Educating for Sustainability in the Philippine Context
In 1997, a global financial crisis hit our shores disrupting our advancement to national progress. More than 30 million Filipinos have fallen below the threshold of poverty, leaving most of the populace devoid of life’s basic needs – food, shelter, and clothing. Even the fundamental right of the children to basic education has become hardly accessible to many, because of poverty, as it has become increasingly difficult for many young Filipinos to finish grade school. What has become even more depressing is the hard truth that those who have graduated could not even find jobs.
Based on the Second Philippines Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals, as of 2003, 13.8 percent of the population (10.4 percent of all Filipino families) were living below the subsistence food threshold or were food poor, whereas, 30.4 percent (24.7 percent of Filipino families) were considered income poor. The same report revealed that six regions, all in Luzon, were in extreme poverty, lower than the national average. Poverty indeed has worsened, and something must be done.
Nations Unite towards Change and Sustainable Development
The Millennium Summit held in September 2000 brought 189 countries together, including the Philippines, “to create a better world where every human being has the opportunity to live with dignity, free from the bondage of poverty and threat of diseases, and has access to quality education and information/communication technologies” – a collective vision which has been translated into specific working objectives now regarded as the Millennium Development Goals.
Moreover, the United Nations, at its 58th General Assembly in 2002, adopted a resolution declaring 2005-2015 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, expressing that “the vision of education for social development is a world where everyone has the opportunity to benefit from quality education and learn the values, behavior, and lifestyle required for a sustainable future and for positive social transformation.”
Evidently, these two significant events in the United Nations framework magnified the importance of education for social development, and, have become instruments crucial in liberating people all across the globe from the poverty that has for decades, even our citizens, trapped.
The Philippines has initiated reforms in educational policies, in consonance with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s ten-point agenda, focused on the vision for sustainable development, and on the United Nation’s resolution to eradicate poverty by the year 2015.
“Quality Education must be a Path out of this Crisis”
One of the main thrusts of the Arroyo administration is an improved system of basic education accessible to the younger members of our society. This is part of the Arroyo administration’s ten-point agenda to combat the debilitating social situation pressed by poverty.
The Department of Education (DepEd), through Republic Act 9155 or the Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001, carries on the duty of implementing policies and programs aimed at improving the quality of education in the Philippines with the hope to make education accessible to all Filipinos, and eventually, lead to a better country.
In July 2005, DepEd issued a strong statement, “”Quality Education must be a Path out of this Crisis”, addressed to our leaders, teachers, parents, and the community, with a call for a collective responsibility to “make our education system perform”. This cry for help from the government to the different sectors of the society has long been staged, for the government believes and relies on the strength of partnerships with the community to make each of its programs and projects work.
For its part, DepEd has, in place, over the past three years, academic reforms to improve the quality of education in the country. These initiatives include: a restructured Basic Education Curriculum, implemented in SY 2002-03, focusing on critical key subjects English, Science, Math, and Filipino; the institutionalization of the New Performance-Based Grading System; a High-School Bridge Program, launched in SY 2004-05; an “Every Child a Reader” Program; the expansion of the Madrasah education system for young Muslim Filipinos; and an Alternative Learning System for out-of-school children, youth, and adults.
These reforms in the educational system being implemented by DepEd is a concrete assurance to the Filipino public that the government is committed in pushing for measures leading to improvements in the state of the country.
Gearing Up for the Challenge
The challenge to alleviate people from poverty is a mile-long battle through which we all aspire to emerge triumphant. The realization that we, citizens should be the main actors towards sustainable development serves well as a starting point for changes to take place. Similarly, we must recognize the fact that even a million campaigns for a single poverty alleviation program would remain futile without the support of the community, that any effort of the government will be weak without community involvement.
Education is the individual’s key to liberate ones’ self not just from ignorance, but from poverty, and all the evils that corrupt the society. Education empowers the individual, and to that, empowers an entire community, to overcome a troubled economy.
The Philippines may now be in the brink of poverty but we are a country of hopeful people. The government has been diligently working towards providing education for all – with the vision of empowering all people. Indeed, community empowerment, through education, may be the ultimate goal to guarantee sustainable development for the country.
Let us all rise to the challenge.
