Education to suffer from lack of 2006 budget — Gullas

The country’s public school system would suffer severely from the failure of Congress to approve the proposed P1.053-trillion 2006 national budget, a House leader said yesterday.

"The public education system would be worst hit, unless President Arroyo gives it enough funds from the reenacted P907-billion 2005 budget," said Deputy Majority Leader Eduardo Gullas.

He said among the projects that would need funding this year and the amounts of funds needed are the training of school teachers in English, math and science, which would require P581 million; construction of 4,578 classrooms, P2.9 billion; hiring of 9,200 additional teachers, P2.7 billion; tuition subsidy for 475,000 poor secondary students, P2 billion; distribution of 18.1 million English textbooks, P1.8 billion; and nutrition support programs for 2.5 million grade school pupils, P1.5 billion.

He said the President can provide adequate funds for these and other requirements of the public education system from the reenacted budget.

He added that the training of teachers in English and the distribution of new English textbooks "are particularly essential to check the deteriorating English skills of our students."

He pointed out that the training would provide an initial batch of 25,000 teachers three weeks of university-based special instruction to reinforce their expertise in English as well as in math and science.

The Department of Education (DepEd) has blamed deficient instruction for the rapid decline of student proficiency in the three subjects.

The results of the last national achievement tests showed that elementary and high school students had mastery levels of only 45 percent to 60 percent in the three subjects. This is well below the DepEd-required minimum mastery level of 75 percent.

"Strong command of English, math and science is absolutely necessary for our students — who are future labor force participants — to stay globally competitive," stressed Gullas, who is an educator and whose family owns the University of the Visayas in Cebu City.

Most likely, Congress will not be able to approve the proposed P1.053-trillion budget for this year when it convenes again on July 24 for its third and last regular session.

Bicameral talks on the outlay collapsed last month when the Senate insisted on cutting the budget by P64 billion to reduce the projected P125-billion financing deficit by half, while the House echoed the President’s stand that the budget proposal should be kept intact.

According to Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, House appropriations committee chairman, the continued use by the government of the much lower 2005 budget has its advantages.

"We can substantially bring down the deficit. We can even wipe it out and balance the budget," he said.

He said a balanced budget would mean lower interest rates for loans as the government would not have to compete with the private sector in borrowing funds. — Jess Diaz