Free Education in the Philippines: Breaking Down the Pros and Cons
Education is an unending learning process that is crucial in increasing our skills and knowledge. However, not everyone has the privilege to pursue their studies due to financial constraints. This is where the issue of free education in the Philippines comes into play. Providing free education can be the solution to this problem, allowing many Filipinos to achieve their dreams. To discuss free education in the Philippines, in this essay we will delve into the advantages and disadvantages of free education and how it impacts the country's economy and society. Despite the challenges of waking up early, dealing with school work, and finishing the academic journey, education remains a vital tool for achieving success in life.
There are issues and problems regarding education that is prevailing nowadays. According to research, about 4 million youth are not going to school due to the following; family matters, higher cost of schooling, lack of personal interest, disabilities, and many more. These youths usually don’t have support from parents, doesn’t have enough money, or they are the ones who’s working for their family. Not going to school can affect you a lot. If we don’t go to school, we could miss the knowledge we need for the future. Additional problems of the youth are the expenses that is not within the family’s budget. Some school cannot afford the other equipment the school needs. Like when the classroom is not in good terms, they don’t have enough staff and employees. These are some of the problems we tend to hear from others. This is because that doesn’t fit the budget. Sometimes students don’t really understand the thing that they should and shouldn’t do, these problems of students like bullying, vandalism, stealing, is not monitored so the students do whatever they want that they shouldn’t be doing. They have a lot of problems that’s why they chose to act cool but what is wrong is they don’t know the right things to do because of the problems that I mentioned a while ago. Every child has a right to access safe, quality education. It is a part of the basic human right, not merely a privilege. Under the Philippine Constitution, the government should take necessary actions for its people to earn free quality education. It is the right of every citizen to receive education at all levels. Basic education has been free and easy to access to all in the Philippines. However, due to financial problems, many children cannot still afford to go to school because, although education is said to be free, there are still other expenses like the daily expenses in going to school, school projects, food, and others which poor children cannot afford; thus, they don’t go to school.
Our government have launched several projects to address this problem like giving free breakfast or food to school children. Some highly urbanized cities like Makati is giving free school supplies, mags, school shoes, and other school needs to encourage children to go to school. The City of Manila is also giving free bags, uniforms and school supplies to young children in public schools. Some are offering scholarship programs to qualified students who don’t have means to go to school.
Recently, Republic Act 10931 was signed into law which mandates free higher education in State Universities, Colleges and Local Universities. It means that all students are exempt from paying tuition and other school fees for units enrolled in. This is another good development in our education system since it will give opportunity to every Filipino to have access to quality education. However, as earlier stated, there are other expenses that the students will be facing day by day. So many still don’t go to school.
Therefore, the government must give each enrolled at least a fair amount that could help them go to school every day until they finish college. Free education for all must be genuine and not merely put into a piece of paper through law. There must be a genuine effort on the part of our government to make education easy to access to all, especially, to the poorest of the poor Filipino kids. We must all be aware of this problem and let us help those people who wants education.
