Vice Pres Leni Robredo urged the government to declare an education crisis to meet the needs of students and teachers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Robredo, the government should focus on the solution instead of being defensive.
“Ang daming puwedeng gawin. Para sa’kin, ’yun nga, magdeklara na tayo ng education crisis kasi mas mabagal tayong nagre-react, mas gumagrabe ang problema natin,” said Robredo.
In this regard, Robredo also referred to the poor assessment of students’ performance in major subjects such as Math, Science, and English.
She said students’ nutrition spending has decreased in recent years. There is a belief that when a child is malnourished and has an empty stomach, it will be more difficult for him to study.
The World Bank apologized to the Philippines concerning the education report it “inadvertently published” on its website.
“We deeply regret that the report on education was inadvertently published earlier than scheduled and before the Department of Education had enough chance to provide inputs,” the World Bank said in a statement.
“This was an oversight on our part, and we conveyed our personal apologies in our communication with the government.”
Robredo wants education crisis declared
The international financial institution added it temporarily removed the report from the website.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones earlier demanded the World Bank to apologize, saying the report was based on old data. The institution did not give the Philippine government a heads-up about the report.
“We would like the public to be aware of this, and since the country was insulted [and] was shamed, we expect and look forward to a public apology,” Briones said at a Palace news conference.
Last week, World Bank reported that 80% of Filipino schoolchildren fell below the minimum proficiency levels.
The report was based its conclusion on the Philippines’ scores in the 2018 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the 2019 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and the 2019 Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM).
Last year, Grade 4 students from the Philippines scored lowest among 58 countries who took the international assessment for mathematics and science, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2019 (TIMSS) reported.
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