ABSTRACT

The research paper is about determining whether certain factors of Education have an effect on the overall Gross Domestic Product of the Philippines. Intuition would tell us that Education has an effect on GDP. In addition, budget allocations for education in the Philippines are high compared to the other sectors in the government.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Background of the Study …………………………………………………………. 4

Statement of the Problem …………………………………………………………. 5

Objectives of the Study …………………………………………………………. 6

Significance of the Study …………………………………………………………. 6

Scope and Limitation …………………………………………………………. 7

Review of Related Literature

Civilian Discretionary Spending …………………………………………………… 8

Human Capital and Education …………………………………………………… 9

Education in the Philippines

Millennium Development Goals

Similar Studies

Theoretical Framework

Gross Domestic Product

IS-LM Model

Operational Framework

Variable List

A-Priori Expectations

Methodology

Empirical Testing and Analysis of Results

Conclusion and Recommendations

References

Introduction

Background of the Study

According to Jeffrey Sachs (2011), civilian discretionary spending is spending on public goods and services that the private economy cannot provide on its own[1]. In addition, one of the sectors he mentioned that are involved in civilian discretionary spending is education. Education is defined as the knowledge and development resulting from an educational process (Merriam Webster, 2014)[2]. In any country, education is one of the things that the government is in charge of and is one of the factors in the government’s expenditures which contributes to a percentage in a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP); the government takes into consideration the budget allocation for education, how they are going to make the educational sector competitive i.e. the quality of the service that the citizens of the country are to get, and many other factors.

The Philippines currently has a literacy rate of 95.4% and rank 108th out of 215 countries in terms of literacy rate[3]. In addition, the educational system of the Philippines is currently experiencing a shift, because our educational system is being exposed to different factors such as the implementation of the K to 12 and the ASEAN Integration which are to be imposed soon. In the previous education system of the Philippines, kindergarten was not compulsory for students but now it is. In addition, Primary Education (Elementary) and Secondary Education (Junior and Senior High School) both require 6 years making a total of 12 years. Because of these adjustments and other factors, the budget and the expenditure for education increase every year. The Department of Education is one of the top departments that are given high budget allocations with their proposed 2014 budget being the highest at 293.3 billion pesos; according to an article in Rappler (2013), “the increase is focused on learning resources, as well as classrooms, chairs and school facilities”[4]. But despite all of this, the overall quality in the education has declined and this was due to certain factors (insert them here). With this given, this proves to be a challenge not just for the government but for the other Filipinos as well that could not cope up with the Philippines’ current system of education. According to World Vision (2011)[5], education has a relationship with growth of an economy i.e. lack of quality education is a threat to economic growth. In addition, World Vision also stated that 92 percent of Filipino children are able to enroll in primary education but 20 percent of these students who enrolled are able to finish.

Statement of the Problem

The Philippines experienced a decline in the quality of education due to certain factors such as the quality of the education, affordability, budget, and mismatch between training and the jobs[6]. With this, the researcher has prepared the following questions:

a) How can the Philippine government fix or alleviate these factors?

b) Were there any measures taken in line with the previous question? What specific measures were done and were they effective?

c) Are Filipino students (both current and incoming) ready for K to 12 given the decline in the quality prior to the implementation?

d) Is K to 12 really a step further for the Philippines?