NATION

Marcos charts education revival in SONA, teachers say system still strained

Lisa Marie Apacible · Jul 27, 2026, 6:53 PM

(FILES) President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Education Secretary Sonny Angara led the Yaman ng Kalusugan (YAKAP) Caravan at Aurora National High School to promote healthier school communities. The caravan is part of the CLASS+ program, which links school clinics with local health systems through PhilHealth’s Konsulta package. YAKAP expands these services to cover free consultations, lab tests, cancer screenings, and up to P20,000 worth of medicines annually. At the Aurora event, more than 200 elementary students received eye check-ups, while over 350 teachers, staff, and students availed themselves of services including X-rays and ECGs. — Photograph by Yummie Dingding for DAILY TRIBUNE

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday unveiled an education agenda centered on more school counselors, classrooms, teachers and technology, presenting it as a key investment in the country's future.

But while Marcos portrayed a school system on the path to recovery, teachers said the reforms have yet to ease overcrowded classrooms, mounting workloads and chronic staffing shortages.

"Edukasyon pa rin ang siyang pangunahing nagtataguyod ng kakayahan, kung kaya ito pa rin ang nangunguna sa listahan ng Administrasyon," Marcos said in his fifth State of the Nation Address.

Among his biggest claims was the deployment of the first 10,000 School Counselor Associates to public schools to expand mental health services amid growing concerns over bullying, violence and student well-being.

"Ang mga anak natin ay mayroon nang malalapitan para sa angkop na payo sa anumang mabigat na pinagdadaanan o bumabagabag sa kanilang isipan," he said.

Marcos also said more than 80,000 teachers and school heads had been promoted under the Expanded Career Progression (ECP) program, over 30,000 teaching positions had been created, and schools were receiving Smart TVs, laptops, tablets, free mobile data and lapel microphones.

To address overcrowding, he said private firms would build an initial more than 16,000 classrooms in Luzon through public-private partnerships, with similar projects planned for the Visayas and Mindanao.

He also pledged to continue the school-based feeding program for more than 4.5 million learners, strengthen school security, and expand AI literacy initiatives that have reached 1.8 million students, parents and teachers.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) Philippines, however, said teachers remain overwhelmed despite the administration's reforms.

"Teachers remain overworked, underpaid, and, in many cases, still unpaid for work they have already rendered. Reforms cannot be considered successful if they rely on extracting additional labor from teachers without addressing the structural constraints of the education system," ACT Chairperson Ruby Bernardo said in a previous statement.

The group also disputed Marcos' portrayal of the ECP program, saying it remains underfunded and offers too few plantilla positions, leaving promotion "more aspiration than opportunity" for many educators.

ACT said the government's reforms have yet to address deeper capacity issues, from teacher shortages to inadequate school infrastructure. Those concerns echo findings of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II), which estimates the country still lacks more than 165,000 classrooms—more than ten times the initial 16,000 classrooms promised by the administration.

Learning outcomes also remain a challenge. Filipino students ranked among the world's lowest performers in reading, mathematics and science in the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), while the World Bank estimates that nearly nine in 10 Filipino children suffer from learning poverty, unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10.###