workforce. Being part of the WEF’s Digital ASEAN initiative, the pledge aims to train some 20 million people in Southeast Asia by 2020, especially those working in small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).

The move is most welcomed especially due to the threat of huge job displacement across the region. Now, following results from the World Talent Ranking, it seems that this initiative would be much needed in the Philippines as well.

However, the Philippines must understand that the pledge will only go so far in ensuring that it has the right workforce for the new skills demands of companies. Improving the quality of education in the country is still critical and as 2019’s results highlight, the Philippines needs to continue working on this.

This article was first published on 5 December, 2019. 

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Philippine Students Suffer in Wilting Heat, Thwarting Education Efforts

Students walk inside the campus of Commonwealth High School, in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, April 18, 2024. REUTERS/Lisa Marie David

(Corrects to say heat indices, not temperatures, have risen to 50 degrees Celsius in paragraph 2)

By Adrian Portugal

MANILA (Reuters) - Sweltering heat in the Philippines can curb farm production, disrupt water and power and weigh on businesses, but it also takes a toll on students, hampering the Southeast Asian nation's efforts to catch up to its neighbours in education.

Heat indices have hit 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) in various regions in the Philippines, as the weather phenomenon El Nino intensifies the heat enveloping the nation in its summer months of March to May.

The Philippines scores among the lowest in the world in math, science and reading, partly because of years of inadequate remote learning during the pandemic, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment, an international study of education systems.

"It is extremely hot now. The heat burns my skin, it's not like the usual (summer) heat that is tolerable," said senior high school student Kirt Mahusay, 23, whose education was halted during COVID-19.

Thousands of schools have suspended classes due to the heat, affecting more than 3.6 million students, education ministry data shows.

"In May, we're expecting more class suspensions because of the heatwaves. We're seeing an average of more than 52 degrees Celsius (125 F), so you could imagine how stressful that would be for learners," said Xerxes Castro, basic education adviser for the Save the Children Philippines.

The wilting heat - part of a band spreading across much of South and Southeast Asia, exacerbated by climate change - makes it harder for students to learn.

Children are particularly vulnerable to heat-related illnesses such as dizziness, vomiting and fainting when exposed to extreme heat for long periods, according to Save the Children Philippines.

Students and teachers have expressed concerns about difficulties in remote teaching and learning, especially in poorer areas where homes are not conducive for studying and may lack access to good internet connectivity.

"I could not focus because I get dizzy" from the heat, Esmaira Solaiman, a 20-year-old senior high school student whose learning was delayed during the pandemic, said after attending an online class from home.

Students attending in-person classes in the capital Manila resort to portable fans, notebooks and even cardboard boxes for a bit of breeze to offer relief.

"My blood pressure is already increasing because of the heat," said 62-year-old secondary school teacher Memia Santos. "Our backs are wet and at times we get dizzy." (This story has been corrected to say heat indices, not temperatures, have risen to 50 degrees Celsius, in paragraph 2)

(Reporting by Adrian Portugal, Writing by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by William Mallard)

Copyright 2024 Thomson Reuters .

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