Restore budget cuts to education in 2020
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 18:40:32 +0000
Congress should restore the reductions that have been made to the allocation for the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) in the proposed 2020 national budget. Those cuts have serious social and economic consequences. In fact, the importance of education has been widely recognized here and around the world. The framers of the 1987 Constitution did so as well when they crafted Section XIV, which in part says the State should assign the highest budgetary priority to education. Even if the proponents of those cuts argue that education still retains the highest share of the proposed 2020 budget, the disadvantages of their action are clear and troubling.
Just days ago, the Council for Private Educational Associations of the Philippines (Cocopea) passed a resolution calling on Congress to put back P50 billion to education in next year’s P4.1-trillion proposed budget. If adopted by lawmakers, that would cover the DepEd budget on GAS, or the Government Assistance to Students, and the CHEd earmark on TES, or the Tertiary Education Subsidy.
We agree with Cocopea. We encourage others to do the same. On a positive note, it seems that some senators feel the same way. Sen. Ralph Recto was quoted as saying that budget cuts to tertiary education would push many students to drop out of college. And in a public hearing, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian expressed concern that as many as 500,000 would drop out of senior high school as a result of the proposed cutbacks that would limit the voucher program for those learners. There are a few others who echo Senators Recto and Gatchalian, but the move to restore the allocation for education needs more support, particularly in the House of Representatives.
Besides access to education, the country needs more teachers and classrooms. For 2020, DepEd made a request to hire at least 43,300 additional teachers, but the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) approved an allocation for only 10,000. Education Secretary Leonor Briones reported there were 27 million students from kindergarten to senior high school, but only 900,000 teachers were employed. In fact, the DepEd had also asked to hire more than 56,500 non-teaching personnel, but only 525 positions were approved.
The DepEd had also asked for the construction of about 64,700 additional classrooms across the country, but only 10,000 were covered by the proposed 2020 budget. The department’s requests for more chairs and desks were also slashed. Sen. Pilar Juliana “Pia” Cayetano said education deserves more funding than what was allocated in the proposed budget. She has a point.
In fairness to the DBM, however, it has to balance education’s spending requests with so many other national priorities. This only underscores the need to expand the tax base, starting with more people and firms paying the right amount of taxes and for government to reduce wasteful spending and eradicating corruption that divert valuable resources.
Worth the money
The Philippines enjoys a competitive advantage of having a young population, a so-called demographic sweetspot. Meanwhile, other countries, like Japan, face an aging problem. But if we fail to invest enough on the young, that advantage will not materialize. “Education reduces poverty, boosts economic growth and increases income,” according to the Global Partnership for Education, an international organization that advocates access to quality education in the world’s poorest countries.
Unesco’s Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report says one extra year of schooling boosts a person’s earnings by up to 10 percent. The report adds that each additional year of schooling raises the average annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth by 0.37 percent. The GDP is a key economic indicator that tallies the final cost of goods and services produced in a country over a given period, typically a year.
There are more statistics to support investments in education, with some even correlating peace and spending for schooling. As it is, the point is plain and evident — that there is a compelling argument for restoring the allocation for the DepEd and CHEd. Clearly, this is a matter of national interest.