EDITORIAL — Even more problems

There seems to be more ominous news from the reports made during the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2).

As mentioned by a columnist writing for this newspaper, it would seem that 25,000 public schools in the Philippines have been operating without a designated principal.

Education Secretary Sonny Angara has vowed to address this issue soon, but we aren't sure solutions could come quickly enough.

Because that’s not the only issue he has to address. Around 1,500 of these public schools don’t have electricity, 1,000 don’t have toilets, 70% of schools lack classrooms, and only 16% of those are seen to be still in good condition 15 years from now.

This wasn’t the only bad news to come from EDCOM2 either. Just recently, it was also reported during the EDCOM 2 that only 5,544 out of 11,351 students were able to enroll at the Philippine Science High School system because of a lack of slots, which shows just how many schools we still need.

But going back to the issue at hand, could this lack of leadership, management, and direction, lack of sanitation, lack of classroom, no access to power, and the poor condition of some schools be reasons why our students perform so poorly in reading, science, and math during foreign assessments tests?

It may not be too farfetched to think that there is a correlation.

The quality of our education is slipping and we think the quality and condition of many of our schools have a lot to do with it.

Education is something that needed to be prioritized yesterday. How often we forget that today’s students are tomorrow’s citizens, professionals, parents, and leaders.

We get this feeling that this move to prioritize money for financial aid for this year’s annual budget --seen by many as a move to fund campaigns for the upcoming midterm election instead of education will come back to bite us where it hurts.