In June, Education International got together with its affiliates in the Philippines to address the issue of drop out rates in basic education and to prepare a joint national work plan for the unions on reducing drop out in the country.
In recent years, the Philippines has seen an alarming increase in the number of dropouts reported by elementary and secondary schools. Last year, there were a shocking 3.1 million out-of-school children between the ages of 6 and 15. In recognition of this problem, EI and its Philippine affiliates met with the national Ministry of Education and NGOs in Manila to revitalise their efforts to end drop-out.
Taking place over three days from June 21-23, the programme focused both on the potential future response of the unions to the problem of drop out and on the actual response made by the Philippine government to date. A further objective was to develop indicators to monitor the government’s compliance in ensuring the achievement of the EFA and Millennium Development Goal on education by 2015.
At the end of the busy three-day programme, a resolution was drawn up which called upon the national government to raise the budget for education to 6% of GDP and on the unions to wage a nationwide anti-dropout campaign taking in research, capacity building for teachers, mass mobilisation, networking and monitoring of the national EFA programme. It also urged EI to provide support for these efforts, amongst others by exerting pressure on the national government to take immediate action. For more information, please contact us at efaids@ei-ie.org.