FDC In The Sunday Times

Last week, The Manila Times solicited the Freedom from Debt Coalition an article on the education sector for its Sunday Times special edition. The article we submitted explained the sorry state of our education sector due to Philipine governments’ non-compliance to an international standard on spending–the UNESCO Delors Benchmark. Said benchmark prescribes a government to appropriate 6 percent of its gross national product (GNP) on education. Unfortunately, only the intro part of the article was used and incorporated in the banner story.

The Sunday Times
15 June 2008, Banner Story
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/june/15/yehey/top_stories/20080615top1.html

SPECIAL REPORT: BASIC EDUCATION REFORM
Same old problems still
Time to pass a law in the order of Sen. Mar Roxas’ Omnibus Education Reform Act of 2008
By Rene Q. Bas, Editor in Chief

[Con't]

This made the Freedom from Debt Coalition, from whom The Times solicited an article about the basic education issue, to lead off with the statement:

“When classes formally opened last Tuesday, the entire nation was once again subjected to the same old problems besetting our education. From shortages of classrooms, teaching materials and instructors, up to unregulated tuition and other school fee hikes; students, parents and educators once more bore the burden of the yearly school blues like a deadbeat ritual imposed to an exhausted populace.

“Yet amid the political rhetoric and empty populism of our national leaders, little to none is [being] said about the grave wrongdoing of our government to education—the blatant non-compliance to international standards on social spending by the past and present governments.”

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