The EFA 2000 Assessment: Country Reports
Philippines

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List of Tables

Table I-1: Comparative PPA Performance Targets

1. – The Internalisation and Evolution of EFA in the Philippines

The State of Philippine Primary Education at the Start of EFA

This section will deal with the presentation and analysis of EFA-related Philippine baseline data using 18 core EFA indicators and other relevant measures for early childhood development, formal primary education, and adult literacy. Table I-1 presents the baseline figures for the performance targets established under the PPA, while Table I-2 shows the baseline data for the core indicators.

Early Childhood Care and Development

Child Survival. The officially adopted infant mortality rate for the Philippines was 57 per 1,000 live births in 1990. There is, however, some controversy over the exact magnitude of death rates, but it is a fact that improvement in child survival between 1960 and 1990 was lowest in the Philippines compared to four other ASEAN countries. During that period, infant mortality and under-five mortality rates in the Philippines went down by only 22 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

Childrens’ Diseases. At that time, the leading diseases among infants and children were respiratory infections and their complications, and diarrhoea. Such diseases among children lead to reduced nutrient uptake and subsequently to weight loss and weakened immune systems. Frequent sickness among children thus abets equally frequent absences or inattentiveness in class. According to the Department of Health’s statistics, respiratory infection and diarrhoea rates increased sharply from 1980 to 1990, although death rates from the same diseases fell substantially.

Nutrition. Malnutrition causes lower IQs, poor school attendance and shorter attention spans, making the affected children more prone to repeat grades or to dropout of school entirely. Malnourished children also tend to achieve less in school. During the start of the decade, the reported iron deficiency rates were about 49 percent among infants and about 26 percent among children ages 1 to 6. Iron deficiency was then the most common form of malnutrition in the Philippines, and health experts attribute the high rate

Table -1: Comparative PPA Performance Targets



Table -2: Baseline Figures using Core EFA Indicators

among infants to the fact that approximately 43 percent of pregnant and lactating women were anaemic. Iron deficiency anaemia has important adverse effects on child growth and development, including intellectual development. Aside from this, there was also an extensive and severe problem of iodine deficiency, the effects of which include cretinism, mental retardation, reduced learning capacity and hearing loss in infants and children. The World Bank and the ADB reported that a 1993 study of newborns in one Manila hospital revealed that 30 percent of the babies tested suffered from subclinical iodine deficiency, suggesting the consideration of iodine deficiency as a national rather than simply a regional problem. Finally, using international reference standards, protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) in the Philippines was worse in 1992 than in poorer countries such as Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. PEM, often attributed to poverty and to the lack of purchasing power for food, has deleterious consequences on children’s physical well being particularly their physical dimensions and energy levels.

Participation in Early Childhood Development Programmes. The results of international studies point to pre-schooling’s benefits to children, such as better socialisation and adjustment skills, higher test achievements, and reduced probability of dropping out of primary school. However, the Philippine record in 1989 showed that only about 19.5 percent of the total 0-6 years old population of 11.5 million was reached by one or more of the various forms of early childhood care and development services. Among those who managed to avail of ECD services, far less than half had any exposure to formal pre-schooling. This is borne out by the 1990 gross enrolment ratio in public pre-school programmes, which was only 7.99 percent, with a gender parity index close to 1.0. However, formal pre-school participation was lopsidedly higher in the urban areas than in the rural areas. Additional evidence of the rural disadvantage is provided by the results of a survey conducted by the DECS in 1999 especially for this purpose. The survey found that the percentage of new entrants to Grade 1 with some form of earlier ECCD exposure was 72.5 percent in 1995 (with a gender parity index of almost 1.0) such that it is very likely that the figure was substantially lower in 1990. The 1995 figure may seem high until it is realised that the high ECD exposure rate in the private sector and to some extent in the urban areas was responsible for pulling up the national figure.

Reach of Public Day Care Centres. What made matters worse was that only 3.0 percent of the same population segment was served by public day care centres at that time, which meant that the then increasing number of mothers who had to work outside the home had to leave their children with incompetent hands, which exposed them to various hazards. Even then, parents and surrogates who managed to stay at home were observed to be generally lacking in training on early childhood care and development, engendering child neglect and malnutrition.

Universal Primary Education

Access to Grade 1. Notwithstanding the fast rate of growth in the school-going population, the Philippines provided a high level of access to primary education in 1990. The apparent intake rate (AIR) for new entrants into Grade 1 was 134.2 percent and the net intake rate (NIR) was 79.8 percent. Although the gender parity rate in 1990 was very close to 1.0, males nonetheless had slightly higher AIRs and NIRs. The AIR and NIR in the rural areas were a little higher than in the urban areas. These figures indicate that at that time there were substantial numbers of overage and underage children entering Grade 1 for the first time, which suggests that many families were postponing their children’s schooling. Furthermore, the large difference between the gross and the net intake rates reveals that a great proportion of children of official primary school-entrance still did not enter school at the right age. The familial practice of deferring schooling for Grade 1-eligible children was therefore still being observed. There is no evidence to show that the gap between the gross and net intake rates was the result of non-admittance, since public school administrators are mandated by law and by policy to accept all children of the right age who present themselves for enrolment. Thus, when EFA was launched, the country was burdened with a huge proportion of children who were either old or young for Grade 1. This placed them in a pedagogically disadvantaged position and conceivably made teaching more difficult given the wide variance in maturity and interests among the children in the classrooms.

Access and Participation in the Primary Cycle. For the entire primary education cycle, the gross enrolment rate (GER) was 106.8 percent and the net enrolment rate (NER) stood at 84.6 percent in 1990. Education authorities say that the relatively small proportion that was not in school was composed in the main of children who resided in hard-to-reach localities or in areas where there were no schools. Such places usually covered indigenous and tribal communities and other ethnic minorities. In addition, many were children of migrant workers or were without permanent residences. Nevertheless, while there was no issue in respect of the placement of children of the correct school-going age, the high GER was nonetheless indicative of the prevalence of overage children and repeaters within the entire primary education cycle. Compared to the first grade, where it was very likely to have underage pupils because the official entry age at that time was 7 years, the proportion accounted for by underage children out of the total primary enrolment would have diminished due to the addition of the enrolment in the other grades. The presence of a substantial proportion of overage children and repeaters could have complicated the teaching-learning situation at that time.

Spending Levels on Primary Education. The Philippine Constitution has a specific provision that requires education to be accorded the highest budgetary priority, such that in 1990 the education sector was allocated funds equivalent to 3.07 percent of GNP. This is high relative to the allocations made for the other sectors, e.g., national defense (1.38 percent), health (0.71 percent) and transportation and communications (2.18 percent). In the same year, the primary level’s current expenditures absorbed over one-third of education sector funds, equivalent to 1.18 percent of GNP or 40.1 percent of total public expenditure on education. Translated into per pupil basis, the primary level’s share of funds amounted to about 7.01 percent of per capita GNP. A comparison of Philippine levels of educational expenditures with other Asian countries done by Jee-Peng Tan and Alain Mingat (1992) reveals that towards the end of the 1980s, Malaysia was already spending for education something in the order of 7.3 percent of GNP, Bhutan spent 4.0 percent of GNP and Indonesia 3.7 percent. Actually, the Philippines and Bangladesh (1.5 percent of GNP) were at the low end of the spectrum; Malaysia and Papua New Guinea (6.9 percent of GNP) were at the high end. However, Bangladesh had enrolment ratios very much lower than the Philippines. In sum, then, the Philippines may have underspent in primary education at that time considering its very high gross and net enrolment ratios even if non-current or capital expenditures were added on. This is not to say, however, that low priority was given to primary education. The fact that the sub-sector absorbed 40 percent of total current public expenditure on education indicates its relative size and importance among the other sub-sectors of education. The Philippines’ total education budget supports, in addition, secondary and tertiary education including the very extensive state universities and colleges system, and vocational education and training.

Teacher Academic Credentials. In 1990, the percentage of teachers who possessed the required academic qualifications was already 100 percent with an urban-rural parity of 1.0. Unfortunately no data was provided by the DECS on the gender distribution of teachers, but it is common knowledge that females greatly outnumber the males in the teaching force. In the public sector, teaching is a civil service post that requires, as a minimum, a relevant 4-year teaching credential such as a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education or in Secondary Education, for employment. Private sector hiring standards are higher generally, such that it can be reasonably surmised that the percentage of private school teachers with the proper academic preparation would have been about the same as in the public sector. It would not have been difficult for the Philippines to post such a high level of academic qualification among its teachers even that early, since there had historically been a surfeit of teachers. Annually, the many teacher education institutions turn out vast numbers of teaching graduates who cannot all be absorbed into the system primarily because of their sheer numbers and secondarily because many of them do not pass the teachers’ certification examinations.

Teacher Certification. On the other hand, the percentage of public primary school teachers who were certified to teach according to national standards was 93.6 percent with an urban-rural parity index of 0.98. The total number of public primary school teachers was approximately 310,000 in 1990. Certification for public school teachers at that time (1990) meant that the teacher had passed the required tests administered by the Teacher Examination Board of the Professional Regulations Commission. This requirement was and still is, not imposed on private school teachers. Roughly only 35 percent of teaching graduates who sit for the exams pass every year. The 6.4 percent of teachers who were not certified would have been composed mostly of substitute or temporary teachers assigned in far-flung areas where qualified teachers were difficult to obtain and where properly certified teachers would have had second thoughts about being assigned. Therefore, the Philippines at the start of EFA was handicapped with having had about 20,000 teachers who were not duly certified. These teachers may have been less effective in imparting knowledge and in using instructional materials; and being mainly situated in the difficult-to-reach areas, they would not have been able to contribute much to closing the gap in student achievement between the advantaged and the disadvantaged localities.

Pupil-Teacher Ratios. At the start of EFA, primary school pupil-teacher ratios in the Philippines were 33:1 for the public sector and 35:1 for the private sector. Both had urban-rural parity indices close to 1.0. While these are seemingly attractive ratios being lower than the internationally accepted standard of 40:1, nonetheless these gross ratios have not been netted out for the presence of non-teaching teachers. In the country’s context, there is a substantial proportion of such teachers. They have been termed as such since they are both academically qualified and professionally certified but are assigned to administrative and clerical work such as school canteen management, records keeping and other non-academic jobs. This is quite a common occurrence since budgetary limitations prevent the provision of a full personnel complement for the individual schools. Their inclusion in the derivation of the pupil-teacher ratio therefore distorts the picture of the actual classroom situation by resulting in deceivingly low figures. For 1990, the true classroom pupil-teacher ratio was 40:1 with an urban-rural parity of close to 1.0 when the non-teaching teachers were removed from the computation (see Table I-3 below). While this was not indicative of congestion, it was nonetheless suggestive of inappropriate utilisation of qualified manpower.



Table -3: Pupil-Teacher Ratios in Primary Education (1990)

Internal Efficiency. The 1990 average repetition rate in the public primary schools was 1.96 percent, but that for males (2.45%) was more than 1.5 times that of female repetition. Moreover, the rural repetition rate (2.25%) was 1.4 times that of the urban rate (1.65%). But considering that the Philippines had both high levels of enrolment and gross enrolment ratio, the nearly 2.0 percent repetition rate translated to approximately 230,000 pupils who repeated their respective grades. The seemingly low percentage thus masked a substantial level of inefficiency that occurred in the educational system at that time. Using recurrent costs per pupil (Pesos 2,281 at 1993 prices) derived by the World Bank, the wastage brought about by repetition in 1990 was equivalent to half a billion pesos. In turn, this wastage represented some 4 percent of total public current expenditures in the same year. While this may look absorbable in terms of percentage, what is crucial is the opportunity cost of the loss, which could have otherwise been expended for the provision of additional educational inputs. However, what is distressing in the repetition rate is that in 1990 the incidence of repetition was highest in Grade 1, tapering off the higher grades, as seen in Table I-4 below. Repetition in Grade 1 was nearly 1.5 times that of the repetition in Grade 2, but the combined repetition in Grades 1 and 2 was in fact higher than the combined repetition rates for Grades 3 to 6. Obviously, this had implications on the preparation for school of the younger children and should have highlighted the need for focusing more attention and effort to ECD at the commencement of EFA.



Table -4: National Repetition Rates by Grade

In 1990, the nationwide survival rate to Grade 6 was only 62.7 percent, with females having a 66.0 percent rate and males having a rate of 59.7 percent. The low level of cohort survival was abetted by the high annual dropout rate, which was 7.6 percent nationwide in 1990. Survival rates were higher for both males and females in the rural than in the urban areas. Within each locale, however, females consistently had a higher rate of survival. The corresponding overall coefficient of efficiency in 1990 was 77.3 percent in 1990, suggesting a high level of wastage approximating one-fourth of every cohort of pupils. There was a slightly higher coefficient for females as reflected in the gender parity index of 1.1 at that time. The coefficient of efficiency was substantially higher in the rural areas than in the urban areas, with females consistently having a small edge over the males.

Learning Outcomes

A primary-level achievement test given in 1988 to Grade VI pupils resulted in a mean competency score of only 55.22 percent, sharply below the standard 75%. There was a big disparity in mean scores between the developed and the depressed areas of the country. It was, however, only a one-time test that DECS did not repeat in the subsequent years. In 1993, however, the DECS started the annual administration of a standardised instrument called the National Elementary Achievement Test (NEAT) that permitted a year-to-year comparison of learning accomplishments among school children. Thus, in 1993, the results of the first NEAT showed a mean achievement score of 41.8 percent against the 75.0 percent desired level. Even if the two tests cited above are not exactly comparable, they at least give an indication of the level of achievement among Grade VI pupils. The fact that the mean scores in both tests were way below the benchmark 75 percent meant a very serious shortcoming in the delivery of learning. Additional data that came from the compilation of the core EFA indicators reveal that in the NEAT tests for 1995, the percentages of Grade VI pupils who mastered basic learning competencies were only 59.0 percent for reading/writing, 67.7 percent for mathematics and 61.7 percent for life skills. This finding provides more evidence that a large proportion of primary school pupils who were already at the end-stage of the cycle still had not managed to absorb and retain what they have learned. Unfortunately, this condition once again points to a very disturbing drawback that far outweighs the inefficiency and wastage brought about by low survival rates and high dropout and repetition rates. In contrast to this, the literacy rate among 15-24 year olds, which is one proxy measure for the educational system’s effectiveness in imparting the basic skills of reading and writing, stood at 96.6% with a gender parity index of 1.0 in 1990. The high level of literacy within this particular age group reflects the recent outcomes of the educational process. Therefore, when the literacy rate is analysed in relation to the results of achievement tests, it raises the question of whether primary level education is on the whole good only at developing simple reading and writing skills and not much else. It is no wonder then that the 1989 functional literacy rate among the population 10 years and older (73.2%) was appreciably lower than the simple literacy rate for the same population segment (89.8%). If that is so, there was then very little justification in having maintained a six-year primary cycle producing skills that could have been achieved more efficiently and as effectively through a shorter and less expensive programme.

1. A Note on the NEAT in the Philippines

Figure -6: PPA & MPBE Targets for the CSR in Primary Education

Figure -8: PPA & MPBE Targets for the Mean Achievement Score

Figure -9: PPA Targets for Simple and Functional Literacy