Asked about the reasons for staying out of school, the biggest percentage at 21.1 cited the completion of a college or post-secondary degree. Employment was the second biggest reason cited, at 19.7 percent, followed by lack of interest , marriage and the high cost of education or financial problems .
While education is no sure-fire guarantee of personal advancement, it generally opens opportunities and raises the chances of improving the quality of life. Education also plays a critical role in national competitiveness and prosperity. The most competitive countries give top priority to education and innovation, pouring resources into the provision of quality education that is accessible to all their citizens.
In the Philippines, universal free education from kindergarten to tertiary level has not translated into quality education. The COVID lockdowns worsened the problem, with education stakeholders concerned that the learning gap became wider during the two years of forced shift to a blended education mode dominated by remote learning.
The economic tsunami caused by the pandemic also worsened the capability of many parents to finance the formal education of their children. There are many other expenses apart from tuition and basic miscellaneous fees that parents must shoulder in sending their children to school. During the pandemic lockdowns, many parents especially those with several school-age children could not afford the gadget requirements for blended learning, despite state subsidies and donations from private groups.
Even before the lockdowns, the government was already grappling with a high dropout rate in basic education as well as learning gaps that were manifested in the results of international tests, including one that showed Filipino 10-year-olds faring poorly in reading comprehension, mathematics and science. The government is tweaking the K-12 curriculum to address the learning gaps. Teachers, meanwhile, continue to press for better pay, resources and working conditions.