Time to start anew: Convene an EdCom now

Education in the Philippines has always been a pot of issues. One might say it is on a rolling boil of sticky problems, with a pandemic added to the mix. I would argue that it has reached a point where no amount of incremental addition could fully neutralize the threats of the learning crisis to our youth, our society, and our national development.

With this, it’s time to change the pot and start anew: We need to convene an Education Commission (EdCom) that will chart the course for Philippine education.

We at the Philippine Business for Education believe that we have a learning crisis in our hands. Many of our children are not going to school and dropping out at key stages of their development. Our students are not learning and are being left behind by their global peers, according to international large-scale assessments. This was the case pre-pandemic and it continues to be the case now. Our systems are not able to keep up with the needs of our students and a world that will meet many more of these disruptions in the future. We are failing our children now, and we are setting them up for failure by continuing with a broken system.

We believe a reset is in order and a multisectoral, multistakeholder EdCom is the best vehicle. What do we mean by this? We want an EdCom that will reimagine and rethink Philippine education and will draft a roadmap for the future. The EdCom will be composed of experts and leaders from the government, business community, civil society, and interest groups. The EdCom’s roadmap is envisioned to be strategic, offering solutions that will lead to systemic reforms toward an inclusive and resilient Philippine education. The roadmap will focus on the key areas of teaching and learning, governance, access and equity, and workforce development.

In this, we don’t have to start from scratch, and the EdCom can be carried over to the next administration. We already have five legislators who have filed resolutions in both Houses of Congress in support of an EdCom as a response to the country’s dismal showing in international learning assessments. We hear of cautious but similar support for an education reset within high levels of the bureaucracy. There are also multiple private sectors and civil society initiatives that recommend an EdCom, albeit in different forms. In a joint membership meeting of eight of the largest business groups in the Philippines, an EdCom was so strongly recommended that the private sector was even willing to take the lead to get the ball rolling.

As with any plan, the success of the EdCom lies in the consistency and continuity of these renewed systems. This is only possible if we have leaders who stand with us in our goal for more inclusive education.

For us to do this right, we need broad political support across administrations. This will be a concrete exercise of building an education system with everyone pitching in.

The current state of our education is a boiling pot that demands a sense of urgency from all of us. It is no exaggeration to say that our present and future are at stake. We need all hands on deck to push for and hasten reforms that will curb the long-term damages of this learning crisis. Just like how community pantries sprouting all over the country are reimagining and reinventing bayanihan in the pandemic, an EdCom represented by a broad swath of Philippine society can help us start anew. We call on our leaders to continue on this path and convene an EdCom before things boil over.

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Love Basillote is executive director of Philippine Business for Education.

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