Philippines

This study documents the results of a pilot study designed to measure the quality of teacher practices using the classroom observation tool TEACH in a selection of 45 public primary schools (73 percent rural and 27 percent urban) in Mindanao, a province of the Philippines. Teachers in Mindanao are relatively skilled at creating a supportive learning environment and maximizing opportunities to learn, though they are less effective at setting positive behavioral expectations.

Worldwide, approximately 781 million adults are unable to read or write in any language. While adult literacy rates have increased significantly over the past several decades, recent progress largely reflects a more-educated younger generation replacing a less-education older generation. The Philippines has made remarkable progress in improving its public basic education system over the past decade, yet half of Filipino students fail to complete the full cycle of basic education.

Could a partial subsidy for child education increase children's participation in paid work? In contrast to much of the theoretical and empirical child labor literature, this paper shows that child work and school participation can be complements under certain conditions. Using data from the randomized evaluation of a conditional cash transfer program in the Philippines, the analysis finds that some children, who were in neither school nor work before the program, increased participation in school and work-for-pay after the program.

Evidence from around the world has shown that improving school infrastructure leads to better learning outcomes. For example, a 2011 review of the economics literature over the last 20 years showed that the availability of basic school infrastructure (such as classrooms, desks, and chairs) and facilities (such as electricity, libraries, and blackboards) is frequently associated with better student learning achievement.

This policy note presents an analysis of and recommendations on the city competitiveness improvement and is part of a broader Philippines urbanization study. The analysis draws on the competitive city framework which includes four pillars: 1. institutions and regulations; 2. infrastructure and land; 3. skills and innovation; 4. enterprise support and finance. It analyzes factors that constrain city competiveness, the role that city governments can play, and provides policy recommendations based on both the Filipino and international good practices in promoting city competitiveness.

Beginning in 1996, the Department of Education (DepEd) started to implement the first large scale ICT/education initiative in the Philippines. This effort was later strengthened and expanded to become the DepEd Computerization Program and DepEd Internet Connectivity Program (DCP/DICP). This was a huge undertaking for DepEd, both to oversee and to implement. Fortunately, many groups were willing to help – other government agencies, international and non-government organizations, private sector, local government units and higher education institutions.

This paper estimates the effect of school based management on student performance in the Philippines using the administrative dataset of all public schools in 23 school districts over a 3-year period, 2003-2005. The authors test whether schools that received early school based management interventions (training in school based management and direct funding for school-based reforms) attained higher average test scores than those that did not receive such inputs.