JULY 12 - 18, 2009

High School education elusive to Bicol youths

By Rey M. Nasol

LEGAZPI CITY - Education among Bicolano youths has become more elusive not only for college but also in the High School level especially at public schools, the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) report said.
Engineer Gil Arce, regional director of the NSCB-Bicol said in a separate interview that only half (52.01 percent) of the first year enrollees finish High School in school year 2006 - 2007 while the rest give up on their dreamed education as early as they reach midway of their studies.
"This was revealed by the data we received from a study of the Department of Education (DepEd) during the past two years. The figure is 13.3 percent even lower than the rate recorded for high school before 2007," Arce revealed.
Aside from that, those that manage to survive schooling at secondary level showed an alarming deterioration of quality of secondary schools systems as reflected in the National Achievement Tests.
This condition which affects both private and public institutions is feared to affect the region as well as the country's Human Resources that enter the labor force both here and abroad who bring home the bacon. "However, the rates indicated here refer to public schools only," Arce explained adding that most of the students at private schools are from the well to do families.
Performance indicators showed a general deterioration of the region's secondary school system between school year 2002-2003 and 2006-2007.
"The period saw a 10.6 percentage point decline in participation rate in the secondary level, an indication that more children who should be in high school were not," Arce said.
The study also revealed that the participation rate of 55.3 percent during School Year 2006 - 2007 also means that only a little over half of school-going age children who are supposed to be in high school were enrolled in the same school year.
Notably, the enrollment in private high schools between the 2002-2003 and 2006-2007 school years dropped by 2.7 percent and public schools enrollment increased by 4 percent. The overall enrollment for both private and public secondary institutions, however increased by 3 percent.
Within the same period, retention rate in the secondary level dropped by 7.6 percent points. "This means that the percentage of enrollees in the secondary level who continued to be in high school the following year declined," Arce said.
Transition rate in the secondary level reached 88 percent during school year 2006-2007, an improvement of 5.8 percentage points from school year 2002-2003. transition rate is the percentage of students who graduated from one level of education and moved on to the next higher level such as from high school to college. "While this means that there was a higher percentage of high school graduates who made it to college or technical-vocational courses in school year 2006 -2007 than in school year 2002-2003, there was also lower percentage of students who reached the final year of the secondary level in School Year 2006-2007 as indicated by the 7.1 percentage points decline in the survival rate.
Repetition rate, or the ratio of the number of students who enrolled in the same year level in the current School Year to the total enrollment in the previous school year, significantly increased from 2.7 percent in SY 2002-2003 to 3.4 percent in SY 2006-2007.
Similarly, dropout rate, or the ration of the number of students who left the school for any reason during the school year to total enrollment, rose from 5.8 percent in SY 2002-2003 to 6.1 percent in SY 2006-2007.
Aside from the above indicators, results of the National Achievement Tests (NAT) for secondary schools indicate, and more alarmingly, the deterioration of quality in the secondary schools system. The NAT result covers both public and private schools.
On the average, not once in the three years of record, had the secondary schools in the region surpassed the cut-off (75 percent) for the said evaluation. The underperformance is apparent in all the five subject areas of the achievement tests.
Results in four of the five subject areas of the NAT generally worsened between SY 2004-2005 and 2006-2007. these subject areas were English (by 1.4 percentage points), Mathematics (by 1.7 percentage points), Science and Health (by 5.7 percentage points) and HEKASI or Heograpiya, Kasaysayan at Sibika (by 2.4 percentage points).
Only the Filipino subject area showed a measly 1.2 percentage point improvement during the SY 2004 -2005 to SY 2006-2007. On the average, the results of the NAT in the Bicol region weakened by 2 percentage points within the period.
"Human resource is the most important resource of the country's economy. The quality of human resource that enters the labor force bears heavily on the economy's productive capacity. Education and other human capital are important in promoting economic growth and a strong position in international markets," Arce said adding a warning that deterioration in an educational system can result to an inferior labor force affecting employability and productivity.
Education, according to experts can be viewed as an investment that equips individuals with the necessary skills for their optimum contribution to the country's economic and social well-being. "Government and households therefore should invest in education with the expectation that higher benefits would accrue over time," Arce explained.


Bicolanos told to build calamity-proof homes and insure crops
By Rey M. Nasol

LEGAZPI CITY -- Lives of people are safe due to zero casualty plan of the Albay public Safety and Emergency Management Office (APSEMO) but a very vital factor that engages residents particularly farmers at areas supposed to be no-man's-lands because of the livelihood and their crops and properties go to naught in times of calamities.
This is the reason why the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) has recommended measures to attain not only zero casualties but also zero property damage to infrastructure as well as home and crop investments.
With the institutionalization of the APSEMO zero casualties during calamities is almost perfectly attainable "but it is very difficult for the properties because calamities bring down economies to square one," Engineer Luis G. Banua, Assistant Regional director of NEDA-Bicol said on Wednesday.
Banua said households, government buildings and farms must be assisted with their respective insurance in order to recover and quickly rehabilitate from damages incurred in calamities. "Households are best designed with stronger foundation and with concrete roofing to make them calamity proof because based on experiences the roofs are normally the first part of homes and buildings that are affected during typhoons," Banua explained adding that a good design for calamity-prone areas are those whose roofs are made of concrete materials.
To lead the advocacy "we started this with the projects assisted by the Spanish government on putting up of day care centers. We also started the same types of construction for other projects of Agriculture Social Support and Environment Facilities Projects funded by the Spanish government in several municipalities of Bicol region," Banua said.
He explained that homes and building that would still use galvanized iron sheets (GI sheets) must provide protective concrete panels around the roof areas to prevent strong winds from destroying them. "So if that is the case, there will be not so much problems on expenses for repairs after typhoons and now it is apt for the people to adapt these strategy and we would gladly help provide them designs if they like," he said.
Banua said that the NEDA has already existing models in various local government units such as the day care centers in the towns of San Jacinto, Masbate, Bato Catanduanes, Canaman, Camarines Sur and other ongoing projects in Albay and other areas of Bicol.
Insurance of infrastructures are being espoused by the Regional Development Council (RDC) to see to it that all government buildings are covered with insurance for its budgets and the RDC is pushing for the insurance budget in the National budget act so that in times of calamities, government agencies would no longer have problems on rehabilitation of their edifices because insurance companies shall immediately take their responsibilities after calamities. The government buildings include school, offices and even infrastructure facilities but Banua did not mention whether the RDC already included dams, roads and irrigation facilities.
The NEDA official said that the DepEd has already adopted this system because of huge losses in terms of school buildings in previous typhoons and other calamities. "Government agencies such as Commission on Audit (COA), the Regional Trial Court are taking so long (one or two years because it has to wait for the inclusion of repair budget to the National Appropriation Act) before they are fully refurbished but with the proper insurance they could have been fully restored nowadays."
The Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC), although existing for quite sometime is not yet fully availed of by farmers particularly the small time farmers.
"If only farmers are insuring their crops, they would no longer have problems of possible losses in case of typhoons, volcanic eruptions and even landslides and floods," Banua explained.
He also said that health insurance of poor Bicolanos including farmers are already starting to become wider in coverage as some local government units are already sponsoring for the PhilHealth enrollment of their poor residents such as Albay with Target of some 200,000 beneficiaries.