Almost 10 years since the inception of the second decade of the Education For All movement and with just six years left before it closes in 2015, I just discovered how little most people in the country’s education community know about EFA. What is startling is that the innocence afflicts those who are supposed to be in the inner circle of the movement of what is supposed to be the EFA Grand Alliance at the national and sub-national levels.

You might have been wondering how different it is from the day-to-day business of the Department of Education (DepEd) in general and basic education in particular.

I hope that the following foreword I have written for the Mid-Decade Monitoring and Evaluation Report in 2007 will shed more light and deepen everyone’s perspectives. Beyond mere understanding, the new perspective of delivering what for whom may spur some thinking and action for innovating basic education so that it will be enjoyed by and benefit all.

Attaining functional literacy in the country in the next 10 EFA years is not just about schools and schooling. It is about education. In line with the World Declaration on Education for All embodied in both the Jomtien Declaration and the Dakar Framework, we would like to meet the totality of the so-called Basic Learning Needs (BLNs) of Filipinos of all ages and circumstances. This is to be pursued within EFA’s “expanded vision of education” in a manner that will fulfill our people’s basic human right.

This is not the usual type of educational planning. Our EFA 2015 Plan of Action’s significance to the country and the international education community lies more in its being a document of political will, imagination and creativity that should address long-persistent problems of basic education. This is about harnessing technical change or new ways of doing things that have been proven valid, feasible and desirable in the past in order that the marginalized, those outside or shut out of school system, those in danger of getting out of the school system, special groups and gender disadvantaged may be redeemed and prevented from further marginalization.

The school remains as the backbone of our educational delivery system. We would like to improve on it as the conventional venue for teaching and learning. However, for all the natural limitations and social and financial constraints of the school system to attract, enroll and keep children in schools, EFA 2015 is a time to maximize the use of educational innovations and technology, both simple and appropriate or advance, where applicable, to reach out to and keep more children and enable them to learn better. This way, we can move toward universalizing quality primary education and making secondary education more accessible to all.

Schooling need not be the end and sole venue for acquiring functional skills needed for life. We realized during the past 15 years since EFA 1 that if we would depend on the schools alone, we would not be able to provide education to All educable Filipinos. Thus, consistent with the EFA vision, it is also our intention to deliver or cause to deliver the BLNs via the non-school modalities. Those who cannot be accommodated in schools or choose learning outside the classroom have the Alternative Learning System or ALS as an option for our youths and adults from all social classes. With ALS, they can utilize their prior learning and go on learning and be empowered by the basic but useful competencies to survive and develop themselves for greater upward social mobility.

Whether in school or out of school, such learning shall be delivered with quality assurance anchored on the Philippine concept of “functionality.” With this as the hallmark of the plan, gaining “life skills” will be afforded to all Filipino learners.

The Department of Education, thankfully, is not alone in the pursuit of this goal and provision of the BLNs for all. Full partnership with the key stakeholders, particularly those responsible for delivery, planning and funding, is operationalized under the Grand Alliance for EFA prescribed by the World Declarations. Hence, a new way of looking at and counting, allocating and mobilizing financial and non-monetary resources has been launched under EFA. These processes will be orchestrated under one strategy and governance so that with the comprehensive set of old and new monitoring and evaluation indicators attuned to the educational objectives, the synchronized efforts will bring out commonly desired results preferably at the scheduled time.

Lastly and with a sense of humility, EFA 2015 and its Grand Alliance strategy behoove learning from and capitalizing on the past experiences of our successes, pitfalls and inadequacies. Through this strategy, we hope to ensure continuity, coherence of purpose and complementation of efforts regardless of management and administrations until the year 2015.

(Napoleon B. Imperial (nbimperial@bayanmail.com.ph) is former assistant coordinator of the EFA Project Management Team and an education reform advocate.)