Press Release
June 5, 2007

Sen. Angara on education

Education is the great equalizer.

This is a timely and timeless truth. Its application is universal.

Our great and electrifying success stories are about up-from-the-bootstrap young men who became president of the country via the route of good education. One came from the remote town of Baler, Aurora. One from a hamlet of tuberculosis-stricken people in Lubao, Pampanga. One came from a sleepy town of Bohol province.

Manuel Luis Quezon, Diosdado Macapagal and Carlos Garcia used their training in law to rise from poverty and obscurity and become president of the country.

A university diploma is the key to social and economic mobility. A certificate from a vocational or technical school is a virtual passport to a good technical job, be it in the domestic job market or overseas.

Doors are opened, opportunities knock , hopes and dreams for a better life are realized.

Sadly, scores of young men and women intending to get a college diploma or a voc-tech certificate cannot do so because of financial constraints. For young men and women in the lower end of the economic bracket, the quest for a good education is mostly an impossible one.

This sorry context requires a solution of two planks. First, an expanded student loan program with liberal repayment terms. Second, an expanded and more generous scholarship program for tertiary education.

At the University of the Philippines and some state colleges and universities, student loans through guarantors are already in existence. Under this system, the student may delay the payment of tuition fee so long as a faculty member will serve as his guarantor and the student must pay the fee in full before the end of the semester or half during the middle of the semester and the other half at the end. But we need to come-up with a better system than this.

Since 1994, our educational assistance programs had, 4,948,193 scholars from all over the country 22,292 DOST scholars, 1,293 CHED scholars, 57 UP Asia Center scholars, 4,924,293 Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) recipients, 143 DA- Fulbright scholars and 115 are my private scholars.

Encouraging more scholarship programs from the private sector is our option. Tapping private corporations to invest on the students will boost scholarship programs thereby addressing the thinning chances of our youth to further their education.

In the United States, fund managers have diversified into educational investments , identifying bright young men and women who the fund managers can finance through graduate school . There is very little risk and there is bigger return from these investments, according to reports from business journals.

As important as making education accessible is providing for quality education. This will guarantee quality graduates who will in turn be our frontliners in a very competitive Knowledge Society.

Sadly, our country ranked 49th out of 60 in the World Competitiveness Yearbook trailing so much behind Singapore (3 rd), Malaysia (23rd) and Thailand (32nd). In another survey of average scale scores in Mathematics and Science, we ranked 2nd to the lowest among the participating countries.

In response to this, Congress created the Commission on Science, Engineering and Technology (COMSET), which I authored, to review and assess our science, engineering and technology research and development.

We will have to review our educational system and asses what are lacking and the reasons for our waning competitiveness. The recommendations of the Commission will guide us in creating policies and programs responsive to our needs. We cannot be left behind in math, sciences, engineering and technology at this time of scientific and technological advances and suffer continuous economic stagnation.

A strong R&D on these fields will make us more innovative thus addressing some of our long-standing problems. Take for example the technological advances in agriculture that will address our hunger problem or other breakthrough that will keep us abreast with growth and prepared for global competitiveness.

The solution to our most prevalent problems keeps pointing back to the provision of quality education , our basic need. But the key and the most basic answer to fully address our problem is government intervention plus large doses of personal and corporate responsibility

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