Aside from hiring 9,200 new public school teachers, the Arroyo administration has allocated P581 million next year to upgrade the skills of tutors assigned to mathematics, science and English subjects.

Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, disclosed that a total of 25,000 teachers nationwide will undergo "enrichment seminars" on the subjects in 2006. The seminars will either be conducted in their own school or in selected colleges.

The "back to school" program for teachers is an idea of the Department of Education which recently informed the appropriations panel that up to 75 percent of the country’s elementary school graduates could not read independently.

The DepEd briefing also indicated that only one of five graduating students showed "mastery in all required competencies" based in a test given last May while only one percent of high school students made it to the same category.

"We have been allocating billions of pesos for classrooms all these years while forgetting the need to train the real cornerstone of learning institutions ­ the faculty," Andaya said.

Quezon City Rep. Nanette CasteloDaza, appropriations panel vice chairperson, revealed that the Arroyo government is serious at battling problems in the country’s education system by giving this sector the highest priority in terms of spending next year.

Castelo-Daza said that at least P2.7 billion have been sought to hire 9,200 new teachers, while another P2.9 billion will be spent for the construction of new classrooms.

To bolster the war against illiteracy, some P1.5 billion will be allocated for a nutrition program that will benefit 2.5 million gradeschoolers.

"The nutrition program to be implemented by DepEd and the DSWD (Department of Social Welfare and Development) will be a potent weapon to drastically reduce absenteeism and dropout rate in primary education," Castelo-Daza explained.

Andaya stressed that teachers to be given special training on the basic subjects are expect to "impart more knowledge to their students whose mastery on these subjects leaves much to be desired."

He said the program stemmed "from the recognition that good teachers make a school great, not mortar and stone."

According to Andaya, DepEd traced the reasons for "poor achievement" in Science and Math to, among others, poor English reading skills .

"Another culprit is the assignment of teachers to classes they have no mastery in. Three percent of those who teach Physics are non-Physics majors," he cited.

Compounding poor school performance is the poor survival rate of those who enter the 10-year basic education course.

DepEd admitted that "for every 100 children entering Grade 1 , 15 of them would not reach Grade 2," prompting Andaya to comment that the "attrition starts early."

"Only 66 for every 100 Grade 1 enrollees will able to finish elementary , 43 will complete high school, and 14 will bag a college degree, " DepEd said.

What is alarming in this report, and one that sets the Philippines apart from other countries, is the failure of more than half of those who enter high school to finish the course, Andaya noted.

Amid the depressing educational landscape, Andaya said "help is on the way" to public schools as the government, using new tax revenues, will pour money for more teachers, classrooms, books, and training.

"Sixty new students alone would require an investment of at least P600,000 for a new classroom (P400,000), one teacher (P110,000), chairs ( P45,000), books (P30,000). These are just for 60 new entrants to public schools alone . About 300,000 are projected to be added to public school enrollment annually in years to come, " he said.

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