Saturday, December 20, 2008 Editorial: Investing in the future
THE 8th High Level Group meeting on Education for All held in Oslo organized by the Unesco and the government of Norway this week has called on governments to intensify investments in education amid the global financial meltdown.
The High-Level Group meeting is an annual event that brings together top-level representatives from government, development agencies, UN agencies, civil society and the private sector. Its role is to reinforce political will in order to accelerate progress towards Education for All, strengthen partnerships, identify priorities and mobilize more resources.
The 8th meeting on EFA reiterated its call for governments to allot at least four to six percent of its GNP and 15 to 20 percent of public expenditure to education.
While Sun.Star Davao could not get a copy of how the newly approved 2009 General Appropriations Bill is distributed a recent press release quoting Education Secretary Jesli Lapus placed the education budget for 2009 at P167.94-billion. The total budget is P1.4-trillion, which makes the education budget just 11.99 percent of proposed budget spending.
It is further estimated that the education budget is but 2.19 percent of GNP.
This is but another picture of how we are lagging behind in ensuring education for all in our country.
Token actions like providing day care centers to represent the sum total of early childhood care and development without providing adequate resources for well-trained teachers will just mean more children learning nothing, or worst the wrong things, from early childhood care.
The world is on its toes, not knowing what will hit it as the financial meltdown continues to seep into every country's economy. Admittedly, the government is trying to seek out all those jobs available abroad for the country's manpower who themselves are being threatened by budget cuts from foreign countries since overseas Filipino workers are contributing as much as 9.2 percent of the country's GNP. But while there is reason to praise government for taking such action, the problems at home remain, and is growing fast at an estimated 1.7 percent population growth rate.
The population is growing, the cost of living is consistently rising, and the economy is just about ready to topple down. Clearly, there is need to spend more in order to sustain even the numbers already attained. Poor families in times of crisis will cut down on education spending. Public spending should therefore be there to help the poorest stay in school without requiring their parents to spend more for education.
In a world in crisis, food will always be the top priority. It is for those government and those who already have food to give their share so that those who only have food will not have to cut into that staple just to give their children a chance in life better than just surviving.
