MANILA, Philippines — With more than five million school children failing to enroll for academic year 2020-2021, Partido Reporma standard-bearer Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson and running mate Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III vowed to reverse a disturbing trend and give Filipinos the quality education they deserve.
Lacson and Sotto said the government should not only focus on releasing regulations to boost the quality of education in the country, but also take care of the needs of the youth who are forced to stop schooling owing to poverty and other issues.
Under their planned Edukasyon Plus program, Filipino youth would have free tuition and a P5,000 allowance every month along with access to an internship program in government offices starting with senior high school students.
“Cutting the country’s dropout rate is a key goal for Lacson-Sotto under Edukasyon Plus to reverse a disturbing trend and give Filipinos the quality education they deserve,” Lacson said at a town hall meeting in San Juan, Batangas recently.
Citing the The Borgen Project report in 2019, he said the Philippines has the highest dropout rate among countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at 6.38 percent among elementary students and 7.82 percent among secondary school students.
For the longtime public servants, this is unacceptable, since education is a means to bring more Filipinos out of poverty and move them towards progress.
Making matters worse is the COVID-19 pandemic, as one-fifth of Filipino elementary and high school students – equivalent to more than five million school children – failed to enroll for the academic year 2020-2021, according to reports.
Through Edukasyon Plus, Lacson and Sotto would solidify the government’s commitment to protect the right to quality education for all Filipinos, while crafting a vision that would eliminate the dropout rate.
Once implemented, students would then have the freedom to choose the courses they want to take in college, giving a chance for the country to strengthen its agricultural and medicine sectors.
The discussion on education in Batangas was prompted by a question from the barangay chairman of Puting Buhangin, who noted the lack of interest among youth to take up farming and agriculture.
Lacson and Sotto said this can be addressed by their Edukasyon Plus by stamping out corruption in government, which was truly making life hard for Filipinos as the funds meant to boost the agricultural sector never reach the intended end-users – farmers and food growers.
“What’s being stolen is our children’s right to quality education. They don’t realize that,” Lacson said.