Wednesday, August 08, 2007 Private sector investments in education sector urged
THE government is tapping more private sector investments into the education sector as it undertakes various programs aimed at increasing the competitiveness of Philippine education.
Department of Education (DepEd) Undersecretary Ramon Bacani told Philexport News and Features these include programs intended to improve by 30 percent the students’ proficiencies in English, Science and Math by 2010, the expansion of both Early Education and the Every Child A Reader Program (Ecarp), the School Based Management (SBM) initiative and the Cyber Education (CyberEd) Program.
Ecarp will make every Filipino child a successful reader, while the SBM program will strengthen and improve the competencies of regional as well as local school personnel.
The DepEd has also tied up with Tsinghua University, China’s technological university, for the implementation of CyberEd program.
CyberEd, which will link over 36,000 public elementary and secondary schools, will create one national network for education. Through the network, students from remote areas will learn from master teachers in virtual classrooms.
Bacani said the education sector will receive a P145 billion budget allocation next year as against the proposed P173 billion.
Private sector partners in the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) are likewise helping the government in providing more school buildings, computer with internet in public schools and training programs for teachers.
The 2007 World Competitiveness Yearbook ranked the Philippine pupil-teacher ratio in primary and secondary 54th and 55th out of 55 countries, respectively.
“We are already trying to address this issue with the implementation of these programs,” he said. (Danielle Venz/Philexport News and Features/Sunnex)
