Education Secretary Leonor Briones shares her three key reforms to improve PH education.
Education Secretary Leonor Briones’ take on PH education
MANILA – The secretary of Education Leonor Briones utters her concern over the successive decline in assessment scores for teacher and student’s performance. The secretary urges her department to shift its focus into providing quality up to date education.
In a speech during the Department of Education’s launching of education reform program “Sulong Edukalidad,” Briones said:
All of you here, our friends, advocates, and disciplines of education, it is not hidden to you that there is a decline in the level of performance from our last assessment test for High School students and as well as teachers.
Three key areas for education reform
The Education secretary highlighted three key areas that the department should focus on to improve in bringing out quality education
1. Improved Facilities
One of the main reasons why PH education is lagging is because of the lack of facilities and technology. In a tech-reliant era, the use of computers is essential not only in having access to informative education via the internet but also, it helps students familiarize their functions, which is very useful and at absolute advantage in job opportunities in the future.
Study shows that interactive learning is more effective and attractive to students compared to traditional pen and paper. And this is only achievable if computers and technology are readily available at schools.
2. Upskill and Reskill
Education Secretary Leonor Briones emphasizes the importance of teacher training and skills improvement.
We are aware of the strong correlation between teaching skills and student performance. Unfortunately, we are at a low-efficiency level in this area.
Assessment questionnaires have significantly changed over the years. We do not focus on basic questions like simple arithmetic and obvious history questions, and assessment tests nowadays are more on problem-solving and critical reasoning. Training teachers to handle the needs of the global standards will significantly affect the overall improvement of student performance.
3. Support and Collaboration
Schools’ engagement with stakeholders and partner companies is essential in filling in additional funds over the proposed budget from the government. Anything extra for the improvement of our schools is always a welcome opportunity.
Funding from sponsors can help divert government budget towards teacher training which is the main focus to improve students’ performance.
Featured image by FEU Facebook page
