Bridging the education divide through social entrepreneurship

By Harvey S. Keh - Blogs.Inquirer.net 

It’s June again and classes just opened last week for millions of Filipino students, more than 90.0 percent of which study at public elementary and high schools. To understand the plight of basic education in our country, one need not look further than to check the state of public schools and the performance of its students. Here are some startling facts:

* Out of 10 students who enter Grade 1, only six will be able to finish elementary and only four will eventually finish high school.
* Class sizes still remain a problem with some public schools in highly populated areas having an average class size of 80 to 90 students.

* More than 20.0 percent of our public high school students cannot understand what they are reading and worse, majority of our public schools do not have functional and adequate libraries.
* In recent years, less than 10.0 percent of our 1st year public high school students manage to pass the High School Readiness Test (HRET) even if the passing score has already been pegged at 50.0 percent.
* International Surveys in Mathematics and Science have consistently placed our country at the bottom of the rankings with poor African countries like Ghana and Botswana. On the other hand, our Asian neighbors such as Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan are found at the top of the rankings.

Click here to read more.