PHILIPPINES, January 30 - Press Release
January 27, 2025

Fixing the Foundations: A Matter of National Survival
Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, January 27, 2025

Mr. President, honorable colleagues, allow me to address you all today as the Co-Chairperson of the Second Congressional Commission on Education or EDCOM II, which formally submits to Congress the EDCOM Year Two Report, entitled "Fixing the Foundations". This is in line with our mandate, under Republic Act No. 11899, to "report to Congress its accomplishments on a periodic basis, its findings and recommendations on actions taken by Congress, the departments, and other government agencies concerned with education."

In our first year at EDCOM, we confronted the harsh realities embedded in our education system-- such as systemic issues of underinvestment, disjointed governance, and inequitable access to quality education that have plagued our nation for decades.

The data illuminated what we called "miseducation" --or poorly delivered education-- resulting from a system that struggles to deliver "a complete, adequate, and integrated system of education". These issues ranged from stunting in the early years, the inaccessibility of early childhood education, the decade-long challenge of delivering textbooks, and the multitude of interagency bodies that DepEd, CHED, and TESDA need to attend to, on top of their most important task, that is, to ensure learning for all Filipinos.

As we mark our second year as a Commission and submit our Year Two Report, we sharpen our focus and refine our understanding of the structural roots of these challenges. The message is clear and unambiguous: we need to fix the very foundations of the system. We must realign our priorities to the earliest stages of education: from the stunted growth of early learners to deep deficits in literacy and numeracy, these problems do not just hinder individual potential--they reverberate throughout a lifetime. They limit opportunities, perpetuate poverty, and stifle national progress.

Swiftly addressing our learning crisis is not just a matter of educational aspiration--it is a matter of national survival. Education reform is no longer a lofty goal, it is an urgent imperative.

To this end, we must first address the most vulnerable stages: early childhood education and nutrition. Despite the overwhelming evidence of its importance, the reality is that early childhood care and development or ECCD remains neglected. Only 25 percent of children meet the recommended energy intake between 6 to 12 months. Among the poor, as much as 80 percent are not able to receive the nutrition they require during the first 1,000 days of life. To further aggravate the situation, 5,800 barangays remain without a child development center despite the enactment of Republic Act 6972 of 1990, which requires the establishment of a daycare center in every barangay in the country. Parents are further limited by practical barriers such as distance to child development centers, the cost of transportation, and the need to work. Our initial studies also highlight how as many as 40 percent of parents migrate elsewhere for work while their children are young, further challenging ECCD provision.

To remedy this, investments in ECCD must increase and be equitably distributed. With the support of Congress, the General Appropriations Act of 2025 includes an allocation of 80 million Pesos for TESDA scholarships for child development workers, and 24 million Pesos to establish child development centers in underserved areas. These are important first steps. However, it is imperative for us to squarely, and consistently, address these gaps. We hope that with the impending passage of the amending law to the Early Years Act of 2013, which has passed both houses, we will effect lasting and meaningful reform for early childhood. Next, we turn our attention to the foundations of primary education, where the situation is similarly dire. The foundational years--Kindergarten to Grade 3--are the bedrock upon which a child's future learning is built. Notably, this stage is called the "primary years" not only because it comes ahead of other levels, but because of its critical importance.

Yet, far too many students are falling behind, entering Grade 4 with skills equivalent to Grade 2 or 3. An upcoming UNICEF study details that even before the pandemic, most Grade 4 students have been performing at least a year below curriculum standards in Math and Literacy. This means that while we expect Grade 3 students to be able to divide three-digit numbers, their actual competency is adding single-digit ones. This gap in foundational skills only compounds as they move through the system-- some all the way up to high school. If we fail to address this problem squarely, it is bound to result in high dropout rates and poor achievement, undermining our aspirations for high school, TVET, and higher education.

I now turn to issues on curriculum. While the MATATAG curriculum reforms have been welcomed by teachers, it continues to be hampered by implementation concerns, foremost in the delivery of textbooks. For Grades 1, 4, and 7, only 35 out of 90 textbook titles have been successfully delivered to students half-way through the school year. School days have also been repeatedly interrupted by class suspensions. DepEd data shows that out of 88 school days from June to December of 2024, several divisions in the Cordillera Administrative Region have already lost 42 days, or almost 1 of 2 quarters. Meanwhile, CALABARZON has lost 38 days, Region 2 with 36 days, and Region 1 with 33 days, resulting in major setbacks in learning.

Another reform that we have undertaken with the help of our colleagues is the discontinuation of the Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education (MTB-MLE). Under RA No. 12027, the use of Mother Tongue as medium of instruction from kindergarten to Grade 3, which is provided for under RA No. 10533, is discontinued. The medium of instruction reverted to Filipino and, until otherwise provided by law, English, pursuant to Article 14, Section 7 of the 1987 Constitution. Under this new law, regional languages shall serve as auxiliary media of instruction. The law permits, however, the use of MTB-MLE in monolingual classes, where they work best. This reform seeks to address the challenges that hounded the implementation of MTB-MLE, including the lack of expertise, readiness, and learning materials in our schools, all of which affected how teachers deliver instruction and how learners absorb their lessons.

Learning recovery programs must also be revisited and revamped. The National Reading Program, the National Math Program, and the National Science and Technology Program have been delayed, and existing catch-up programs have reached only a fraction of the students who need them most. We must ensure that these programs are fully funded and effectively reach the students who are struggling. Let me also emphasize that RA No. 12028 or the Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning Program Act was signed into law on October 16, 2024, which would not have been possible without the support of our colleagues. Through this landmark law, we can provide interventions to learners in need, especially those who are struggling to meet the minimum proficiency levels required in reading, mathematics, and science.

Equally, we must likewise turn our attention to our best and brightest students. While other countries including South Korea, China, Australia, and Europe aim to nurture and support at least their top 3 percent, a generous estimation of our current efforts is only 1 percent of 27.1 million learners. We can do better than this, Mr. President. In the Philippine Science High School System, for instance, its 16 campuses nationwide received nearly 50,000 applicants in the past three years. Despite its extremely competitive examinations, 23 percent of the applicants passed. However, more than 5,800 students had to be turned away due to lack of slots and resources. Similar issues are faced by DepEd Science High Schools, and Special Science Programs all over the country. While we focus on addressing basic issues like literacy and numeracy, we must also do more to ensure that the brightest Filipino minds--no matter their background--are nurtured and given the opportunities they deserve.

We also cannot ignore the critical issue of school infrastructure. With a backlog of 165,000 classrooms, many schools resort to multiple shifting schedules and alternative delivery modes. We must not only increase funding for classroom construction. We also need to tap into essential partnerships with the private sector, to ensure that every child, no matter where they live, has access to a safe and conducive learning environment.

Despite the passage of Republic Act No. 11510 or the Alternative Learning System Act in 2020, the ALS program has fallen short of its potential, with many provisions still without implementing guidelines from the concerned agencies. Of the 4.9 million out-of-school youth, only 600,000 have been reached by the ALS program, and only 300,000 of them complete their studies. Mr. President, colleagues, any working education requires that we have robust pathways not just in formal education, but also in non-formal and informal ones. We need to make sure that we are not leaving any learner behind.

The EDCOM Year Two Report also details the insidious issue of bullying, a silent and persistent threat to our students' well-being and learning. Studies have shown that the Philippines has become the "bullying capital of the world" based on data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM). We must take stronger action. EDCOM calls for an immediate review and amendment of the IRR of the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013 so that it is updated and enhanced to meet the realities of schools today.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank our colleagues for the passage of RA No. 12080 or the Basic Education Mental Health and Well-Being Promotion Act, which will go a long way in easing the severe gap in guidance counselors in our schools, and bring into line comprehensive mental health initiatives for basic education institutions.

Higher education also finds itself in a critical juncture. Following the passage of RA 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education, we stand proud with a high participation rate of 35 percent. However, regional disparities are stark: in BARMM, only 18.7 percent attend college, and in the Bicol region, only 24.6 percent. The attrition rate is also alarmingly high, at 39 percent nationwide. Meanwhile in BARMM, of the 100 that attend college, only 7 eventually complete. These underscore the need for targeted interventions not only for equitable access, but also for equitable completion.

Thanks to the support of our colleagues, we have advocated successfully for the prioritization of the poorest of the poor in the implementation of the Tertiary Education Subsidy, consistent with the intent of law. This program has increased the share of the poorest grantees from zero in 2022-2023, to 27 percent in 2023-2024. We call on our colleagues to join us in amending the law to ensure that the poorest who are able to finish high school are guaranteed slots in the government's TES program. This would support more than 500,000 students from 4Ps families in actually pursuing a college education, similar to our aim when we authored the law in 2018. After all, as President Ramon Magsaysay said, "those who have less in life, must have more in law."

When it comes to teacher education, we have discovered that 62 percent of high school teachers are teaching subjects outside their college major, leading to a lack of subject-specific expertise, especially in the sciences. In our many consultations with teachers, we have seen the struggles of English majors teaching Physics, or Filipino majors teaching Math. We have also heard the pleas of early childhood teachers who were forced to take the licensure exam for elementary, and of PE majors being forced to take the licensure for MAPEH, which includes Music and Arts.

These supply and demand issues need to be addressed at the soonest possible time, beginning with the design of the teacher education curriculum, and the content of the Board Licensure Examination for Teachers, to the hiring practices of DepEd. We commend DepEd and the Teacher Education Council for fast-tracking the full operationalization of its strengthened secretariat. We count on the TEC, together with DepEd, CHED, and PRC, to address this severe misalignment in teacher education, while we do our part in amending RA No. 7836 or the Philippines Teachers Professionalization Act of 1994.

We also thank our former colleague, and DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara for promptly and finally signing the IRR of the Expanded Career Progression System on his second week in office, two years after the issuance of the Executive Order in 2022. It gives our public school teachers opportunities for career advancement, no longer having to wait for 15 years to go from Teacher 1 (Salary Grade 11) to Teacher 3 (Salary Grade 13). As we speak, we are likewise hard at work cementing and future-proofing career progression through legislation.

One of the most glaring findings of the Commission this year was also the lack of principals on the ground. Out of 45,199 public schools, more than half currently do not have principals, with thousands of schools not even having plantilla items, most times contrary to DepEd's own policies which were crafted in 1997 and that have not been reviewed, updated, nor monitored. Expecting school reforms to take place without a school principal, is like expecting an orchestra to play harmoniously without a conductor. Effective school-level reform requires strong school leadership. We call on our colleagues and the DepEd leadership to address this gap urgently.

In Technical-Vocational Education and Training or TVET, we passed RA 12063 or the Enterprise-Based Education and Training Framework Act, principally authored by our EDCOM Commissioners, Cong. Mark Go and Senator Joel Villanueva, our other EDCOM Commissioners, and by yours truly last November. This law is bound to transform technical-vocational education in the country, incentivizing industry to participate and lead efforts in upskilling, support the scaling up of apprenticeship programs, and enabling genuine access to incentives as initially envisioned under the Dual Training System Law of 1994, consistent with the recommendations of the first EDCOM.

Under the leadership of our former colleague, and now TESDA Secretary, Kiko Benitez, we anticipate game-changing reforms in TVET, with a focus on ramping up higher level skilling programs (particularly NCs 3 and 4), expanding of industry boards, a deepening of TESDA's collaboration with industry, and a clear-sighted plan towards ensuring that each TVET graduate gains quality employment.

Last year, we echoed the concern of many, about the lack of coordination across our education agencies following the trifocalization proposed by the first EDCOM in the 1990s, leading to the establishment of DepEd, CHED and TESDA. Remarkably, while there has not been sustained formal coordination among these three bodies, we listed more than 68 interagency groups they needed to attend to on top of their daily responsibilities-- none of which, if we may add, focused on learning. To remedy this, we urged the President in July to create a Cabinet Cluster for education, that would ensure coherent planning, budgeting, and monitoring of system-level priorities. We reiterate our call for the creation of this body, to ensure that there is a common vision and direction, and a venue for regular coordination on education concerns.

Finally, we turn to the perennial issue of education funding. Despite substantial increases since 2017, deeper scrutiny would reveal how most additional resources have in fact gone to senior high school and higher education, while the earlier years remain underfunded, with huge deficits in classrooms, teachers and principals. This contrasts the experiences of many education systems such as Vietnam and Peru that have dramatically improved learning in their country. We need to go back to the basics and prioritize the earliest years: early childhood and primary education, because these are the foundations upon which all further learning will be built upon.

Not surprisingly in DepEd's Basic Education Development Plan, or BEDP 2030, we find that only 8 out of 88 targets focused on learning.

All of these findings point to a clear and singular message: we must act to fix the foundations of our education system. It is imperative that as we face an avalanche of concerns, we sift through the list and prioritize those that are foundational for our students. This is early childhood education, nutrition in the first 1,000 days, and literacy by the end of Grade 3. These are not just benchmarks--they are lifelines. If we fail to establish these primary, basic needs, the rest of the structure cannot stand, or worse, will stand on hollow ground.

It is only by fixing the foundations of our system could we build one that fulfills the promise of our people and the demands of this period of our history and the next. Thus, as we release our Year Two Report, we renew our call to action. We urge our colleagues to read the two EDCOM reports closely to gain a comprehensive understanding of the challenges faced by our system, and to join us in our efforts to address these ills.

As EDCOM begins its third and final year, we will complete our mandate under the law, and deliver to Congress by the end of this year, a National Education and Workforce Development Plan that sets a clear blueprint for long-term sustained reform, that details targets, priorities, as well as budgetary, and policy needs, to once and for all avert our learning crisis. After all, the reforms we aspire to achieve will not happen overnight, as the Kinder students of today will only graduate Grade 3 in 2029, SHS in 2038, and college by 2042.

Before I end, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our leadership and our colleagues for your abiding support to the Commission, our Advisory Council and Standing Committee members for their tireless work, and the Technical Secretariat and staff of the Commissioners, for their resolute commitment to education. We also thank our partner organizations, universities, and champions, who have been with EDCOM since day one to help us carry out our collective mission.

Together, let us turn this crisis into an opportunity--to rebuild, and to create an education system which befits the boundless potential of the Filipino people.

Real change does not happen in reports or in legislative chambers--it is actively pursued and dreamed of in every classroom, in every home, in every community, and in the hearts and minds of learners and educators across the nation.

Together, let us forge a new path toward a brighter future for Philippine education-- one that we hope will be worthy of the Filipino people.

Thank you, Mr. President, esteemed colleagues.

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