More kids dropping out of school
According to statistics I got from the Department of Education, in school year 2002-2003 there are 12 million students enrolled in public elementary schools but only 4.8 million in public secondary schools. What happened to the 7.2 million young students?
The recent report from ADB also tells us a very sad story. Our net enrollment deteriorated over the past two decades - from 96% in 1990 down to 94% in 2004. ADB also reported that 18.1% of children aged 6 to 12 are out of schools.
Is the government aware of this? Can our politicians think of better use of their time (and taxpayers’ money) rather than wasting it on charter change and impeachment?
What can we do?
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Again, this is a reflection of the sad story of our country’s economy magnified in an ordinary Filipino family. Although, secondary education is guaranteed for free, there are alot of Filipinos families who can’t afford extra expenses once they enrol their children. They need to pay for the uniforms, the pocket money, fees for projects and others. Relatively, these amount takes up a big portion of the family budget. Hopefully, the local government units should be able to adress this issue like what the Makati government is trying to do. Uniforms and school materials are given for free. Majority of the drop outs are students who don’t perform well in class. Teachers cannot attend to most of these students because of the big number of students they are handling per class.