Keeping students in schools a challenge – MAP head

The Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) urged all sectors to help ease the education crisis in the country, warning that Filipino students remain at the bottom of the heap when it comes to reading, Math and Science.

Benedicta Du-Baladad, MAP president, said that keeping students in school is a challenge because many have become “enamored” with social media.

“This situation is a crisis waiting to happen and the consequence will put our competitiveness and national growth on the line,” she warned in a statement on Monday. “Education is critical to innovations and inventions, and absent these two, our development will stagnate and so will our progress.”

She pointed out that before the pandemic, Filipino students scored lowest in reading and second lowest in Math and Science in the PISA 2018 results.

“This worsened during the pandemic because the lockdowns stopped physical attendance, with the system shifting to online mechanisms. The lack of supervision that teachers do onsite contributed to further deterioration, and this negatively impacts the quality of education and graduates produced by the educational institutions,” Du-Baladad said.

She cited the need to streamline the implementation of the K to 12 system for easier integration as a TVET program to increase enterprise-based learning and allow senior high school students to have more immersive experiences through certification training and exposure to actual work settings. She also called for effective and efficient management of public schools “to streamline operations and remove duplication.”

She said that a public-private partnership in education is indispensable “in creating a workforce that is skilled and ready to actively engage. That means transforming the Philippine education system so that it can adapt to a changed workplace in a technology-driven world.” — Jenica Faye Garcia

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