The government must review its budget allocation to education to ensure funds are not wasted on training and wages of teachers but maximized for high-level student learning, a former leading economist at World Bank said.

"Let's not overprotect them. It adversely affects those that need to be protected, which are the students," Vicente Paqueo said at the recent Philippine Economic Society's 61st Annual Meeting and Conference last week.

He said he supports expanding the vouchers program of the Department of Education or DepEd to keep a healthy balance between the welfare of the teachers and students.

The program allows qualified students to finish senior high school in non-DepEd institutions which include private schools, state colleges and universities, local universities or colleges, and technical and vocational institutions.

Some lawmakers are proposing to extend the program for elementary education.

Worsened learning poverty

Paqueo said he observed the government seemed to be mostly occupied by proposals for bigger teacher salaries, apart from incentives for master's degrees among educators, while Filipinos' learning poverty has worsened.

He explained few public-school teachers complete higher education for self-improvement and apply their learnings through educational project initiatives despite substantial funds for this area.

"Our enterprise output relative to total training output is really small at 4 to 5 percent. Other countries have 15 percent that can be traced to labor regulations and the use of public funds for training," Paqueo said.

Enterprise output refers to developing ways of enhancing skills for learning to meet people's needs in their personal lives and work. 

According to the World Bank, learning poverty in the Philippines was among the highest in East Asia and Pacific at 91 percent last year. This means nine out of ten Filipinos aged 10 cannot fully read and comprehend simple text.

Educators forced to enrich knowledge

Adopting a business mindset, Paqueo said the vouchers program will force educators to enrich their knowledge and teaching skills as the families of students become more meticulous in choosing schools.

"Instead of the government providing the training, you can give students vouchers so they can choose what kind of training courses and who is providing them. There will be market competition," he said.

The Senate recently approved a P758.6 billion budget for DepEd for mobilization next year.

DepEd undersecretary Michael Wesley Poa suggested to lawmakers to redirect the agency's initially proposed P150-million confidential fund to the National Learning Recovery Program, a support program for teaching reading, math, science and technology.

He shared that the confidential fund was originally allocated to the voucher program.