Various non-governmental organizations today asked the House Panel to the Bicameral Conference Committee to spare the Senate's version of the education sector in the proposed 2007 national government budget from deletion or decreases. They also asked both Houses of Congress for a bigger budget in education, as their "gift for the Filipino youth" this Christmas.
"Instead of asking the Senate to let go of their increases in various agencies under the education sector, the House panel should instead consider the idea of increasing the education budget. That would be a very thoughtful Christmas gift for the Filipino youth," said Aaron Pedrosa, spokesperson of Youth Against Debt.
Pedrosa aired this in reaction to reports that the Lower House is pushing their Senate counterparts to let go of the increases they made for the Department of Education, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and the State Universities and Colleges (SUCs).
Prof. Leonor Magtolis Briones, Social Watch Philippines' Co-Convenor and Former National Treasurer, said that their group finds the Senate version as "laudable as it supports the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) especially in basic education."
Briones explained that the Senate version provided an increased of P4 billion for the construction of school buildings to erase classroom shortage; increased the funding for the hiring of new teachers by P873 million to erase shortage in teachers; increased GASTE by P700 million to support greater access to free secondary education." The Senate version also provided P30 million funding for Technical-Vocational High School Program, and increased the funding for the School Health and Nutrition Program to P250 million to addressed malnutrition and improve attendance and participation rate.
The Senate version, however, deleted the controversial and graft-prone Food for School Program, and replaced it with the Malusog na Simula, Yaman ng Bansa Program with sufficient guiding provisions on how it would be implemented to prevent abuse.
Briones added that the Senate version also increased the scholarship fund of the CHED to improve access and completion rate in tertiary education, and provided more funding for SUCs to improve the quality of tertiary education.
"These increases in education budget are necessary and urgent if we are to move forward as a country," Briones explained, adding: "If we are to address poverty, we must improve access to education, and enhance employability of our graduates by providing them with responsive and quality education -- and these are the things which the Senate version provides for, so we urge the Bicam to support these items instead of having them deleted or decreased."
Briones' group (22 NGOs) was the partner of 10 congressmen from the minority and the progressive bloc of the majority which came up with the NGO-Legislators alternative budget entitled, "Imperatives of Real and Equitable Growth: An Alternative Proposal for Financing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the 2007 Budget" which the Senate adopted.
- www.freedomfromdebtcoalition.org
No comments:
Post a Comment