Daily Tribune‘The present regime is unwieldy, inefficient, and wasteful. An indicator of wastefulness is the rising dropout rate in the country. Many are not interested in going to college; they just want better jobs.’
Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Saturday suggested to fellow government officials to establish a national college entrance test, education vouchers and university mergers as ways to save government funds and allow opportunities for Filipinos in manual and non-academic but economically critical jobs.
"The present regime is unwieldy, inefficient and wasteful. An indicator of wastefulness is the rising dropout rate in the country. Many are not interested in going to college; they just want better jobs," Diokno said in a statement to the media through Viber.
He explained the national test will determine those who truly desire and are academically suited to college courses and university standards.
Diokno stressed this filtering process will allow a higher budget to be redirected to free elementary and high school education to ensure poor students who aspire for college education successfully obtain it.
"The poor have a better chance of entering college, and completing the same if they have a good foundation. That's one of the goals of the K-12 program. That's the key — excellent basic education. That should be our focus," Diokno said.
"The core of my proposal to revisit the present 'free' college education is how to optimally allocate resources funded largely by taxpayers for education," he continued.
For those who passed the national college entrance test, Diokno said there are two ways the government could provide them quality tertiary education: vouchers and mergers of state universities and colleges or SUCs.
"Those who passed the nationwide exam are entitled to 'free' education to use their entitlement through a four-year voucher, and can enter or reject their assigned state university," Diokno said.
"Assuming the national budget can afford x number of government scholars per year, say x is 2 million, then every year the government will choose 500,000 scholars per year," he added.
The Finance chief cautioned the test scores of the passers will determine which SUC they can enter.
"SUCs are not equal. Some are excellent, others good, some are barely adequate. The test passers may refuse to enroll in an SUC assigned to them and instead attend any government-accredited private university that will admit them," Diokno said.
In support of his proposal for better budget management and education quality control, Diokno said SUCs could be merged initially over five years with same set of trustees in all SUCs within the same region.
His proposals came after economists shared that more Filipinos are needed for manual jobs to help the country attract foreign investments in manufacturing and grow its economy.
"I think we should also build very good electricians and manual workers and not so much focus on the diploma syndrome," Romeo Balanquit, Department of Budget and Management assistant secretary and University of the Philippines School of Economics graduate, said in July in a forum organized by the British Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.
Prof. Bernardo Villegas of the University of Asia and the Pacific added agricultural workers are also needed to increase the country's exports of high-value crops as he suggested to conglomerates to manage farm lands and production.
"In Malaysia, businesses ask farmers to lease their land to manage the units of farms to grow them at a faster rate. This applies to both rubber and palm oil," he explained.
