ISSUES AND PROBLEMS IN FINANCING EDUCATION

PUBLIC INSTITUTION
Budget for Education
The second issue that the Philippine educational system faces is the budget
for education. Although it has been mandated by the Philippine Constitution
for the government to allocate the highest proportion of its government to
education, the Philippines remains to have one of the lowest budget
allocations to education among ASEAN countries.
Lack of Facilities and Teacher Shortage in Public Schools
There are large-scale shortages of facilities across Philippine public schools -
these include classrooms, teachers, desks and chairs, textbooks, and audio-
video materials. According to 2003 Department of Education
Undersecretary Juan Miguel Luz, reportedly over 17 million students are
enrolled in Philippine public schools, and at an annual population growth rate
of 2.3 per cent, about 1.7 million babies are born every year which means that
in a few years time, more individuals will assert ownership over their share of
the (limited) educational provisions. To sum it up, there are too many
students and too little resources. Albeit the claims the government makes on
increasing the allocated budget for education, there is a prevalent difficulty
the public school system faces with regard to shortages. Furthermore, state
universities and colleges gradually raise tuition so as to have a means of
purchasing facilities, thus making tertiary education difficult to access or more
often than not, inaccessible to the poor. However, it is worth taking note of
what the Aquino administration has done in its five years of governance with
regard to classroom-building - the number of classrooms built from 2005 to
the first half of the year 2010 has tripled. Additionally, the number of
classrooms that were put up from the year 2010 to February 2015 was
recorded to be at 86,478, significantly exceeding the 17,305 classrooms that
were built from 2005 to 2010 and adequate enough to counterbalance the
66,800 classroom deficit in the year 2010.
In President Aquino's fourth state of the nation address (SONA), he spoke of
the government's achievement of zero backlog in facilities such as classrooms,
desks and chairs, and textbooks which has addressed the gap in the shortages
of teachers, what with 56,085 new teachers for the 61, 510 teaching items in
the year 2013. However, the data gathered by the Department of Education
shows that during the opening of classes (June 2013), the shortages in
classrooms was pegged at 19, 579, 60 million shortages when it came to
textbooks, 2.5 million shortages with regard to chairs, and 80, 937 shortages
of water and sanitation facilities. Furthermore, 770 schools in Metro Manila,
Cebu, and Davao were considered overcrowded. The Department of
Education also released data stating that 91% of the 61, 510 shortages in
teachers was filled up alongside appointments (5, 425 to be specific) are being
processed
1. Deteriorating quality of education
It is uncommon to hear college teachers decry the quality of students that
come to them. They lament the students’ inability to construct a correct
sentence, much less a paragraph. Private schools have been assailed as profit-
making institutions turning out half-baked graduates who later become part
of the nation’s educated unemployed. All these are indications of the poor
quality of education.
There are multiple factors which have led to low educational standards.
Studies and fact-finding commissions have shown that the deteriorating
quality of education is due to the low government budget for education; poor
quality of teachers; poor management of schools; poor school facilities such
as laboratory and library facilities; poor learning environment; the content of
the curriculum; inadequate books and science equipment; the poor method of
instruction; shortages of classrooms; and others.
3. Shortage of school buildings, textbooks and equipment
Since 1960, elementary enrolment has been expanding at the rapid rate of 4%
a year owing to increase in the number of children and in the enrolment ratio.
The shortages of classrooms and textbooks are particularly severe. The
nationwide classroom shortage is estimated to be 40,000 and the DECS (now
DepEd) operates two shifts in many schools. The textbook problem is even
more serious. A survey done in preparation for a World Bank education loan
found that the pupil-textbook ration in the public elementary schools is 10:1
and 79% of the textbooks are more than 5 years old. This situation has
persisted for many years.
Other teaching tools, such as science materials, teaching devices and audio-
visual aids, are also in short supply. Perennial graft and corruption in the
acquisition of books and in the construction of school buildings has often been
reported. This situation handicaps the teaching staff in their work.
4. Overworked and underpaid teaching staff
Teaching has often been referred to as the “most notable of all professions.”
To many teachers, however, the noble image of their profession has been
transformed into an illusion. Over the last three decades, we have come to
think of the Filipino teachers as overworked and underpaid professionals.
The fact that teachers are paid subsistence wages is only half of their sad
story. Their daily bout with dilapidated classrooms, overcrowded classes, and
lack of teaching materials, among others, make the teachers hardly rewarded
work even more difficult.
Aside from classroom instructions, teachers perform a host of backbreaking
and time-consuming jobs unrelated to the teaching function. The National
Research and Development Center for Teacher Education under the DECS
listed 76 extracurricular activities performed by public school teachers. Such
activities include Operation Timbang, census taking, tax consciousness drive,
Clean and Green Drive, Alay-Tanim, Alay-Lakad, fund raising campaigns, lining
the streets to welcome foreign dignitaries, etc. To do all these, teachers are
forced to work two or three hours overtime everyday. They also have to
report during weekends and holidays and even during their yearly vacation
time.