PBEd pushes for decentralization to address learning crisis

The Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) on Tuesday called for greater decentralization of education governance, bringing together education leaders, local government practitioners and experts at a forum in Makati City to explore how giving local communities more authority could help address the country’s persistent learning crisis.

The high-level forum, held at the PHINMA Plaza Roofdeck in Rockwell Center, focused on how local governments, schools, communities and the private sector could play a larger role in education decisions while the national government retains responsibility for setting standards, ensuring equity and overseeing national priorities.

PBEd President Chito B. Salazar said the country’s highly centralized education system has struggled to respond to the varied needs of schools and communities across the country.

“We generally follow a one-size-fits-all policy or program,” Mr. Salazar said in his opening remarks.

“The challenges of a school in Metro Manila are not necessarily the challenges of a school in an island municipality, an agricultural community, or a geographically isolated area,” he added.

Mr. Salazar said decentralization should go beyond simply transferring responsibilities from the national government to local governments.

“It is about determining how many layers should stand between a school and the decisions that affect its learners, who [are] accountable, how decisions are made, and for whom those decisions are made,” he said.

Under the approach proposed by PBEd, the national government would continue to set standards, protect equity, support weaker schools, finance national priorities and hold schools and local officials accountable.

At the same time, greater authority would be given to local leaders, school divisions, school boards, communities and parents to respond to local education needs.

The Asia Foundation education governance adviser on decentralization Reynaldo Antonio Laguda said the current system leaves some 48,000 public schools and around 12,000 private schools dependent on an “overstretched pipeline running through the center.”

“When everything flows through the center, schools wait, funds arrive late, decisions are slow, and very little or no room for local innovation,” Mr. Laguda said.

He said decentralization should involve three channels: deconcentration of authority within the Department of Education (DepEd), devolution of authority or functions to local government units (LGUs), and stronger public-private partnerships.

Mr. Laguda proposed a framework built around five elements: capacity, authority, resources, accountability and transparency.

“The first three, CAR, enable action, while the latter two safeguard those three,” he said.

He warned that transferring authority without the capacity or resources to exercise it could undermine reform efforts.

“Authority without capacity causes paralysis,” Mr. Laguda said. “Decentralization gets blamed for what was really an implementation gap.”

He said resources should move alongside authority, noting that giving schools or local governments decision-making power without providing the funding to act on those decisions would leave decentralization ineffective.

DECENTRALIZATION ROAD MAP
Mr. Laguda outlined a three-phase decentralization roadmap aligned with the government’s Basic Education Development Plan 2035.

The first phase, covering 2026 to 2028, would focus on creating an enabling environment, strengthening governance and launching pilot “sandboxes” where greater local government participation can be tested.

The second phase, from 2029 to 2031, would focus on scaling validated models and expanding school-level autonomy.

By 2035, the goal would be for the central office to focus more on national policy and standards, while decisions are made closer to schools and communities.

Ms. Guevarra cited experiences in local governments as evidence that greater autonomy can improve education outcomes.

She recounted visiting a school in a poor municipality where all children had received zero in a reading test. The children faced a two- to three-hour journey home along a rugged road, making it difficult for national-level interventions to address their circumstances.

After the community and mayor developed a local response, the school’s average reading score rose to 85%, she said.

Ms. Guevarra also cited an experiment involving 12 municipalities in Iloilo, where greater local autonomy was tested against a control group. The experimental local governments posted a median reading score of 90%, she said.

LOCAL EDUCATION AGENDA
For decentralization to work, however, she said local leaders need to become more involved in education and use data to guide decisions.

An “education mayor,” she said, owns the local education agenda, uses data instead of anecdotes, listens to communities and translates plans into programs.

Ms. Guevarra also called for the reinvention of local school boards, saying these bodies often focus on budgets, sports and infrastructure rather than learning outcomes.

She proposed broadening their membership to include businesses, private schools, farmers, fishermen, drivers, nongovernment organizations and other community stakeholders.

Local school boards should also be able to use data, plan programs around learning outcomes and monitor whether interventions improve student performance, she said.

Both speakers emphasized that decentralization does not mean abandoning national standards.

Ms. Guevarra said the national government should continue to set standards, curriculum and competencies, as well as conduct national assessments.

Local governments and schools, meanwhile, should have greater flexibility to localize programs, adjust strategies and conduct formative assessments based on their learners’ needs.

Mr. Salazar said the private sector would also have to take responsibility for supporting the reform.

“Business cannot simply tell the government what it should do,” he said. “We must also participate through local partnerships, resource support, workforce information, support for schools and communities, and a willingness to stay engaged long enough for reforms to work.”

For Mr. Salazar, the ultimate objective is not administrative restructuring but better outcomes for learners.

“The purpose of decentralization, ultimately, is not to move boxes around an organizational chart. It is to make the system more responsive, more accountable, and more capable of delivering for the learner,” he said.

“We must try something new, and decentralize,” he added. — Kaizzer Angela Marie V. Manuba