 |
 |
|||
 |
|
|||
| |
|
|||
|
|
|||
Statistically Speaking by Dr. Romulo A. Virola1
Poverty and Education; Zamboanga Del Norte and Batanes
So much has been said and written about strategies to attack poverty. The development experts at the World Bank are supposed to have been working all these years towards the reduction of global poverty. We have also been constantly preached at by the messiahs of global stability to endure the pains of fiscal austerity, privatization and liberalization because these were necessary for our development in the long term. With great efficiency, the IMF imposed those notorious conditionalities meant to engender development but which the 2001 Nobel prize winner for economics Joseph Stiglitz essentially blamed for the globalization of discontent. And despite all the noble MDG efforts to halve poverty by 2015, unacceptably many people continue to live in abject poverty. Something ought to be wrong with the way we are trying to eradicate poverty! Time for a paradigm shift, don’t you think?
If the IMF is to be believed, the share of the Philippine GDP to World GDP in current US dollars has been shrinking during the past decade. For every 100 dollars produced by the world economy, the contribution of the Philippines has gone down from 28 cents in 1996 to 21 cents in 2005. On the other hand, according to world population estimates from the US Bureau of Census and the NSO census count, the Philippine share of the world population has been going up! For every 1000 earthlings, there were only 9 of us “Pinoys” in 1960. We went and multiplied this to 10 in 1970, then to 11 in 1980, up to 12 in 1990 and luckily or unluckily up to 13 in 2000! Very reproductive, indeed, us Pinoys!
The question to be begged, however, is what does the future hold for us Pinoys? At about 9 seconds after 4:18 p.m. on 20 November 2013, when the Philippine population hits 100 million2, what can the 100 millionth Pinoy cry or dream for? The Pinoy who now takes risks in foreign lands, caring for their sick, working in their factories or entertaining their blues away hoping life will be better? But will it?
I do not know and I do not understand many things about economics, but I have always believed that education is the most effective instrument that can lift us from the chains of poverty. Let me show you some empirical correlations between poverty and education and some indications of where we are going in terms of human capital.
Acccording to official poverty statistics released by the NSCB on 6 June 2006 (see http://www.nscb.gov.ph/poverty/), the three poorest provinces in 2003 were Zamboanga del Norte, Maguindanao and Masbate. And while the poverty incidence of Masbate has been going down, it is the only province that has been consistently among the ten poorest since 1997! On the other hand, excluding the four districts of NCR, the three least poor provinces were Rizal, Batanes and Laguna.
Let us now assess the performance of two of these provinces in terms of cohort survival rates and net participation rates3 using data from the Department of Education.
At the national level, cohort survival rates (CSR) whether for the elementary or the secondary level do not exactly show promise for Dr. Jose P. Rizal’s hope of the fatherland! For elementary schools, CSR has gone down from 69.47% in schoolyear 2002-2003 to 63.57% in SY 2003-2004 and 64.87% in SY 2004-2005. For secondary schools, the data distress even more – from 63.88% in SY 2002-2003, to 60.41% in SY 2003-2004 and 61.33% in SY 2004-2005. If out of every 100 Pinoy pupils who start elementary schools, 35 fail to finish; and if out of every 100 Pinoy bagets who enter secondary schools, 39 will have no high school diploma to cite in their curriculum vitae, how can we be functional, nay competitive in a knowledge-based world? Pupulutin tayo sa kangkongan!
And what have we got to show for all the good intentions on universal education, on education for all? If the pillars of education are doing anything, the data on net participation rate (NPR) certainly do not show nothing, my late brother-in-law would complain! From 83.30% in SY 2002-2003, the NPR for elementary schools went down to 81.72% in SY 2003-2004 and further down to 76.06% in SY 2004-2005. And if the NPR for elementary schools bothers, the NPR for secondary schools surely should cause everyone to shout “Hoy, Gising”. Can you imagine NPRs of 45.56% in SY 2002-2003, 47.03% in SY 2003-2004 and 42.50% in SY 2004-2005? That means more than half of our kids who should be in school are actually out of school! What could they be doing? That means more than half of the Pinoys joining the labor force in the future would be without tools to drive the Philippine economy forward! Amidst trade liberalization and globalization, how, where, who can we be? Mareng Winnie would have every right to whine, yowl and yell, ?#@&!
Now, let us go back to the links between poverty and education.
Among 163 provinces and cities ranked in SY 2004-2005, Zamboanga del Norte had the 28th lowest CSR for elementary schools, not very different from its ranking in the two immediately preceding schoolyears. For secondary schools, Zamboanga del Norte was 20th lowest in SY 2004-2005, 55th lowest out of 156 in SY 2002-2003 and 82nd lowest out of 165 in SY 2003-2004. In terms of participation rate, Zamboanga del Norte, is not faring badly in elementay schools, placing 6th highest in SY 2002-2003, 64th highest in SY 2003-2004 and 53rd highest in SY 2004-2005. However, for secondary schools, Zamboanga del Norte needs to zap itself out of bad shape – 28th lowest in SY 2004-2005, same rank for SY 2003-2004 and 33rd lowest in SY 2002-2003. Obviously, the high interest for education in Zamboanga del Norte shown in the early years is not being sustained in the more critical stages of secondary education. And when we recall past studies showing the strong correlation between poverty and the attainment of secondary education by the household head, the data dictate that the national government, the local government, the education officials and the private sector join hands together to help our kababayan in Zamboanga del Norte4.
Batanes is one of the most exquisite places I have seen on earth. But what makes me proud and happy for our Ivatans is that they value education like no one else. And they are lucky to have a visionary for a leader, Governor Vicente S. Gato . I wish all our provincial officials would take a trip to Batanes to see what they could implement in their own provinces from the Batanes experience. I also wish more of our kababayan could experience the sheer joy of being in beautiful Batanes!
And I am happy that our education statistics do not “lie” about Batanes. In terms of CSR for elementary schools, Batanes was 6th highest in SY 2004-2005, 2nd highest in SY 2003-2004 and 4th highest in SY 2002-2003. The CSR for secondary schools in Batanes is equally impressive – improving from 7th highest in SY 2002-2003 to 4th highest in SY 2003-2004 and highest in SY 2004-2005! For NPR in elementary schools, Batanes ranked 15th in SY 2002-2003, 7th highest in SY 2003-2004 and 10th highest in SY 2004-2005. Similarly, for NPR in secondary schools, Batanes ranked 13th in both SY 2002-2003 and SY 2003-2004, improving to 11th in SY 2004-2005. Given the geography of Batanes, its relatively high ranking in NPR for both elementary and secondary schools can only reflect on the culture of knowledge imbibed by our friendly Ivatans. Amazing? Visit Batanes and find out for yourselves!
So how do we solve poverty?
Let us invest heavily in education. But not for corruption in the education sector!
Pepe and Pilar were such entertaining inspirations and I thought Bantay gave them good company. The way we were, life was so simple then! And going to school was such a glorious experience! Nowadays, many of our students paint such scattered pictures - so confused, so out of focus, so lost! Why?
Teachers are critical in the attainment of our goals for education. Unfortunately, I heard that the teachers of today no longer taught the way my excellent teachers did a few decades ago. Let us therefore invest in good quality teachers! Let us pay our teachers well, very well, so that they will not even think of leaving their families behind just so they could earn more elsewhere doing chores other than what they were trained for.
Let us ensure that no Pinoy family is going to be without a member who has finished tertiary education. Let us make sure that all Pinoy children are in school. Let us have the political will to eliminate corruption in the education sector. Mind you, I do not know how all these can be done, but if the priority of our development planning is good quality education, I am convinced we would not have to worry too much about many things…population management, corruption, violence against women, bigotry and all the other evils of our society. You agree?
On the lighter side, have you heard about a flashy Italian creation shown recently in an exhibit called “Group Therapy” at a modern art museum in Bolzano that has become the object of a complaint from a right-wing political party? The National Alliance Party called the creation of artists Eleonora Chiari and Sandra Goldschmied a “massacre of respect” - the creation being a patriotic toilet that flushes to the strains of the Italian national anthem! To pee or not to pee? Tell me the answer!
Reactions and views are welcome thru email to the author at ra.virola@nscb.gov.ph.
_______________
1 Secretary General of the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) and Chairman of the Statistical Research and Training Center (SRTC). He holds a Ph. D. in Statistics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, U.S.A. and has taught mathematics and statistics at the University of the Philippines. He is also a past president of the Philippine Statistical Association. He thanks his efficient staff for the assistance provided in the preparation of the article: Candido J. Astrologo, Jr., Fe Vida N. Dy Liacco, Marianne P. Abanilla and Ma. Ivy T. Querubin
2 Interpolated from the 2000 Census-based population projections.
3 Cohort survival rate refers to the percentage of enrollees at the beginning grade or year who reached the final grade or year of the elementary/secondary level. Net participation rate or net enrolment ratio is defined as the ratio of the enrolment for the age group corresponding to the official school age in the elementary/secondary level to the population of the same age group in a given year. The official school age is 6-11 for elementary and 12-15 for secondary.
4 The situation in Masbate is no different.
Posted 13 November 2006
 |
  |
 |
||||||
  E-mail the webmaster |
Terms of Use |
Home • Top of Page | ||||||
1997-2008,
National Statistical Coordination Board |
||||||||