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About 100 teachers from Metro Manila linked hands
Friday on the busy sidewalks of Banawe Street and Quezon Avenue in
Quezon City and called on the Philippine government to improve
education in the country as part of their support to an
international campaign for education rights.
The Global Campaign for Education
(GCE) is a coalition of child rights activists, teachers’ unions
and development organizations from around the world campaigning to
make the right to education a reality for all. The GCE calls for the
fulfillment of the six education for all (EFA) goals set by the
United Nations by 2015.
Under the EFA goals, governments
throughout the world are asked to expand early childhood care and
education; ensure free, compulsory, good quality primary education
for all children; ensure equal access to learning and life-skills
for adults and young people; ensure a 50-percent improvement in
adult literacy rates; achieve gender parity in education by 2005 and
gender equality by 2015; and improve the quality of education.
“The Philippine government is
falling behind in its commitments to EFA,” said Antonio Tinio,
chairman of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT).
He said five million children of
school age are out of school and dropout rates are increasing. ACT
is a member of Education International, the world’s largest
organization of education workers, with affiliates in 170 countries.
ACT called on the Philippine
government to offer a legally binding guarantee that primary
education shall be free and compulsory for all; and commit to raise
government spending on education to 6 percent of the gross domestic
product, with at least half of it going to basic education.
It also demanded that 20 percent
of the national budget should go to education. “Making primary
education compulsory entails a much higher level of commitment on
the part of the state to guaranteeing education for all its
citizens,” said Tinio.
--Jonathan M. Hicap
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