The educational system is already poor as it is. For instance, lessons are often discussed in the trivial level without any analysis whatsoever. Students arrive unprepared for the lessons and teachers spend more time keeping their class quiet than actually teaching. Furthermore, the teacher dictates the facts, instead of students drawing up their own conclusions and group work is usually conducted wherein individual analysis would be sufficient. Students are made to do memory work without fully understanding what they’re supposed to learn in the first place.

These students already poorly-educated as they are, with a home environment educationally devoid, have slim chances of getting better education usually provided by private institutions and state universities. They often end up landing on low-paying manual labor opportunities.

Education determines the quality of the labor force. The  higher the education attainment, the more skilled workers become. In turn, with highly skilled workers, more opportunities would be available and little by little, their lives would start to improve. People would eventually rise from the ashes of poverty. Unfortunately, the Philippines’ educational portfolio has been painting a contrasting portrait of this concept, and the picture continues to darken unless some changes take place soon.

This crisis raises the stakes on the productivity level of the future workforce. As it turns out, the highest educational attainment for 72% of all poor households is primary education. Plus, more than 50% of all children who don’t finish Grade 6 already drop out as early as Grade 1. This means that at tender ages of 7-8 years, these children are cursed to a life of poverty. In addition, 67% of children, who get to finish the intermediate levels don’t even proceed to high school. Finally, for those who enter secondary schooling, they drop out after their first or second year. At this rate, almost 55% of those entering the labor force will only have attained first year high school education. These staggering figures pose a big gamble indeed for the country’s economic progress.

Tomorrow’s society is heavily dependent on what is taught in today’s classrooms. If such ailing quality of education remains, the adults of tomorrow won’t be much different than the hapless kids of today.

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