Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I’m deeply honored to be here with you today. I’ve been in my position as manager for education programs in Asia at the World Bank for about four years. So I know a bit about education in the Philippines. In Antique I have had the privilege to visit some of the best rural schools I have ever seen in Asia. But I have to say, in preparing for this Expo, I realized I had been missing a very big piece of the puzzle. I learned how much you were doing, and how well organized your movement was. I came to appreciate the long and rich history of your support for education. It’s truly amazing work, for which you must be very proud. You are creating a model for the whole region, and for the world. At the World Bank, we are as concerned about education as you are. Many people are surprised to find out that that the World Bank provides support for education. Globally, we have provided developing countries with approximately $7 billion in the last 5 years for programs to improve services at all levels of schooling. Financial assistance comes mainly in the form of low interest loans and grants to government agencies. The World Bank also provides policy advice and guidance to client countries, and training opportunities for government officials and other development partners. Developing countries face a massive challenge in education. There are more than 2 billion children of primary and secondary school age in developing countries. Many have hopes of heading on to university. Speaking to a group of Youth a while back, the former President of the World Bank, James Wolfenshon, told them, “You are the future”. A teenager stood up and corrected him by saying, “Excuse me, we are the present”. The young man was right. These 2 billion children need to be prepared to participate in an increasingly competitive and globalized economy. They will—I should say are—having a profound impact on the shape of the world economy, governance, technology, culture, environment, and social tolerance. So creating good educational opportunities for these children is critical for all of us. Creating opportunities for the poorest among them is particularly important. In my own country, President Franklin Roosevelt famously said: “In seeking our economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up, or else we all go down as one people.” In an era of globalization we can say the same for the world…we all go up or we all go down together The World Bank invests in education because of its power to help reduce poverty and improve the quality of life. This works through the intermediate effects that education has on the productivity of human capital, growth, equity, social cohesion, health and fertility. Let me expand on the economic effect for a moment. A few years ago, some of my World Bank colleagues compared two countries, South Korea and Ghana, which in the late 1950s had the same level of economic development. Today we know how much progress South Korea has made, while during the same period Ghana has unfortunately experienced much slower growth. What my colleagues did was to estimate where Ghana would be if it had benefited from the same endowment of capital and labor inputs, as shown on the yellow line of the graph. The difference between the green and the yellow lines is attributed to the fact that South Korea invested in the human capital of its citizens, while acquiring foreign technology and developing its own research capabilities over the years. We can see this in another way by looking at the rates of return to education. By almost any comparison, education looks like an amazing investment—from both a public and a private point of view. This table is interesting because it shows that the rate of returns are particularly high in developing countries. But I am probably telling you about things you already know. The Philippines has a very proud history in education. Its schools have produced top flight graduates that are working in professional positions throughout the world—including my boss! But we also know there are some challenges. Compared to the other lower middle income countries, the Philippines does reasonably well in terms of enrollment at the primary level. It lags somewhat behind at the secondary level. One issue that stands out is the very crowded classrooms. Student teacher ratios at the primary level are 35:1 versus 22:1 on average in lower middle income countries, and 38:1 verus 19:1 at the secondary level. (These figures are from 2005—I understand the pupil teacher ratio at the primary level has deteriorated since then, and now stands at closer to 45:1) These issues become even more exaggerated when you compare the Philippines to upper middle income countries, or to where you want to be. It’s clear that secondary education needs to grow, but just look also at the comparisons to higher education. We should expect significant growth in that sector. And if the pattern of growth is like most other countries, it will probably be largely privately financed. There are other important education indicators to consider. The Philippines currently spends about 2.7% of GDP on education. While averages aren’t available for developing country income groups, I can tell you that this is rather low. It’s not uncommon for many countries to spend 5-6% of their GDP on education. The average for OECD countries is 5.2%. The Korean government spends 4.6% of its GDP on education. Parents spend an additional 2.9%, bringing the total to 7.5%. The Philippines also participates in international assessments of mathematics and science education at the basic education level. The last TIMSS test, last administered in 2003, received wide publicity in the Philippines, raising concerns about the average test scores of students in math and science. An interesting conclusion from this test is that it also demonstrated the wide differences in achievement between schools. As you know, the Philippines has a group of schools that does very well, and a larger group that does less well. The big challenge is how to bring up the bottom performers. This is important from social, political and economic points of view. The World Bank dedicated its entire World Development Report in 2006 to the issue of equity and its impact on development. I am often reluctant to recommend Bank reports as reading because they tend to be so weighty, but this one is worth it! Back to education indicators. Our colleagues from DepEd will tell us that what kids learn in school is as important as the summary statistics just presented. I am sure you feel that too. How well do schools prepare children for the world of work? For the many challenges that life will bring them? To live full and rewarding lives? I am sure you have an opinion about the skill level of graduates you employ. But it’s a bit hard to measure in concrete terms. Let me provide a few illustrations from recent research that you might find interesting. A few years ago, Richard Murnane and Frank Levy, at Harvard University produced a book on “the new basic skills” that are required in the modern workplace. They divided the needed skill sets into 3 categories: “Hard skills” such as basic mathematics and problem solving abilities “Soft skills” such as the ability to work in groups, and make effective written and oral presentations, and Basic abilities to manipulate technology.
Further research looked at the evolution in the demand for certain types of skills over time. An analysis of the skills requirements for the tasks performed in the US labor market shows the types of skills for which there is decreasing demand (many of which have been taken over by computers) and those for which there is increasing demand. In this study, the authors divided the tasks performed in firms into five broad categories. Expert thinking, which means solving problems for which there are no rule-based solutions, such as diagnosing the illness of a patient whose symptoms are out of the ordinary; Complex communication, which means interacting with others to acquire information, to explain it, or to persuade others of its implications for action; for example, a manager motivating the people whose work he/ she supervises; Routine cognitive tasks, including mental tasks that are well described by logical rules, such as maintaining expense reports; Routine manual tasks: these are physical tasks that can be well described using rules, such as installing windshields on new vehicles in automobile assembly plants; and Non-routine manual tasks: these include physical tasks that cannot be well described as following a set of “if-then-do” rules and that are difficult to computerize because they require optical recognition and fine muscle control; for example, driving a truck.
This figure shows trends for each type of task. Tasks requiring expert thinking and complex communication grew steadily and consistently during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The share of the labor force employed in occupations that emphasize routine cognitive or routine manual tasks remained stable in the 1970s and then declined over the next two decades. Finally, the share of the labor force working in occupations that emphasize non-routine manual tasks declined throughout the period.
The message is clear: technology and new patterns of workplace organization require more and more higher order skills. This in turn, implies the need to increase access to higher levels of education, and perhaps more importantly, introduce innovations in the content and delivery of education at ALL levels. Although this research was done in the US, it’s remarkable to me at how I hear it echoed throughout the world—by employers and educators alike. In the Philippines, I see similar motivations in the government’s education strategy—in its push for greater access, higher quality, improved measurement, and greater equity. The World Bank and the Australian government are very pleased to be working with the Philippine government to support implementation of the 5 main pillars of BESRA. These include: I read the read the CSR roadmap and was very impressed with the way you have aligned your support under these pillars as well. I wish every country I worked in had such a good strategy and such wide support! Most learning takes place between a teacher and student, within a classroom. That classroom operates within a school, the school within a school system, and the school system within the larger society. You are reinforcing these relationships, and you are providing key inputs and inspiration to a large number of schools to help them develop. Your assistance in the form of scholarships, infrastructure, IT, and teacher training is truly impressive. But I’d like to challenge us to think about ways to reach deeper into the classroom. How can we strengthen teachers, who are a key to unlocking quality? Can we improve teacher recruitment, professional development and classroom practice?
Can we do more to improve governance and accountability? Can we find ways to help build the management capacities of government agencies responsible for education and social services? Do more to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending? Strengthen assessment systems that test young people’s readiness for higher education or the world of work?
You are leading opinion makers in this society. Can we do more to shape social attitudes? Last week we held a regional conference on teacher management and professional development in Beijing. Several country delegations got involved in a discussion about how to create more of a sense of a teaching “profession”—in the way that doctors, lawyers, and accountants have built a “profession” by ensuring that all members master a core set of skills and information, and adhere to an agreed set of professional standards. The participants in our Beijing conference bemoaned the decline in status that teachers were feeling throughout Asia. Kai Ming Cheng, who advises the Vice-Chancellor at the University of Hong Kong, pointed out that professionalism contains a notion of excellence, and that positive momentum toward this depends in large part on perceptions. Can you as leaders help shape those perceptions by publicly recognizing and honoring the teaching profession? By very publicly recognizing excellent teachers? Encouraging the best graduates to consider teaching as a career?
Can you think of ways to stimulate interest in science and mathematics among young people? In problem solving? Can you encourage a culture of lifelong learning that would help graduates maintain high levels of functional literacy? Can you strengthen the connections between school and work, so that students see the direct linkages between their learning and opportunities for rewarding careers?
Let me conclude again by saying how impressed I am by all you are doing. I know that the Philippines has experienced its fair share of economic and social stress during the last decades. But the Philippines has a proud history in educational development. It did everything right in the early years to build a strong foundation of human resources. It produced graduates that are prized for their industriousness, ingenuity and resourcefulness. You have several strategic opportunities before you now—both in the economic and educational realms—and I would encourage you to use the innovative this model of CSR you have developed to seize the moment. The best thing I could imagine would be to come here again next year and see you supporting the education sector in even more ways. Thank you for what you are doing for the future of this nation and for creating an example for all of us in the region to follow. |
RSS