Puno calls for more public spending on education

Opposition senatorial candidate Ricardo "Dong" Puno Jr. has called on the government to provide healthier funding for education to optimize its role as society’s ultimate "social equalizer" and potent weapon against poverty.

Puno, a former press secretary and presidential spokesman, noted that with the latest independent survey showing the worsening incidence of poverty in most parts of the country, education should be fully tapped by the government to break the bondage of majority of Filipinos to this generational scourge.

"It is education which can equip the poor with technical knowledge and skills needed by the industrial sector. Education has the potential of breaking the chains of poverty in the land. Indeed, education is the great equalizer of our social inequities," Puno told this year’s batch of graduates of the Central Colleges of the Philippines.

Puno was awarded the H.R. Reyes Memorial Academic Medallion during the commencement exercises held recently at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC).

According to the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey, poverty incidence has worsened to 59 percent during the first quarter of 2001, with the Visayas and Metro Manila the worst-hit by this generational scourge.

The poverty incidence for the first quarter of 2000, according to SWS survey results based on a self-rated approach in which families were asked to identify themselves whether they are poor or not.

This survey showed that poverty incidence increased in the Visayas, where it rose nine points to 67 percent. The poverty incidence dropped slightly in Mindanao by six points to 64 percent. Poverty incidence also worsened in Metro Manila by 11 points to 28 percent, but remained unchanged in the rest of Luzon at 56 percent.

The front running Laban senatorial candidate said the education, being a unique legacy that cannot be taken away either by force or deceit, can give Filipinos, whether rich or poor, equal opportunities in the work place and arm them with the weapon necessary to fight poverty.

Puno proposed a three-pronged strategy that would help Filipinos maximize the advantage of education and correct the prevailing job-education mismatch.

At the core of this strategy to address this worsening problem is the establishment of educational Center of Excellence in each region, and later, in each province.

Puno said educators should also closely coordinate with leaders of various industries to determine the demand in each sector. This way, he noted, schools could advise students on what courses they could take that will help them land good jobs in the future.

Schools can also set high enrollment quotas for areas of learning that are in high demand, while regulating the number of enrollees for courses with low priority given by industrial networks, Puno said.

As defined by the mandate of the Commission on Higher Education, the present Centers of Excellence should meet criteria and standards set by the government to make the school highly competitive in a certain field of study or discipline, Puno pointed out.

Puno, whose eight-point program Puno ng Pag-asa para sa Masa focuses on job creation and wider access to quality education, proposed an improvement on this Center of Excellence concept by revising the criteria to respond to the demands of industry and the employment needs of a certain region or province.