Briones opposes Robredo's call to declare education crisis

Education Secretary Leonor Briones on Monday thumbed down Vice President Leni Robredo's call to declare an education crisis in the Philippines, which recently received low scores from the World Bank.

In a weekly Cabinet briefing, Briones explained that she was the only Philippine education chief who made the decision to join the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which the World Bank used as its basis to evaluate the country's education system.

"Ang question is I don't know who should judge whether we have crisis in education or not. Who should judge that we have a crisis education or not? Kung sabihin natin na may crisis education, saan galing ang crisis education after 123 years? After 47 secretaries of Philippine education, after seven secretaries of education, who refused in the international assessment?" Briones said.

Briones further said the Philippines only joined PISA in 2018 even as the international assessment that already existed in 2000.

The Education secretary also bared that the Philippines has a debt of over $1 billion to fund the education system.

"Malaki, halos isang bilyon ang inutang natin in dollars para sa edukasyon so kasali din sila sa nangyari sa edukasyon," she said.

Briones also reiterated that the education department is not refuting the World Bank data, adding that it is lacking inputs from the Philippine education system.

With DepEd already existing for 123 years, Briones also lamented that "it is not correct or wise to lay all problems at the door of the Duterte administration."

In her weekly radio show over the weekend, Robredo said deficiencies in education must be improved after World Bank's data showed that 80% of Filipino schoolchildren fell below minimum proficiency levels. 

The World Bank already apologized to the Department of Education for making public the data without inclusion of the Philippine department's inputs.—LDF GMA News