Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 7) — Senator Win Gatchalian hopes to realign the 2024 national budget or tap the contingency funds of other departments to finance the additional ₱7 billion needed for the Department of Education’s (DepEd) learning recovery program.
“We’ll try our best to realign, but if that will not happen because we’re at the final stage then we have to do this through a whole of government approach. We have contingency funds in different departments, we have other sources of funds scattered all over the different departments,” Gatchalian told CNN Philippines’ The Source on Thursday.
So far, DepEd has around ₱2.9 billion for its learning recovery plan next year. Gatchalian, who chairs the committee on basic education, said an analysis his office conducted showed DepEd needs ₱10 billion to intensify efforts and help kindergarten to grade 10 students to catch up.
\”If we can convince other offices to allocate funds for the remaining ₱7 billion that is needed for an intensified learning recovery that will be the best case,\” the senator said, noting that one possible source is the Office of the President’s contingency fund of around ₱12 billion.
Gatchalian said if the whole ₱10 billion will be raised and the DepEd’ s programs will be intensified, he is optimistic there will be improvements once the country undergoes the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) again in three years.
The 2022 PISA results showed the Philippines remained as one of the countries with poor proficiency in reading comprehension, mathematics, and science.
Gatchalian said this \”education crisis\” should be treated like the COVID-19 pandemic, where agencies contributed funds—with the government spending ₱114 billion to procure vaccines.
