OUR basic education system run by the Department of Education (DepEd) caters to over 20 million learners, housed in over 45,000 schools and community centers and supported by over 513,000 teachers and staff. This opening line is mind-boggling, to say the least. The student number alone is more than the national populations of about 100 other countries.The good news starts with the master plan—the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan that calls for “Education for All (EFA)” as core strategy. Under the EFA, nine urgent tasks for quality education are to be in place. This includes training of teachers focusing on English, math and sciences. The person with the stick of chalk or marker remains the key figure in sharing knowledge and drawing out the talents of children. “It begins and ends with the teacher,” we say.

Governance issue is another pillar. There ought to be a system to disseminate crucial information to offices from the heartland of Makati to the hinterland of Tagum. At the same time, data need to be gathered and analyzed for better policies to be set and to prioritize use of scarce resources. We lack the hard and timely statistics to make important decisions.

How neglected education is can easily seen by comparing the United Nations recommendation for developing countries to allocate the equivalent of six percent of GDP for education while the World Bank notes that it should be at least 20% of our budget. Right now, the funds for education are only 2.53% of GDP and 12% in the General Appropriations Act. To think that roughly 30% of this goes to debt servicing. If we tack in the pork barrel and intelligence funds, surely a significant increase can be made for the case of education. For the compassion and well-meaning intentions of multilateral agencies and lending countries, the single most important factor is to help solve our debt problem and to free up more money for students to learn.

Decentralization is a solution with school-based management (SBM). The idea is to empower the principals and local stake­holders to administer the schools given peculiar conditions in the community. There are about 42,000 public schools—more than all government agencies combined and multiplied several times over.

A recent policy change is to utilize daycare centers for preschool education to prepare 5-year olds for formal instruction. Studies show that starting them early is the best foundation for families to embrace schooling. I, though, do not subscribe to the idea of sending two, three and four year olds to get them ahead. There is a season for everything, as the good book says.

These reforms are captured in the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda. Formulated by past secretaries of Education, it is fully implemented by Secretary Jesli Lapus, a management guy and finance expert.

Textbook prices have fallen from P70-120 in 1998 to P31 today even with inflation and the rising costs of paper and printing. Imagine the savings from the changes in universal procurement —more books that are error-free because content is reviewed by leading universities like Ateneo, UP and La Salle depending on expertise and a bidding process that is touted by the World Bank as a best practice in Southeast Asia and even Europe.

Last school year, 14,655 new classrooms were built, more than twice the target of 6,000 without delay and within specifications made possible by principal-led school building projects. Class size is nearer to 45 from the previous 50. The Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc. remains at the forefront with their lowest and graft-free cost. If only business practices of the oligarchs can follow this lead.

The funny thing is that good news do not travel fast and far if at all. Our national media are feeding crazy over scandals and entertainment. Maybe they are the same? We scan the news and watch TV and find no solace to our daily troubles but only slants that add to our angst and sense of deterioration. Things are a-happening in basic education. We only need to get them out. Dedicated public servants like Undersecretary Mon Bacani and competent career officials abound. We only need to keep them in.