EDITORIAL - Investing in education

This week, members of the judiciary staged “black Monday” to protest budget cuts, grumbling about judicial independence. But they’re not the only ones unhappy with their funding. In the health sector, government health professionals have registered their protest against low salaries by leaving the country in droves for better paying jobs overseas. Students of state colleges and universities have been staging mass protests, with “planking” the latest favored mode, against the inadequate budget of SCUs. The students surely have the sympathy of public school teachers, who periodically stage various types of mass protests against their low salaries.

Cops, soldiers, clerks – it’s rare to find a government worker satisfied with his pay. Most of the complaints are valid. The problem is addressing them and prioritizing the needs. Which sector should get more? After debt payments, education gets the largest chunk of the annual national appropriation. But even that lion’s share is never enough to meet the needs of SCUs, which must compete for funding with public elementary and high schools.

The University of the Philippines can turn to the private sector, particularly to its numerous alumni who have risen to prominence, for endowments to augment its budget. This is done extensively in other countries such as the United States. But this kind of fund-raising may not be as easy for certain SCUs, and they may need more direct assistance from the government. 

The nation clearly needs to invest so much more in public education. Even education officials have acknowledged the deterioration in the overall quality of Philippine education, which has adversely affected all aspects of national life. It is no coincidence that other Asian countries that have invested heavily in educating their people have sprinted past the Philippines in economic progress and other aspects of human development. With many other sectors crying out for more funding, however, it would do no harm for state colleges and universities to innovate ways of generating their own additional funds.