We have often heard about different horror stories in our public education system. Many of these stories include that of several students having to share a set of textbooks, or that of young female students getting afflicted with urinary tract infection (UTI) due to the lack of toilets in public schools.

Our education officials often lament that they cannot do much about these because they have a limited budget.

Yet studies have shown that more than 30 percent of this yearly budget, more often than not, is lost due to pervasive graft and corruption.

Case in point: A public elementary school principal is informed that according to the work plan in her division, she is supposed to receive 600 sets of newly-published textbooks in Science and English. But as the school year draws to a close, she only received 250 sets!

Ghost deliveries are a common in many schools. The connivance between publishers and government officials makes this possible.

In the end, it is the students who suffer. This deterioration in our education system is clearly seen when we look at the latest International Mathematics and Science Survey where our students are dead last among other students in Asia.

Fulfilling promises
It is these kinds of problems that the Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP) hopeto address. ANSA-EAP is a regional network promoting the practice of social  accountability by providing a common platform for exchange of information and experience and by providing capacity building opportunities and technical assistance to citizen groups and governments.

Social accountability means that we make sure that our government officials and institutions will fulfill their promises, duties and obligations to the people.

A good example of a successful social accountability project is the Ateneo School of Government’s GWatch Textbook watch program which was done in coordination with the Department of Education (DepEd).

This project utilized boys and girls scouts to monitor the arrival of the textbooks in their respective schools. The national DepEd office would give a complete list of the number and kind of textbooks per school that were ordered and paid for using public funds to the volunteers. The boys and girls scouts would then check if the deliveries were accurate and report to GWatch and the DepEd if there were any discrepancies. Should there be clear discrepancies, the DepEd and GWatch would then go after the publisher who failed to deliver on his or her commitment. Those who are found to have violated will then be blacklisted by the DepEd so that any future transactions with these erring publishers would be prevented.

More recently, ANSA-EAP has developed Checkmyschool.org, an online interactive map of basic public education information here in the Philippines. It tells us about the condition of the education sector as well as the services and facilities being provided to the public schools. Concerned citizens can go to the website and access information such as school budget, textbooks, school building condition, teachers, enrolment, NAT and NCAE score, enrolment, computers and internet connection, and number of school furniture among others.

This information was provided by the DepEd thus, the challenge is to check whether these data are accurate or not. For example, for a particular public high school in Quezon City, the data provided by the DepEd can say that the teacher to student ratio is at an ideal rate of 1:40 but when you do an actual visit to the school, you can see that there are more than 80 students in a class. These discrepancies can then be reported through the website or through text messaging.

ANSA-EAP recently signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the DepEd to embark on this initiative thus, all of these reports will be forwarded to our Education officials for them to immediately address. This initiative is a concrete way by which ordinary citizens can help in promoting transparency, social accountability and good governance in our country especially as we welcome with much hope and optimism the new administration of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

For more information about ANSA-EAP, you can visit its website at http://www.ansa-eap.net/ or you can call them up at (02) 426-6062. Comments are welcome at harveykeh@gmail.com

Harvey S. Keh is Director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo School of Government.