Will Federalism Facilitate Educational Reforms?
Dr. Jaime Saavedra Chanduvi[1], the former Minister of Education of Peru (2013 – 2016) and currently the Education Practice Manager for East Asia and the Pacific of The World Bank, highlighted three essential elements for a successful national educational reform, to wit: a well designed plan, the implementation capacity of the educational infrastructure, and political alignment to facilitate the much needed reforms in education. According to him, these were key in improving the educational system in Peru and that the same can guide the Philippines considering the parallelism in the challenges faced by the education sector in both countries.
Among the top issues in education include lack of well-trained teachers, poor learning classroom environment, ineptness in school systems management, inadequate infrastructure, insufficient budget and corruption in the bureaucracy. These concerns are shared similarly by both Peru and the Philippines.
Intrigued by such sameness, I personally submit that this can be attributed somehow to a political structure that may perpetuate a problematic educational system. The two countries operate under a unitary and presidential form of government, where powers of the state reside in a centralized body and this body commonly delegates some authority to local structures which also implements decisions already formulated by the central government.
This highly centralized decision making process in Philippine bureaucracy could probably be antithetical to “implement-ability” and political commitment – two of the three essentials to educational reform according to Dr. Saavedra.
A highly centralized government makes it impossible, if not difficult, to implement reforms that will benefit schools outside the urban centers, where the authorities are usually found. This is further compounded by “politicking” and corruption littered along the bureaucratic lines of the government.
For instance, a request for the construction of a two-classroom building to address problems of overcrowding and congestion may take up to at least two years before it can be approved under the current structure. The proposal emanating from a school principal needs to be reviewed and endorsed by the division heads. The same review and endorsement will be done by the district supervisor, then the superintendent, then the regional director, then to a technical division officer in the Department of Education in the central office before it reaches an assistant secretary and finally to the department secretary. The favorable endorsement must be reflected in the department’s budget proposal to be submitted to congress for deliberation and finally for the approval of the President. Once approved, another lengthy process must be observed for the money to be downloaded to the requesting school before construction actually begins.
The question now begs: will federalism facilitate more efficiently any educational reform agenda?
In a report written for the Melbourne School of Government[2], it showed that full devolution offers the greatest benefits in service quality, efficiency, equity, effectiveness, accountability and subsidiarity. In a federal structure, local governments will be more responsible for the development, implementation, assessment, regulation and even funding of their educational programs. This responsibility eventually promotes policy cohesion and program consistency. While it may result to uneven development among schools from state to state, a healthy competition will virtually challenge poor performing locales to exact better measures to improve their educational systems.
The same report further stated that a federal system of governance can be a powerful force for sustained educational improvement. It can promote innovation and learning towards continuous policy improvement, enhance transparency and accountability, and allow schools and systems to meet their students’ diverse needs in a much more sophisticated, cohesive and tailored way. This makes for much more effective policy, better targeted funding and higher educational outcomes.[3]
The current debates on the Philippine’s shift towards federalism must bring in the discourses on educational reforms. Standards should be set in place to allow the local governments to explore a wide latitude of creativity in order for educational systems to be more responsive to local contexts and realities. Funding should not be used as a whip by the central government to force the unwilling local schools to comply with its unreasonable educational policies, programs and practices.
In the end, the need for our educational overhaul cannot be handed to a few detached central authorities. The best reforms, historically, emanated from the ground, at the local level. This is where education can be meaningful. This is where reform will be real.
[1] Dr. Jaime Saavedra Chanduvi was the lecturer during the forum on “Global Education Challenges: Successful Reforms in Peru and Opportunities for the Philippines,” held on September 18, 2017, and organized by The World Bank and De La Salle University’s Jesse Robredo Institute of Governance and School of Economics.
[2] http://democracyrenewal.edu.au/, August 20, 2015
[3] ibid.
(Photo from languages and development wikispaces)
