THE GOVERNMENT needs to upgrade teacher education institutions to boost the pool of licensed teachers and raise the quality of education, according to the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) and education experts.
“Quality learning is contingent upon quality teaching,” Senator Aquilino Martin D. Pimentel III said on Wednesday during an online symposium on teacher education organized by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), Philippine Business for Education, and the World Bank.
He was being quoted in an EDCOM 2 statement issued on Thursday.
Aniceto C. Orbeta, Jr., PIDS president, said institutions that train teachers are underperforming based on low passing rates in board exams.
Mr. Orbeta said only about 33% of elementary school teacher examinees pass, with 40% passing the secondary education board exams.
“Such statistics underscore the urgent need for reform and improvement in our teaching education institutions to ensure that they produce highly competent and effective teachers critical for student learning,” Mr. Orbeta said.
The Philippines placed 77th out of 81 countries in the 2022 Program for International Student Assessment’s global ranking index of student performance in math, reading, and science.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Monday signed into law a bill increasing the teaching allowance for public school teachers from P5,000 to P10,000 starting next school year.
The government allocated P924.7 billion for education in this year’s P5.768-trillion national budget.
