case study about school problems in the philippines

Impact of Policy Implementation on Education Quality: A Case Study on Philippines’ Low Ranking in International and Local Assessment Programs

• Updated as of 7:14 am April 3, 2023

Louie Benedict R. Ignacio The Department of Political Science Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas

Andrea Gaile A. Cristobal The Department of Political Science Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas

Paul Christian David The Department of Political Science Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas

Corresponding Author: Paul Christian David, The Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas, Espana, Manila Email :  [email protected]

Recommended Citation: Ignacio, L. B., Cristobal, A., David, P., (2022). Impact of Policy Implementation on Education Quality: A Case Study on Philippines’ Low Ranking in International and Local Assessment Programs. Asian Journal on Perspectives in Education, 3(1), 41-54

In the recent report released by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Philippines was ranked as one of the lowest in Mathematics, Science, and Reading Comprehension among 79 participating countries. The country also ranked low in other assessment programs, including TIMSS, SEA-PLM, and NAT. Despite the educational reforms established to improve the Philippine Education System, the Philippines remains low and significantly below its neighboring countries regarding quality education. Therefore, this study (1) describes how the Department of Education has undertaken the objectives of R.A. 10533, (2) determines the effect of policy implementation on the ranking of Philippine education quality in local and international assessment programs through the perspective of education experts, and (3) identifies the importance of local and international assessment programs in analyzing the current condition of education quality in the Philippines. This research has employed a qualitative approach using thematic analysis on narratives coming from (1) DepEd-OUCI, (2) DepEd-BEA, and (3) Education Policy experts, as well as documents used by the Department of Education and the Curriculum Consultative Committee. This study concludes that there are still challenges plaguing the implementation process. Hence, the need for further improvement in certain aspects is enumerated in this research. Moreover, considerable discrepancies in the disorganized and incoherent implementation system amongst and within the Department of Education, administrators, and other stakeholders, as well as confounded policy interpretation due to system instability, were all deduced.

Curriculum, policy implementation, PISA, assessment, Enhanced Basic Education

Introduction

Due to the drastic changes in the educational system, online distance learning is one of the alternative modalities to sustain continuous educational programs during pandemics, which develops the new literacies in Information Communication Technology (ICT) necessary to improve 21st-century learning. The students practice 21st-century skills such as collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity in instructional technological tools (Bedir, 2019; Budiarti et al., 2021; Hendy, 2020; Pardede, 2020). In online learning, the learners collaborate with their classmates through virtual meetings, email, messenger, and google and Microsoft collaboration links in online applications. Internet access is used for communication between the teacher and students and students to their fellow students by using varied technological applications that exchange information between the messenger and the receiver. At the same time, the learners practice critical analysis on how to manipulate technical tools with the procedural steps on how to use the learning materials. Also, the students become independent learners who discover and search the lessons with creativity and productivity. Thus, the learners become creative in operating computer-based learning in the classes where the learner construct their learning designs. Therefore, reviewing the learners’ online education skills is crucial in new normal times.

The United Nations released its Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, which are set to be provided with a plan of action coordinated by all participating countries towards achieving it by 2030. One of its goals is to guarantee an inclusive and good quality of education that will instill lifelong learning applicable to one’s daily life (UN, 2015). In addition, the United Nations intends to solve the issue of the growing problem of maleducation due to the unclear reception of formal learning as a fundamental human right and the discrepancy between the standard of basic education from a local and global standpoint (Thaung, 2018). To combat this problem, states, through accountability, coordination, and regular monitoring, reviewing, and financing, must be able to resolve the low quality of primary education, inequitable access to higher and technical vocational education, and ingraining of skills that can be used for work, inequality in gender, and education on global citizenship.

The Philippines is no exemption among countries experiencing the effects of the growing global recession. According to the World Bank (2019), a growing learning crisis exists in relatively emerging economies like the Philippines, Kenya, Tanzania, South American countries, etc. Because of this, the World Bank posited that the lack of substantial and extensive monitoring in policy and curriculum implementation is the root cause of a persistent global learning crisis.

National agencies such as the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) continuously campaign towards awareness and resolving the issue (Roldan, 2018). The highlight of the government’s actions was the enactment of the Enhanced Basic Education Act, or Republic Act 10533 last 2013, which sought to reform and improve the existing curriculum by adjusting the standards and principles that educational institutions must uphold to improve the quality of education in the Philippines and compete in a global scale. The Department of Education, the central agency for implementing the enumerated standards, was mandated by the law to partner with agencies like Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and Technical Education for Skills Development Authority (TESDA). Different local and international assessment programs were adopted to gauge the necessary actions, such as Programme for International Student Assessment, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics, and National Achievement Test (Elliott, Stankov, Lee, & Beckmann, 2019).

However, despite the actions by the government and seven years of implementation of the law, there is minimal to no progress in terms of the quality of education manifested by the Philippines’ low ranking (Roman, 2019). It is for this reason that this study aims to know the impact of administrative negligence in terms of implementing Republic Act 10533 in the Philippines’ low ranking and why the Philippines is heading on a downward trajectory.

With the condition of the Philippine education system, it is evident that an aspect of the system needs to be checked to get into the cause of this issue. Hence, this study aims to determine the impact of implementing state education policy in the Philippines on international and local assessment programs. Specifically, this study intends to evaluate whether the objectives of R.A. 10533 are being emphasized by the Department of Education, determine the effect of policy implementation on the ranking of Philippine education quality in local and international assessment programs, and identify the importance of local and international assessment programs in analyzing the condition of education quality in the Philippines.

The study intends to provide an understanding of the importance of global consciousness in the decline of quality education in the country. Existing literature provided various approaches to factors that affect the student’s academic performance and determinants of quality education. However, these studies focus only on the environmental factors that affect the student’s academic performance and their linkage to the teachers’ quality of teaching. The lacking discussion led this study to focus on the Philippines joining PISA and SEA-PLM. Hence, the Top-Down Approach of the Implementation Process of Public Policy theory manifests an avenue for disseminating curricular data from the macro-institutions to its micro-counterparts (Marsh & Huberman, 1984). Also, the premise of this theory will aid in understanding that the interventions of the institutions and administrators play a considerable role in fulfilling the objectives of RA 10533 through standard monitoring and implementing procedures for education quality improvement. Furthermore, this research may be presented to the Department of Education to develop better policies for educational reforms since the study evaluates the government agencies’ compliance with curriculum implementation and its development based on the standards presented in Republic Act No. 10533.

This research has utilized the Top-Down Approach of Implementation, co-authored by Paul Sabatier and Daniel Mazmanian in 1979 in their journal article entitled, “The Conditions of Effective Implementations: A Guide to Accomplishing Policy Objective.” This theory considers policy framers as the principal element of the implementing process of a policy and takes policy implementation as an administrative and managerial process more than a politically motivated procedure (Sabatier & Mazmanian, 1979). This theory was created to respond to the growing dispersion of comprehension of the limited extent of applicable programs and types of policymaking and implementing institutions.

The Top-Down approach posits that decisions by government officials are the starting point of the policy implementation process (Sabatier, 1986). The framing of policies is succeeded by raising specific questions revolving around the process of implementation itself, such as the extent of the implementing action in achieving the goal, the extent of the impact of policy, aspects affecting the implementation, and the reformation of the policy based on responses that are given after undergoing a process of evaluation. This theory also argues that there are six (6) necessary conditions for a successful and efficacious implementation: (a) Obvious and stable provision of objectives; (b) Sufficient justification of causation; (c) Legalization of the implementing process to enhance the urgency for compliance of the officials and target groups; (d) Officials’ commitment to an effective and productive implementation; (e) Maintained political support from interest groups and constituencies; and (f) Socio-economic factors that may have an impact on the support of people to the policy. The discourse on its merit continues today since its publication (Bardach, 1978; Berman and McLaughlin, 1976; Elmore, 1978; Jones, 1975; Lance, Lautenschlager, Sloan, & Varca, 1989; Murphy, 1973; Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973). The applicative properties of the theory were already being tested in different fields to know the limits and boundaries of its capabilities, such as its application in disseminating curricular data from the macro-institutions to their micro-counterparts (Marsh & Huberman, 1984).

The premises of the Top-Down theory aided this study in arguing that the burden of advancing the policy and evaluation is on the educational institutions, i.e., the Department of Education and the whole Curriculum Consultative Committee, affirming that the knowledge in the national-scale curriculum implementation is the lead determinant of practical curriculum reformation. Using the approach, this study argues that enhancing the focus and attention of the national agencies in implementing the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 can increase the ranking and rating of the Philippines in both local and international assessment programs.

Literature Review

Curriculum and Policy Implementation

The curriculum is a prime factor in enhancing students’ academic participation and performance (Yu & Mocan, 2019). It is a chosen, arranged, unified, and evaluative provision of experiences among students that will help them attain different learning objectives, resulting from development and maturation for its application in real-life situations (Mulenga, 2018). Thus, the educational system of the Philippines is no different from its neighboring countries because it also passed through phases of improvement due to the dramatic changes brought by educational evolution (Guzman, 2003). However, despite numerous educational reformations, it is still clear that any systematic change in the education system should be accompanied by a high level of pro-activity, which defines the system’s quality. It is a process that involves focusing on exceeding expectations, continuous development, and sharing responsibilities (Schargel, as cited in Guzman, 2003). Therefore, if the education system will firmly contribute to the improvement of a proper social order to fight social ills, then there should be a sustained re-examination of its retooling since it has become clear that reforms introduced at both national and local levels are geared toward the achievement of effectiveness, quality, responsiveness, and excellence (Guzman, 2003). Also, students who experience an improved curriculum have seen a significant improvement in interest and engagement in learning. It also manifested positive student development, resulting in better performance (Yu & Mocan, 2019). Therefore, in order for the Philippines to be as progressive as it can be and be globally competitive, the education curriculum shall adhere on a specific set of standards that the Department of Education, with its cooperation with Commission on Higher Education and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, which includes the following: (a) Student-centered, inclusive and development-focused curriculum; (b) Curriculum shall always remain relevant, responsive to national issues and Research-based; (c) Curriculum shall be careful and sensitive to other culture; (d) Curriculum shall be based on the Philippine context but can compete with the global arena; (e) Curriculum shall apply constructivist, inquiry-based, reflective, collaborative and integrative form of pedagogies; (f) Curriculum shall impose a Mother-Tongue Based System of learning – starting from the language being used in their houses to a foreign language; (g) A spiral progression approach on the students mastery and skills of different lessons shall be applied in the curriculum; and (h) Different local areas shall be able to modify and bend the curriculum in accordance to their educational, social and cultural contexts (Enhance Basic Education Act of 2013). 

Policy implementation is a process of upholding the basic standards and principles of the curriculum and putting into practice a set of plans and programs that aims for a change to whom and where it will be applied (Fullan, 1982). Implementing the K to 12 program aims to improve the education system in the Philippines to advance and further the recognition of a globally competitive Filipino. In this goal, the students shall master the necessary skills to attain the demand of the global education system (Dizon et al., 2019). Under Rule II, Section 10 of the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, the Department of Education, in its purpose of developing the curriculum, shall be governed by the following:

10.1 The devising of the curriculum itself in fulfillment of Section 5 of the Act, the DepEd is responsible for the liaison with both the CHED and TESDA to make a coordinated educational curriculum concurrent with the basic, tertiary, and technical-vocational education in generating globally competitive Filipino students.

10.2 In developing the enhancement of the curriculum, the Department of Education shall be guided by the prescribed standards and principles listed under Section 5 of the law.

10.3 The production and development of materials, such as locally produced teaching and learning sources, shall be highly promoted to strengthen the learning resource development and distribution systems at the regional and divisional educational units.

10.5 The essentiality of stakeholder’s engagement and association, not directly on the implementation of the Enhanced Basic Education Act, but for the assessment of what is there to be addressed.

Furthermore, Rule II, Section 30 mandates the key role of the DepEd, CHED, and TESDA in creating a mechanism and tactical plans for the transition towards achieving an Enhanced Basic Education within a 10-year cycle that will end in 2021-2022; on the other hand, Rule VIII, Section 33 orders the establishment of a “Joint Congressional Oversight Committee for Enhanced Basic Education which serves as the evaluation and assessment committee of the reports, including budgetary, facilities and curricular summaries. It was also delegated the responsibility of evaluating the progress and deficiencies in aspects that greatly affects the performance of the students, teachers, and other stakeholders. The said law also imposes the necessity for establishing a “Curriculum Consultative Committee” that is delegated the power to oversee the implementation and evaluate whether the newly developed curriculum adheres to the provisions of the law.

In addition, curriculum development in enhancing basic education focuses on professional development since it is deemed necessary to improve the students. However, policies that aim to improve the teaching profession lack continuous follow-ups on reforms, making the changes look fragmented and insufficient (Miço, 2019).  Thus, in addressing such challenges, CHED coordinated with DepEd to establish a curriculum that is both research-based and globally competitive. TESDA also participates in the curriculum’s implementation by ensuring that students can apply the knowledge handed by the curriculum through work (Martin, Patacsil & Nieva, 2019). With the help of these macro-agencies, the evaluation of the effectiveness of policy implementation will be acquired. According to Swarnakar, Singh, & Tiwari (2019), assessing the effectiveness of the policy implementation is vital to the pursuit of improvement and contextualization by identifying the lacking and excess factors that impede the supposed positive contribution of the policy itself to take place. Furthermore, by assessing the implementation procedure, the government will also be able to put light on the current conditions of the subject and target groups which necessitates deeper and more contextual attention and response to better the relationship between the macro and micro agencies.

Assessment Programs

Assessment programs compare the educational attainment of students of different countries to provide a direct response to education reforms. It is one of the best ways to determine whether the Philippine education system, through engaging both locally and internationally, is improving (Balagtas et al., 2019; Martens, Niemann, & Teltemann, 2016). International assessments for education became a globally accepted standard because of their extensive and far-reaching inference and indication for reorganizing and restructuring national education systems. It establishes an international benchmark for the theoretical and applicable understanding which influenced and dominated the ideas of educational policymakers and even researchers since it provides two purposes: (1) the data gathered can be used to impact and influence policymakers; and (2) it focuses on a high-performing country to set as an example for other countries to understand and imitate its success (Schmidt & Burroughs, 2016).

According to Balagtas et al. (2019), one of the best ways to determine whether the Philippine education system is improving in the present is through its performance in Trends in Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS). Therefore, countries that performed well on the mathematics and science examinations given by TIMSS are most likely also performing well on the PISA assessment (i.e., Hong Kong-China, Singapore, and Japan).

The ​​Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics is another large-scale assessment program designed to fit the contextual problems in education within the region; that will provide an opportunity for each participating country to determine the growing issues and resolve these in a manner that will improve the country’s education system.

The results of large-scale international assessments are putting pressure on participating countries to reshape their curriculum to adhere to the standards imposed by the Program (Fischman, Topper, Goebel, & Holloway, 2019). However, the pressure being felt did not reflect nor manifest the reformation of education in all these countries; instead, it paved the way for large-scale comparisons from regional to global standards. The problem is that many countries are not deliberately qualifying education as a priority, which engenders their education security despite having adequate financial resources (Tatarinov, V. V., & Tatarinov, V. S., 2020).

Methodology

This qualitative and exploratory paper is a case study focused on the government agencies’ engagement and participation in policy implementation and their adherence to the standards provided by Republic Act 10533. It analyzed documents about the transition from the Basic Education Curriculum to the Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum, progress reports from agencies subjected to the same law to oversee the policy implementation, and narratives from the Department of Education and different Education Policy experts. These data cannot be quantified and calculated by mere numbers hence, requiring an in-depth understanding for the establishment of more conclusive interpretation, especially the statements gathered from interviews which necessitates a more composite, rich, and multi-faceted approach.

This research gathered data from the statements from educational policy experts in the Philippines and the Department of Education Bureau of Education Assessment and Office of the Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instructions. Furthermore, a semi-structured interview was applied to the department representatives and the experts. In addition, reports and documents from the Curriculum Consultative Committee, the transition report from the Basic Education Curriculum to the Enhanced Basic Education Program, the midterm report from the Joint Congressional Committee, and the government agencies comprising the Curriculum Consultative Committee were utilized. Furthermore, the study was conducted using documents from 2016 to 2020 only since these are the succeeding years after the mandatory midterm report of the Department of Education as presented in the Congress of the Philippines. The researchers have also gathered data from the latest results coming from international and local assessment programs, including the PISA, TIMSS, SEA-PLM, and NAT.

Experts on education policy and policy implementation have provided insights regarding the Philippines’ current education status and the Department of Education as the mandated spearhead for education policy implementation. The criteria for choosing the Department of Education as a respondent were embedded in Section 5 of RA 10533. As for the educational policy experts, they should at least attain a master’s degree in Educational Administration or Education Management and Leadership with 10-year experience in the field. In addition, the experts should also reach Level 7 or Level 8 of education following the Philippines Qualifications Framework, which is responsible for establishing the national standards for education and training outcomes (Resolution No. 2014-03, 2014).

Content analysis was used to simplify the data collected from statements and documents from government agencies and congressional committees. The researchers read through the documents collected from the various data sources to create a margin note in formulating initial codes using Microsoft Excel and a code book. This was applied for qualitative data analysis to help the researchers look for a thematic analysis of the study to have effective data management.

The data from the semi-structured interviews and document analysis were categorized according to variables. Hence, the data analysis concentrated on answering each research objective by focusing on the data collected from all methods of data collection.

The data gathered from the three education experts and the representatives of the Department of Education’s Bureau of Education Assessment and Office of the Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instructions have conveyed responses to the research objectives, classified as the following: (a) incoherent and disorganized system of implementations; (b) confound policy interpretation due to system instability; (c) assessment programs as performance indicators for policy improvement.

Incoherent and Disorganized System of Implementation

The experts have agreed upon the necessity of a holistic overview of implementing the education system, with Expert 1 mentioning that “It should be a chain. So, CHED’s teacher training should also be safeguarded there. The research skills, the critical analysis, should be focused and not memorization, the identification of frameworks, or memorization of valence or atomic number.” Expert 2 added, “My first issue is the language used for assessment. I think language plays a very vital role,” which emphasizes the factor of using the mother-tongue language in assessing the quality of education (Masaazi, Ssentanda, & Ngaka, 2018). While Expert 3 focused on the external factors that may have affected the student’s performance.

In response to the lack of a holistic education system, the Department of Education asserted its commitment to improving the implementation and the education system itself. The Office of the Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction (OUCI) stated that “…we are always mindful of the need to improve, so we have a very strong monitoring mechanism that allows us to continue to refine the existing programs and projects”, which is manifested on the “Sulong Edukalidad initiative which is our banner initiative to push for a higher attention to the need for quality education that is in the K to 12 program that was launched even before the release of the PISA results.”

The amount of emphasis that the Department of Education puts on the objectives of RA 10533 heavily affects the quality of education being imparted among students, resulting in difficulty maximizing capacity at the grassroots level (Barrot, 2018). Unfortunately, the Philippines is currently challenged by the disorganization and incoherence of the system of implementation of the Department of Education, manifested in many ways.

A gap between the intended curriculum and implementation of the national agencies based on their interpretation was raised by Expert 2, saying:

The curriculum is very beautiful. However, when it comes to the implementation, in the middle of the 3rd and 4th year, the expectation versus reality was far, that is one. I am saying that in that sense, there are quite some problems in terms of interpretation, even among regions and divisions; there are confusions in terms of interpretation, most especially in the classroom.

This has been seconded by Expert 3, who bureaucratized this interpretation system, pointing out the discretionary freedom of teachers within the classroom in interpreting the curriculum based on what they inferred as the best viable manner of teaching. 

The absence of an authentic assessment, as defined by Expert 2 as “the assessments that bring you into concretizing the knowledge into practical knowledge.” is also observable. This emphasizes the importance of veering away from the strictly theoretical focus of understanding into more applicative learning should be further enhanced by encouraging the students’ demonstration of higher-order thinking skills and better problem-solving skills (Koh, 2017).

However, amidst the vast agreement between the Department of Education and the Education experts, they have exhibited a certain level of a dispute regarding the cause and effect of frequent reformations in the education system. In defense of the DepEd, the OUCI has exclaimed the necessity of frequent reformations to cope with the dynamic system of education and cater to the rising needs of the department towards different aspects of education as time passes. They, therefore, see this as a necessity rather than an obstruction, with which Expert 1 disagreed. Expert 1 stated, “Because of so many reforms, is something happening? Yes, something is happening. However, I felt like it was just going to happen again and again that there will be a change once every six years.” This only means that the previous challenges were not used as a deterrent, causing the country to miss many opportunities. Expert 2 recommends having a road map to secure a more consistent and continuous implementation of the curriculum regardless of who is seated as the Department Secretary or the President. At large, the agreements still managed to outweigh the disagreements that occurred.

To further solidify the statements given, government documents have shown several points leading to the claims of the experts and the DepEd representatives regarding the aspects that need to be addressed. For example, the Transition Report on Enhanced Basic Education raised the need to strengthen the curriculum further regarding contextualization, learning opportunities, and inclusive participation. Moreover, the DepEd also ensures the actualization of the intended curriculum, as evident in the Curriculum Guides through a strong Curriculum Support System. Also, the Basic Education Monitoring and Evaluation Framework presented key education objectives with the learner’s characteristics as the leading indicators of success.

Confound Policy Interpretation Due to System Instability

The quality of education, as manifested in different assessment programs, has been compromised due to the impact caused by problems plaguing the implementation process of DepEd and other agencies regarding policy interpretation. As stated, it is likely to face challenges regarding ensuring consistency in its delivery at the subnational level (Norris et al., 2014).

The data gathered shows that there are significant disagreements in some critical respects between the Department of Education and the experts since, according to the Department of Education, liaising between agencies is not a problem but more of a challenge “in terms of unifying the focus of everyone on the more essential aspects that will help to develop high performing teachers, highly committed and highly competent teachers.” Also, for the DepEd, it is necessary to intensify capacity-building, and “there is still room for improvement in terms of current efforts at coordinating and harmonizing the priorities of CHED, TESDA, and even the PRC.” As for the experts, the coordination between DepEd and CHED was seen as both a challenge and a problem because, as Expert 3 stated, even if “the DepEd restructures the system, and they fix the governance system to make sure there is cooperation among agencies. The communication between DepEd and CHED should still be strengthened”. After all, the expected knowledge, skills, and competencies that should develop in the students’ basic education deemed necessary for higher education are not adequately achieved.

Furthermore, to be as impactful as possible, educational policies should move beyond mere “paper compliance,” which only aims to meet the minimal requirements. The Department of Education acknowledged a problem regarding policy implementation, stating that implementation is their weakest point that needs to be addressed immediately.

Although the DepEd acknowledges the effort to change its ways, Expert 2 reiterated the focus of DepEd on paper compliance, stating that:

The government agencies are paper champions. They produce reports, but it is not validated on the ground. The problem is, there is a report, they were able to submit the reports, we can read the reports, some are quite acceptable, some are not so good, but the gap is what is happening? In the context of the ground.

With, Expert 1 further explained that it is not enough that we only look at the structures alone or the policies. We should also look at the policy actors since, as agents of policies, there should be an enhancement of leadership development to move away from the culture of mere compliance towards a culture of excellence and accountability. Also, according to Expert 2, “the only flaw is in terms of implementation, and there are qualified and good educators in the Philippines, the problem is in the learning transfer,” which can be seen in the lack of training in terms of usage which is a part of leadership management. Therefore, to have an effective educational reform, a strategic policy that is holistic and long-term is needed (Miço, 2019).

One factor that the experts also mentioned hinders the progress of the Philippines in terms of monitoring is the lack of necessary mechanisms that will monitor and categorize the data on a much larger scale. Fortunately, both the Experts and DepEd agreed that the country has not yet reached its limit in terms of implementation, therefore manifesting opportunities that will improve the implementing system.

Lastly, although the Midterm Report of the Department of Education and the Evaluation Report of the Curriculum Consultative Committee lean more toward supporting DepEd’s agenda towards compliance with RA 10533, House Resolution No. 473 generally backs up the experts toward a confounded policy implementation.

Performance Indicators for Policy Improvement

The Philippines’ participation in different international assessment programs, and the facilitation of the local ones, play an essential part in gauging the performance to determine the current and immediate condition of Philippine education quality.

Identifying the importance of local and international assessment programs with the current condition of education quality shows that as performance indicators for policy improvement, assessment programs are vital since they provide evidence that should be a part of the decision-making process in the government. However, the problem lies in the resistance of those in position to the results. According to Expert 2, “if you were given feedback, it means you have something to do,” and “they should not be threatened by a low score or a low ranking because it does not entirely reflect that you have failed, but simply that there is something that you need to address right now.” Therefore, for Expert 3, “you cannot start the learning process if you do not own up to the mistake or failure.” Moreover, even the Department of Education agreed that:

We have to continue providing benchmarks to determine whether what we are doing is slowly delivering the impact or the results that we want to accomplish. Otherwise, we would not have the basis to say that improvements are being recorded, although we would still have the national assessments as a mechanism to measure on my part, although the secretary’s open to the idea of resting for a while in terms of taking part in the PISA but my take is we must continue because the benchmark has to be there.

Moreover, assessment programs as a problem indicator are essential for policymakers because the results of assessments are “a good measurement in determining the immediate condition of our system, and it is also a predictor” as Expert 2. In addition, indicators have a significant role in policy monitoring by producing unbiased and objective observations on the progress toward policy objectives. Assessment programs as problem indicators are a quantitative presentation of the conditions in a policy field that can be used as an instrument to inspect further and delve into the effects of policies and provide information for policymakers to determine the effectiveness of policies and to make any adjustments where it is required (Schumann, 2016). Hence, for Expert 3, “for a reasonable and logical policy maker, all evidence should be part of the decision-making process, what to do, what not to do” since it shows the problem in the educational system and assessment programs also provide straightforward suggestions. Also, the Department of Education (DepEd) stated that “if those flaws are eliminated, potentially, the quality of education that we have might also improve.”

Also, assessment programs are necessary for evidence-based policymaking because they generate policy recommendations. For Expert 3, “we need to emphasize that when we talk about curriculum implementation, assessment, especially third-party assessments, these are part of the evidence-based policymaking and being a responsible policy maker. You should not omit evidence simply because it does not sit well on you on a personal level”. Therefore, assessment programs empowered the education system by providing evidence-based analysis of students’ academic performance to improve the country’s educational policies, as evidence-based policymaking has seen significant advancements even at the local levels. Even the DepEd recognizes the importance of both international and local assessment programs because:

These assessments, their objective, are external to the learning delivery, and they are external to the department. Besides they follow high-quality protocols, like, following the line of testing and measurement, have protocols that we follow, and they are fair because of their objective. They want to improve SDG 4, or sustainable development goal 4, which is quality education.

This study concludes that there are still numerous challenges afflicting the implementation process, hence a hindrance to achieving the objectives of the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013. Despite the pieces of evidence provided by the documents, implying the commitment of the different agencies to achieving a good quality of education, the data coming from the experts have directed the root of the problems towards the misalignment and misinterpretation of the process of implementing and monitoring of the policies and not on the policy per se. The researchers have therefore navigated towards the role of the involved government agencies in the achievement of an enhanced basic education curriculum and a significant improvement of the Philippines in both international and local assessment programs since, per the premises of Top-Down theory, the weight of developing the policy and evaluation is on the educational institutions. Therefore, by enhancing the attention of national agencies in charge of the implementation process, the country’s ranking in assessment programs can significantly increase. This sheds light on a possible suggestion for the recalibration of the implementation and monitoring system to ensure that there is an existing universal understanding of the objectives and principles of both the Republic Act 10533 itself and other released orders from the Department of Education as an extension of their duty under the law. 

This study recommends that for subsequent research on educational policy, the gaps that the researchers identified in the literature should be addressed, which includes further research on the following: (1) the role of teachers in curriculum development and enhanced outcomes in assessment programs; (2) the gap between understanding the intended curriculum and implemented curriculum; (3) the detrimental effect of mere paper compliance about educational policies; and (4) future studies on other policies that focus on aspects that might affect the quality of education in the country. Also, as a recommendation to the Department of Education for the Improvement of the Policy Implementation Mechanisms, the following are being emphasized by the researchers: (a) creation of a roadmap for the implementation process of the Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum to ensure its continuity despite the inevitable change of administrators; (b) formation of leadership development training on structural leadership; (c) strengthening of the communication and cooperation of DepEd and CHED to achieve the goals of RA 10533; and (d) continuation of the Philippines’ participation in international assessment programs. Furthermore, to highlight the development of a more inclusive learning system, the following are also recommended: (a) establishment of different learning action cells; (b) adjustments in terms of the manner of training these teachers; and (c) refocusing and rechecking of Assessments Tasks to go beyond the traditional and theoretical forms of assessments, including Pen and Paper Tests, and adopt Authentic Assessments as a significant part of the curriculum.

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Author’s Bionote

Louie Benedict R. Ignacio, PhD is the Chair and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Santo Tomas. He also teaches in the Department of Political Science of the same University and is a former President of the Philippine Sociological Society.

Andrea Gaile A. Cristobal is currently taking the Juris Doctor program at the University of Santo Tomas with developing interests in the field of public law and educational policy. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the same University with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and was awarded the Best Thesis.

Paul Christian David is currently taking the Juris Doctor program at the University of Santo Tomas with developing interests in the field of public law, and environmental and educational policy. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from the same University with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and was awarded the Best Thesis.

ASIAN JOURNAL ON PERSPECTIVES IN EDUCATION

Far Eastern University Institute of Education FEU Campus, Nicanor Reyes Street, Sampaloc Manila, Philippines, 1015 Email:  [email protected]

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3 case studies: How ready are Philippine schools for distance learning?

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Alejandro Edoria

As we approach school opening 2020, what is on everybody’s mind is how distance learning will be carried out in fact. 

Distance learning is completely new to all but a handful of private schools already attuned to online learning using the internet. Most schools and students, however, have connectivity and bandwidth limitations.  

Distance learning using school packets delivered and collected weekly will have to be the immediate solution because face-to-face contact carries with it the risk of spreading the coronavirus.  

The learning curve for distance learning will be steep.  

In development management, there is a principle of subsidiarity: Where a lower authority can handle a matter, a higher authority should not interfere. By driving authority as far down the decision-making chain as possible, this places decision-making closer to the people.  

In the case of education, this places decision-making at the level of the school.  

So, in this new normal, the drivers of distance education should not be the Department of Education (DepED) central office or the regions; rather, it should be the schools divisions and the schools themselves.  

Here are 3 cases to show how different levels are preparing for such.  

Bacjawan Sur ES (Concepcion, Iloilo)

In the 3rd class town of Concepcion, Iloilo, school principal Rogie Espulgar is working with his 14 teachers to figure out how to reorganize their small rural elementary school for distance learning this coming school year.

Bacjawan Sur Elementary School is located 3 kilometers from the town proper and is host to housing units of families displaced by Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) in November 2013. It has 330 pupils from kindergarten to Grade 6.   

Five modalities for meeting students have been identified:  

• Face-to-face (traditional, pre-Covid-19 modality)
• Online classes (using web-based and digitized lesson resources [LRs])
• Online-Offline modular (using web-based and digitized LRs )
• Offline modular (using digitized LRs)
• Modular (using printed LRs). 

With the DepED instruction of limited face-to-face contact, Principal Espulgar and his teachers have decided to meet their pupils in shifts.

Grades Kindergarten to Grade 2 will meet face-to-face . Kindergarten will meet daily for half the day, either in a morning or afternoon session. Grades 1 and 2 will be in shifts on alternate days (Monday, Wednesday, Friday or Tuesday, Thursday).   

Grades 3 to 6 will have a modified modular schedule with some face-to-face time . Grade 3 classes will do face-to-face on either Monday-Tuesday, Wednesday-Thursday, or Thursday-Friday (4 classes of 13 or 14 students per class). The other days will be modular with students working on learning assignments from home. A similar type of schedule will be worked out for Grades 4, 5, and 6.

Classes will be divided into groups with no more than 15 or 16 learners per group (Kindergarten is smaller at 10 per group).  This will allow for proper physical distancing when the kids meet face-to-face.

The total number of classrooms in the school are 13, but only 11 classrooms will be used; the other two classrooms will be utilized for online classes and as an isolation room in case of sickness.

“The world is rapidly changing,” said Principal Espulgar, “and along with it comes new innovations and technologies.

“Education has to evolve to keep pace.  The teacher’s role is not to be the sole provider of learning.  She has to be a guide, a motivator, and facilitator of learning…. Compassion, dedication, and commitment are no longer enough.  The modern-day teacher should also make herself (1) innovative, (2) tech-savvy, and (3) open to change,” he added.

How ready are the teachers?

Of the 14 teachers:

• 93% (13)  have smart phones
• 43% (6) have laptops or desktops
• 79% (11) have nternet connectivity
• 50% (7) have ICT gadgets and internet access sufficiency –
• 64% (9) have private space at home
• 29% (4) are able to do ICT troubleshooting with competence
• 79%-93% (11 to 13) are able to use web browser‘s, telecommunication platforms in messaging, social video platforms, video streaming platforms

To prepare for the new normal, the school went through the following types of training for the 14 teachers:

• Mental health and psychosocial debriefing seminar
• Walkthrough of the Minimum Education Learning Competencies (MELC) prescribed by DepED
• Basic and advanced computer software programs (depending on the level of experience of teachers)
• Different web-based platforms for communication, educational sites, learning approaches
• Orientation on the school’s learning continuity plan (LCP)

A physical facilities plan following health protocols was prepared in May to June. The single school entrance and exit for all 330 students plus faculty was modified and improved. More than half, or 9 of the 14 classrooms are considered makeshift classrooms .  Five of 14 classrooms are standard classrooms. One classroom (makeshift) has been set aside as an isolation room in case there are any health incidents. One standard is room is set aside for online classes.  There are 4 handwashing stations distributed in the center areas of the school.

In  July, before the start of classes, the teachers worked on the following:

• Learning resources plans
• School leadership expectations
• Parents participation and roles
• Community linkages
• School action plans
• The school risk management plan
• Health protocols and standards
• Enrollment guidelines

Navotas Schools Division (National Capital Region)

The Navotas Schools Division in Metro Manila is a small sized division of 24 schools of which 7 are high schools.  It is a highly urbanized, heavily populated schools division. 

“The schools in the division will use a modified modular distance learning approach,” schools division head Alejandro Ibanez explained.

“Individualized instruction will allow learners to use self-learning modules in print and digital form. Teachers will use Messenger chat or text messaging to communicate with and monitor students’ progress,” he added.

The schools division has designed a NAVOSchool in-a-box kit for every pupil and student in the division funded by DepED and the city government. 

At the kindergarten level, each child will receive a plastic bin loaded with learning packets, story books, donated school supplies, a hygiene kits and a toy from a partner. The kit also includes a Parent’s guide that covers home learning activities and a guide to organizing the study environment at home.  

Similar kits will be given by the division to students of all grade levels. The learning resource packets will include textbooks and self-learning modules by DepED, modules/materials prepared by the division office and schools, workbooks prepared by teachers, lesson guides for parents and guardians, school supplies, a dictionary, and a hygiene kit.

There is a project in the Division called Project PANATA (PAtnubay kay NApay at TAtay) which is a virtual training using Messenger and Google Meet intended for parents.  

Since the program will be largely packet-based given the connectivity difficulties, the process flow of the school-based modular distance learning is a weekly or biweekly cycle of packet distribution and collection throughout the school year for as long as face-to-face learning is disrupted.

To help students who might fall behind, a “Tutor A Learning Child” program is being organized with para-teacher tutor volunteers being recruited. The Navotas National HS has began recruiting young alumni at the university level to volunteer to work with students in difficult circumstances.  

5 operational stages

Stage 1:  Planning (Identify MELCs for module development by Education Supervisors and teachers).

Stage 2:   Development (by development teams) of learning materials with orientation sessions to provide a standards template.  

Stage 3:   Quality Assurance (QA team in coordination with learning area supervisors)

Stage 4:  Production and reproduction (procurement of teaching/learning resources through the Local School Board using the SEF [Special Education Fund] and the school MOOE [Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses]).

Stage 5:  Distribution of kits and packets

Teachers prepare learning materials, weekly study guides, and other tools which will be distributed in one of three ways:  Pick up from school, Hatid-Aral delivery to homes, or through distribution to barangay or community learning centers.

Taytay Senior High School, Rizal

Recently an ad was flashed on FaceBook that reads: “Do you have a bicycle or motorbike? Do you have an internet connection? Do you own a sari-sari store? Or do you love teaching? Why not be a volunteer of Taytay Senior High School?”

Four modes of voluntarism were spelled out:

• Learning Resource Mover (LR Mover) – Volunteer riders’ or bicycling group who will help deliver learning resources to homes or community kiosks of learners.
• Connect-a-Learner – Volunteer households who will provide learning space in their homes for internet access in their neighborhood.
• Learning Resources Pasabay/Kiosks – Sari-sari store and/or landmarks owners in far-flung communities to serve as pick-up centers for learning resources.
• Community-based Tutorial – Volunteers who will be tutoring learners within his/her community.

As shown in the above cases, DepED schools and divisions have worked hard to design a system to address the new normal of distance learning.  The challenge: Moving from simulation to full implementation where large numbers weekly will put stress on the system.  

How will the system address backlogs, shortages, and bottlenecks in real time?  How will the system address slow learners, learners falling behind or even learners becoming absent and dropping out?   

There will be two things to look at immediately: System efficiency and system effectiveness.

System efficiency

How well do the different parts interact and deliver as planned? What will stress the system is when week-in-and-week-out packets are going back and forth.   If families or teachers fall behind, what kind of support can help them catch up?  If a teacher cannot cope with the demands of distance learning, is there a system for substitution or support?  How do you keep the education materials production flowing efficiently and within budget?

System effectiveness

How do you ensure that learning is actually happening?  For Grades 1 and 2, this would be the 3 Rs (Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic or Literacy and Numeracy). For other grade levels, it is reading and learning at Grade level indicators.  

How do you pick up slow learners or learners with specific difficulties? Recognizing learning difficulties from a distance will be a challenge. Divisions and schools will be totally consumed with implementation issues when the school year starts with distance learning as the new normal.  They might miss many concerns. This is where the regional office comes in:  Quality Assurance, oversight (ensuring that schools and divisions are not overlooking processes or taking shortcuts), and monitoring and evaluation.

The regional office should be doing random testing of students to check effectiveness of the distance education modality and study the efficiencies of this new modality.  

The new normal must be matched by a new imagination about education.

In a recent meeting discussing the education budgets, former DepED Undersecretary for Finance Rey Laguda said: “It’s not enough to just plan for the future based on what we need today.  We need to imagine what an education future will look like.  Because we’ve never had to address something like distance learning at scale before, we need to let our imaginations help draw a picture of what that might be.”

We need to think of new approaches to on how our schools will operate in this new normal, from Imagination (What are the best ways to deliver distance learning?) to a theory of learning about distance learning. Plans can then be drawn up for delivery with scale done.  Once the school year has started, periodic and robust monitoring and evaluation will help us answer the most important question of all:  Are our children learning in this new normal?

Experimentation with distance learning will have to be led by schools and teachers who are closest to students at home. The degree of innovation at this level is a good indication of an education system that is slowly maturing. – Rappler.com

Juan Miguel Luz is former Head, Zuellig School of Development Management at the Asian Institute of Management.  Former Undersecretary, Department of Education. 

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ADDRESSING CHALLENGES MET BY EDUCATIONAL LEADERS IN THE PHILIPPINES

Effective education leadership makes a difference in improving teaching and learning. There’s nothing new or especially controversial about that idea. What’s far less clear, even after several decades of school renewal efforts, is just how leadership matters in a continuously changing world, how important those effects are in promoting the learning of all children, and what the essential ingredients of successful leadership are. The role of school leaders has changed radically as countries transform their education systems to prepare young people to function in today’s world of rapid technological change, economic globalization and increased migration and mobility. One of the new roles they are being asked to play is to work beyond their school premises so that they can contribute to the success of their own school and to entire system. The role, responsibilities, and expectations of school principals make their job challenging, stressful and frustrating. Addressing these challenges is essential for the success of schools in providing high quality education.

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The Current Education Issues in the Philippines — and How Childhope Rises to the Challenge

• August 25, 2021

Even before COVID-19 struck and caused problems for millions of families, the country’s financial status is one of the top factors that add to the growing education issues in the Philippines. Furthermore, more children, youth, and adults can’t get a leg up and are thus left behind due to unfair access to learning.

Moving forward, such issues can lead to worse long-term effects. Now, we’ll delve deep into the current status and how we can take part in social efforts to help fight these key concerns of our country.

Crisis in Philippine Education: How is It Really?

Filipinos from rich households or living in cities and developed towns have more access to private schools. In contrast, less favored groups are more bound to deal with lack of classrooms, teachers, and means to sustain topnotch learning.

A 2018 study found that a sample number of 15-year-old Filipino students ranked last in reading comprehension out of 79 countries . They also ranked 78 th in science and math. One key insight from this study is it implies those tested mostly came from public schools. Hence, the crisis also lies in the fact that a lot of Filipinos can’t read or do simple math.

Indeed, it’s clear that there is a class divide between rich and poor students in the country. Though this is the case, less developed states can focus on learning if it’s covered in their top concerns. However, the Philippines doesn’t invest on topnotch learning as compared to its neighbor countries. In fact, many public schools lack computers and other tools despite the digital age. Further, a shortfall in the number of public school teachers is also one of the top issues in the country due to their being among the lowest-paid state workers. Aside from that, more than 3 million children, youth, and adults remain unenrolled since the school shutdown.

It goes without saying that having this constant crisis has its long-term effects. These include mis- and disinformation, poor decision-making, and other social concerns.

The Education System in the Philippines

Due to COVID-19, education issues in the Philippines have increased and received new challenges that worsened the current state of the country. With the sudden events brought about by the health crisis, distance learning modes via the internet or TV broadcasts were ordered. Further, a blended learning program was launched in October 2020, which involves online classes, printouts, and lessons broadcast on TV and social platforms. Thus, the new learning pathways rely on students and teachers having access to the internet.

This yet brings another issue in the current system. Millions of Filipinos don’t have access to computers and other digital tools at home to make their blended learning worthwhile. Hence, the value of tech in learning affects many students. Parents’ and guardians’ top concerns with this are:

• Money for mobile load
• Lack of gadget
• Poor internet signal
• Students’ struggle to focus and learn online
• Parents’ lack of knowledge of their kids’ lessons

It’s key to note that equipped schools have more chances to use various ways to deal with the new concerns for remote learning. This further shows the contrasts in resources and training for both K-12 and tertiary level both for private and public schools.

One more thing that can happen is that schools may not be able to impart the most basic skills needed. To add, the current status can affect how tertiary education aims to impart the respect for and duty to knowledge and critical outlook. Before, teachers handled 40 to 60 students. With the current online setup, the quality of learning can be compromised if the class reaches 70 to 80 students.

Data on Students that Have Missed School due to COVID-19

Of the world’s student population, 89% or 1.52 billion are the children and youth out of school due to COVID-19 closures. In the Philippines, close to 4 million students were not able to enroll for this school year, as per the DepEd. With this, the number of out-of-school youth (OSY) continues to grow, making it a serious issue needing to be checked to avoid worse problems in the long run.

List of Issues When it Comes to the Philippines’ Education System

For a brief rundown, let’s list the top education issues in the Philippines:

• Quality – The results of the 2014 National Achievement Test (NAT) and the National Career Assessment Examination (NCAE) show that there had been a drop in the status of primary and secondary education.
• Budget – The country remains to have one of the lowest budget allotments to learning among ASEAN countries.
• Cost – There still is a big contrast in learning efforts across various social groups due to the issue of money—having education as a status symbol.
• OSY – The growing rate of OSY becomes daunting due to the adverse effects of COVID-19.
• Mismatch – There is a large sum of people who are jobless or underpaid due to a large mismatch between training and actual jobs.
• Social divide – There is no fair learning access in the country.
• Lack of resources – Large-scale shortfalls in classrooms, teachers, and other tools to sustain sound learning also make up a big issue.

All these add to the big picture of the current system’s growing concerns. Being informed with these is a great first step to know where we can come in and help in our own ways. Before we talk about how you can take part in various efforts to help address these issues, let’s first talk about what quality education is and how we can achieve it.

What Quality Education Means

Now, how do we really define this? For VVOB , it is one that provides all learners with what they need to become economically productive that help lead them to holistic development and sustainable lifestyles. Further, it leads to peaceful and democratic societies and strengthens one’s well-being.

VVOB also lists its 6 dimensions:

• Contextualization and Relevance
• Child-friendly Teaching and Learning
• Sustainability
• Balanced Approach
• Learning Outcomes

Aside from these, it’s also key to set our vision to reach such standards. Read on!

Vision for a Quality Education

Of course, any country would want to build and keep a standard vision for its learning system: one that promotes cultural diversity; is free from bias; offers a safe space and respect for human rights; and forms traits, skills, and talent among others.

With the country’s efforts to address the growing concerns, one key program that is set to come out is the free required education from TESDA with efforts to focus on honing skills, including technical and vocational ones. Also, OSY will be covered in the grants of the CHED.

Students must not take learning for granted. In times of crises and sudden changes, having access to education should be valued. Aside from the fact that it is a main human right, it also impacts the other human rights that we have. Besides, the UN says that when learning systems break, having a sustained state will be far from happening.

How Childhope KalyEskwela Program Deals with Changes

The country rolled out its efforts to help respond to new and sudden changes in learning due to the effects of COVID-19 measures. Here are some of the key ones we can note:

• Continuous learning – Since the future of a state lies on how good the learning system is, the country’s vision for the youth is to adopt new learning paths despite the ongoing threat of COVID-19.
• Action plans – These include boosting the use of special funds to help schools make modules, worksheets, and study guides approved by the DepEd. Also, LGUs and schools can acquire digital tools to help learners as needed.

Now, even with the global health crisis, Childhope Philippines remains true to its cause to help street children:

• Mobile learning – The program provides topnotch access to street children to new learning methods such as non-formal education .
• Access to tools – This is to give out sets of school supplies to help street kids attend and be ready for their remote learning.
• Online learning sessions – These are about Skills for Life, Life Skill Life Goal Planning, Gender Sensitivity, Teenage Pregnancy and Adolescent Reproductive Health.

You may also check out our other programs and projects to see how we help street children fulfill their right to education . You can be a part of these efforts! Read on to know how.

Shed a Light of Hope for Street Children to Reach Their Dreams

Building a system that empowers the youth means helping them reach their full potential. During these times, they need aid from those who can help uphold the rights of the less privileged. These include kids in the streets and their right to attain quality education.

You may hold the power to change lives, one child at a time. Donate or volunteer , and help us help street kids learn and reach their dreams and bring a sense of hope and change toward a bright future. You may also contact us for more details. We’d love to hear from you!

With our aim to reach more people who can help, we’re also in social media! Check out our Facebook page to see latest news on our projects in force.

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Current Situation and Practices of Multigrade Schools in the Philippines: Case Studies

As an archipelago consisting of more than 7,000 islands, the delivery of government services, such as education, remains challenging and sparse. In remote locations, classrooms practice multigrade teaching—where one teacher instructs students from different grade levels—to address issues of accessibility and teacher availability.

With a call to enhancing the state of Philippine education, we evaluate the effectiveness of multigrade teaching and try to understand the problems encountered by multigrade teachers in the Philippines.

SEAMEO INNOTECH’s study on multigrade teaching in the Philippines PDF acknowledges that the practice is an innovative solution to a challenge unique to the various regions in the country. However, new approaches to education and technology may point to novel ways in enhancing access to education throughout the nation.

Multigrade Education in the Philippines: Challenges and Questions

Since 1993, the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd) has considered multigrade education as a practical solution to bring education to school-age children located in geographically isolated, disadvantaged, conflict-affected and sparsely populated communities.

That being said, the Philippine Multigrade program provides opportunities for community schools with low enrolments and limited number of teachers in remote areas the ability to offer a complete cycle of elementary education.

Although it was imperfect, multigrade education has served as a sufficient solution to the issue of accessibility to education in parts of the Philippines. However, as the country developed, the multigrade teaching situation failed to improve significantly, leaving generations of Filipinos in need of quality education.

The issues and problems about multigrade classes in the Philippines encompass both teachers and students. Teachers are faced with a complex classroom requiring teaching and management styles outside of the traditional paradigm. Meanwhile, the challenges faced by multigrade teachers impact the students’ education.

With decades of practice and support from their communities, educators have developed strategies that fit their multigrade teaching situation, allowing them to maximize the time and budget allotted for each classroom.

The creativity and resourcefulness of multigrade teachers have proved to be a strength in maintaining the sustainability of multigrade education. However, this prompts the question: are their efforts sufficient to be at par with national and global standards. Furthermore, to what extent should the national government standardize multigrade teaching practices and what types of support should be prioritized to help multigrade schools achieve global competitiveness.

The situation of multigrade education in the Philippines is, indeed, diverse and complex. We attempt to paint a clear picture of the current situation through 11 case studies.

Multigrade Education Situation: Case Studies

The efforts to improve the quality of education in the Philippines calls for an evaluation of the state of multigrade education.

This volume of eleven (11) case studies is part of a suite of knowledge products emerging from the Technical Support to Multigrade Program in Philippine Education (TS-MPPE), a tripartite project between the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Center for Educational Innovation and Technology (SEAMEO INNOTECH) from 2017 to 2019.

The case studies illustrate the predominant problems encountered by multigrade teachers in the Philippines. They show the limitations of the Philippine education system uniquely experienced by communities in remote locations.

The case studies also highlight the strengths of the multigrade program, particularly the teachers, administrators, and the community. The combined efforts of educators and community members have prompted improvements in the multigrade program, but the fact remains that there is greater room for improvement.

Learn More About the Multigrade Education Situation

Countless communities have relied on multigrade teaching to educate their young, but it is not without its challenges. INNOTECH’s Current Situation and Practices of Multigrade Schools in the Philippines: Case Studies dives into the realities of education in remote areas of the nation.

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Case Study: Philippines. Recognising Green Skills for Environmental and Sustainable Development in Four Selected Industries

• Open Access
• First Online: 05 August 2022

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• Elmer Talavera 6 , 7 , 8  

Part of the book series: Education for Sustainability ((EDFSU,volume 5))

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This chapter presents a study on the identification and recognition of knowledge, skills and competencies required to convert and maintain green enterprises in a Philippine context and in the light of Philippine policies, legislation and investments to stimulate the development of new green markets. It examines the use of ‘green’ practices in enterprises, the benefits and challenges in the application of such practices, the extent to which respondent micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have identified the green skills requirements and whether skills recognition mechanisms such as job cards or other portfolio systems have been put in place as part of recognition processes and workplace training programmes. This chapter begins by giving an overview of the Philippine economy and society and the role of MSMEs in four dynamically developing industry sectors namely, automotive, catering, PVC manufacturing and waste management. Given the environmental challenges and problems faced by enterprises in these sectors, the study looks at the extent to which the government’s green job policies, laws, qualifications framework, training regulations and standards address environmental challenges and problems faced by enterprises. The study thus examines connections between macro policies, rules, laws and regulations and micro-level application through practices and green skills and their recognition through recognition mechanisms.

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Environmental challenges

• Industries and services
• Green practices
• Green skills
• Workplace training

Assessment and certification

• Greening TVET

1 Introduction

A basic premise of the study is that if green skills and green practices are to be promoted and recognised, firms need to understand green skills requirements and the recognition of these skills as an important part of workplace training programmes. There is a lack of interest among micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to recognise environmentally friendly practices. However, this could change with the Philippine government’s Green Jobs Act of 2016, which provides tax reduction and other incentives for MSMEs.

Thus, this paper will put an emphasis on the voices of employers, employees and enterprises that are largely absent from analysis and policy-making. It is important to know what workers in MSMEs think and are learning about green skills in their workplaces. Most notably, they reported that increasing changes around green skills are being implemented into both work roles but not equally in training.

The Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) through its National Institute for Technical Education and Skills Development (NITESD) conducted the fieldwork for this study. The data considered stakeholder perspectives at all levels. The analysis will begin by studying the national government standpoint in addressing workplace environment-related issues in all sectors, and then move to obtaining insights on frameworks and standards established by government authorities in collaboration with industry associations or trade unions and other private sector agencies. Finally, it will look at green skills inclusion in recognition practices from the perspective of enterprises.

Rationale for conducting the empirical study in enterprises

While policies and environmental laws, as well as green standards, competences and qualifications have been developed, there is little information on whether they are implemented at the level of MSMEs or in promoting cleaner production processes in the workplace. In many MSMEs, workers involved in the everyday practice of production do not comply with new regulations and standards. However, the questions of compliance of environmentally friendly regulations should not only concern managers and executives, rather, compliance should concern each worker. Another neglected issue is non-formal education or workplace learning, which is believed to be the core element in meeting the training needs of workers. The training must be conducted on the job and in the working environment, adapting teaching methods to the learning abilities of workers, as well as addressing the issues of access and costs. The learning process must address the entire value chain to build an understanding of causalities, interdependencies and environmental impacts. Promoting green skills is not only about automation and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), but also about tracing compliance with environmental regulations at every step in the production process.

The socio-economic environment and the role of industry sectors

The 2019 International Monetary Fund (IMF) statistics ranked the Philippine economy as the 36th largest in the world (IMF 2019 ). The Philippines is considered one of the largest emerging markets and fastest-growing economies in Asia. The Philippine economy, which used to be agriculture-based, is transitioning to services and manufacturing. Its gross domestic product (GDP) based on purchasing power parity in 2016 was estimated at around US $304 billion. The primary exports include semiconductors and electronic products, transport equipment, garments, copper products, petroleum products, coconut oil and fruits. Major trading partners include the United States, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Germany and Thailand.

Box 11.1 The economic contributions of the industry and services sectors

Automotive industry

The Philippine automotive manufacturing industry (PAMI)—composed of two core sectors, namely manufacturing of parts and accessories for motor vehicles and the manufacturing of motor vehicles—is one of the major drivers of the Philippine industry, generating approximately P248.5 billion (US$5 billion) sales in 2013;

The industry roadmap has targeted 300,000 quality jobs by 2022;

The local vehicle manufacturing industry is expected to attract P27 billion (US$500 million) in fresh investments, manufacture 600,000 more vehicles and add P300 billion to the domestic economy (equivalent to 1.7% of GDP). This has the approval of the Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy (CARS) programme in 2016;

The comprehensive operation of the automotive industry extends to other complementary sectors such as textiles, glass, plastics, electronics, rubber, iron and steel. Hence, increasing PAMI’s productivity would likewise increase the economic activity of supporting industries, and the Philippine economy (Palaña 2014 ).

Catering services

As tourism serves as the main market for hotel and restaurant services, the increase in visitor traffic over the past 10 years resulted in a corresponding boom in the catering industry;

Catering services include hotels, motels, restaurants, fast food establishments and educational institutions that provide training and other types of organisations responsible for the promotion of hospitality services;

Businesses also purchase food, tools and supplies to help their establishments to generate revenue for supporting businesses;

The economy is stimulated by employing locals for jobs such as food preparation. In turn, these workers earn wages and become tax payers and contribute to economic growth;

The total income in 2012 by the road service (catering) industry reached P267.5 billion (about US$5 billion). More than half of the total income of the Philippines was earned by the National Capital Region (NCR) amounting to P151.6 billion (US$3 billion) (PSA 2012 ).

PVC manufacturing

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is a versatile thermoplastic material used in the production of hundreds of everyday consumer products. International and local investments have generated thousands of jobs for Filipinos since 2000.

The Philippine Resins Industries, Inc. (PRII) is embarking on a P1.68 billion (US$50 million) expansion of its polyvinyl chloride (PVC) manufacturing plant in Mariveles, Baatan (Ferriols 2001 ).

Waste management industry

The Philippine waste management sector, which has created many jobs, includes the following activities:

Water collection, treatment, and supply;

Waste removal and disposal services;

Formal recovery of recyclable;

Informal valorisation Footnote 1 of waste products; and

Sewage and remediation activities.

Output value of the different activities

Water collection, treatment and supply: PHP55.1 billion (about US$100 million) (91.1%);

Material recovery: PHP2.3 billion (about US$40 million) (3.8%);

Waste collection: PHP1.9 billion (about US$33 million) (3.1%);

Sewage and remediation activities and other waste management services: PHP0.8 billion (about US$15 million) (1.3%);

Waste treatment and disposal: PHP0.4 billion (about US$7.5 million) (0.6%) (PSA 2014 ).

Source: Authors

Formal sector enterprises

Data for formal sector establishments from the 2010 Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry (ASPBI) highlighted 148,266 formal sector establishments. In terms of employment, data collated by TESDA indicates that waste management had the highest employment figures at 47,176 people, followed by manufacturing at 41,528, automotive at 18,337 and catering at 7,479 people. However, many jobs are precarious or casual and operate on a contractual basis. Not all these jobs are salaried; often they are contractual (PSA 2010 ). Thus, despite considerable industrial development in the country, there are major income and growth disparities between the country's different regions and socio-economic classes. The challenges facing the government are high poverty incidence (33% of the population), increased unemployment rate (6.3% of the active population), and persistent inequality in wealth distribution (PSA 2014 ).

There are several challenges that come with greening the economy. Since 1990, the Philippines has seen significant growth in the services sector (55% of the labour force market), followed by agriculture (29%) and manufacturing/ industry (16%) (Central Intelligence Agency 2017 ). Thus, more green practices in the service sector are particularly important to address.

Challenges to achieving more inclusive growth remain. Even though the economy has grown and the unemployment rate has declined somewhat in recent years, it remains high at around 6.5%; underemployment is also high, ranging from 18 to 19% of the employed. At least 40% of the employed work in the informal sector (Central Intelligence Agency 2017 ). This means that most of the people working in the informal sector have achieved their skills through informal or non-formal education and training while on the job or outside the workplace.

Environmental challenges and national policy responses

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that seven million people worldwide die annually from air pollution—over six million of them were recorded in Asia. Most of these cases are in the People’s Republic of China and India, but experts warned that the Philippines might not be far behind (Montano 2016 ). The Philippines is affected by the increasing density of air pollutants, particularly in cities caused by emissions from vehicles and factories; non-compliance of environmental standards; and incineration (Congress of the Philippines 1990 ). Incineration is defined as the burning of municipal, biomedical and hazardous wastes whose process emits toxic and poisonous fumes. Industry and enterprises are contributing greatly to these environmental hazards.

The increasing volume of household, commercial, institutional, and industrial wastes is an increasing concern. A single resident in Manila produces an average of 0.7 kg of waste a day, about 130% higher than the global average of 0.3 kg per person per day. According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Metro Manila alone produced about 8,400 to 8,600 tonnes of trash per day in 2011. In addition, street sweeping, construction debris, agricultural waste and other non-hazardous/non-toxic waste products continued to pile up in many areas of the country. The lack of strict public compliance and enforcement powers of those in authority were identified as factors for improper waste management. Other salient issues related to the collection and segregation of solid wastes and monitoring of solid waste management.

Another pressing environmental challenge is the worldwide six-fold increase in consumer good production and subsequent increase in global waste generation by 900% since the 1990s according to the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, due to high costs, developed countries could only recycle 11% of their waste. Footnote 2 The rest were exported to developing countries like the Philippines, where environmental laws were weak and where these toxic and hazardous wastes were accepted as additional livelihood opportunities. In addition, the technological revolution has given rise to a new and growing form of toxic and hazardous waste, e-waste (waste electrical and electronic equipment or WEEE), a consequence of the prodigious growth in the number of computers, cell phones and electronic gadgets that started in the 1990s. The Philippines has continued to be one of the leading destinations for chemical products and toxic substances from developing countries and has become one of the leading importers of ‘persistent organic pollutants’ (POPs), which continually pollute agricultural lands and poison the rivers, lakes, and seas (Ilagan et al. 2015 ).

National policy responses to environmental challenge

The leading role of the government in terms of greening has been highlighted by researchers (e.g. Pavlova 2016 ). The Philippines is a good example. Several governmental policies address environmental challenges. The Philippines addressed its plans for a greener future in the 1990 Philippine Strategy for Sustainable Development (PSSD) supplemented in 2004 with the Enhanced Philippine agenda (EPA) 21. In the Philippine development plan (PDP) 2011–2016, the conservation, protection and rehabilitation of the environment and natural resources were highlighted (Baumgarten and Kunz 2016 ).

Administrative order No. 17 issued by the DENR in 2002 provides the national policy context for the analysis of skills for sustainability and the greening of the economy and society. A major authority for the implementation of environmental policies is the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) (Department of Environment and Natural Resources 2002 ).

Box 11.2 Philippine environmental legislation

National laws were enacted in four broad areas.

Republic Act 6969—Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act of 1990 provides for a legal framework to control and manage the importation, manufacture, processing, distribution, use, transport, treatment and disposal of toxic substances and hazardous and nuclear wastes. The law prohibits, limits, and regulates the use, manufacture, import, export, transport, processing, storage, possession, and wholesale of priority chemicals that are determined to be regulated, phased-out, or banned because of the serious risks they pose to public health and the environment. The swelling issues of industrial waste, proliferation and waste dumping in the Philippines prompted the implementation of this Act (Congress of the Philippines 1990 ).

Republic Act 8749—Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999 provides a comprehensive air quality management policy and programme that aims to achieve and maintain cleaner air for all Filipinos. The law covers all potential sources of air pollution: (1) mobile sources such as motor vehicles; (2) point or stationary sources such as industrial plants; and (3) area sources such as wood or coal burning. Gas/diesel powered vehicles on the road will undergo emission testing, and violators will be subjected to penalties. The law also directs the complete phase-out of leaded gasoline; lowering the sulphur content of industrial and automotive diesel; and lowering aromatics and benzene in unleaded gasoline. All stationary sources must comply with the National Emission Standards for Source Air Pollutants (NESSAP) and National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) and must secure their permission to operate, prior to operations (Congress of the Philippines, 1999 ).

Republic Act 9003–Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 provides for a legal framework for the country’s systematic, comprehensive, and ecological solid waste management programme that shall ensure the protection of public health and the environment. Under this law, there are several provisions to manage solid wastes (SW) in the country: (1) Mandatory segregation of SW to be conducted at the source; (2) Systematic collection and transport of wastes and proper protection of garbage collector’s health; (3) Establishment of reclamation programmes and buy-back centres for recyclable and toxic materials; (4) Promotion of eco-labelling and prohibition on non-environmentally acceptable products and packaging; and (5) Prohibition against the use of open dumps and establishment of controlled dumps and sanitary landfills, among others (Congress of the Philippines, 2001 ).

RA 9275–Philippine Clean Water Act of 2004 deals with poor water quality management in all surrounding bodies of water, pollution from land-based sources and ineffective enforcement of water quality standards. It also tackles improper collection, treatment, and disposal of domestic sewage, and wastewater charge systems (Congress of the Philippines, 2004 ).

Source: Authors’ compilation based on the Congress of the Philippines legal enactments

2 Terminology and Definitions

Republic Act (RA) 10,771, otherwise known as the Philippine Green Jobs Act of 2016, is the country’s legal mandate for promoting green economies amongst enterprises. The law also grants business incentives, such as special tax deductions from their taxable income and duty-free importation of capital equipment on top of the fiscal and non-fiscal incentives already provided for by existing laws, orders, rules and regulations of the government to encourage them to help generate and sustain ‘green jobs’ (Department of Labour and Employment 2017 ).

The law defines ‘green jobs’ as employment that contributes to preserving or restoring the quality of the environment, be it in the agriculture, industry or the services sector. ‘Green jobs’ shall produce ‘green goods and services’ that would benefit the environment or conserve natural resources. The Law envisions a ‘green economy’ which is low-carbon and resource-efficient, resulting in improved human well-being and social equity in the reduction of environmental risks and ecological scarcities.

The Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2011–2016 (NEDA 2014 ) stipulated that green jobs can exist and flourish in all sectors. Green jobs can be found where there are measures taken to: (1) introduce low-carbon policies; (2) adapt to climate change; (3) reduce resource use and energy; and (4) protect biodiversity. The plan prioritised key areas identified as mainstream activities affected by climate change: agriculture, fisheries, forestry, energy, construction, transport (including automotive), manufacturing (including PVC production), services (including catering), tourism and waste management.

The pilot application of ‘Policy guidelines on the just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all’ that is being conducted in three countries, including the Philippines, adopted by the ILO Governing Body in October 2015, enables the government, together with employers, workers, organizations and other stakeholders, to leverage the process of structural change towards a sustainable, low-carbon, climate-resilient economy to create decent jobs on a significant scale (ILO 2017 ).

The Philippines adopts the Cedefop notion of ‘green skills’ defined in terms of the technical skills, knowledge, values, and attitudes needed in the workforce to develop and support sustainable social, economic, and environmental outcomes in business, industry and the community.

Stakeholder involvement in green skills development in the Philippines

Several stakeholders are responsible for implementing the Green Jobs Law. Green jobs and green skills are being promoted through several departments: the Department of Labour and Employment (DOLE) for formulating the National Green Jobs Human Resource Development Plan (NGJHRDP) on the development, enhancement and utilisation of the labour force; the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to establish and maintain a climate-change information management system and network; the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) for ensuring the mainstreaming of green jobs concerns in the development plans; the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) for developing a special business facilitation programme for enterprises; the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) to encourage more investments in public infrastructure and services that foster green growth; the Climate Change Commission (CCC) for developing and administering standards for the assessment and certification of green goods and services of enterprises; and the Department of Finance (DOF) to administer the grant of incentives to qualified enterprises. In relation to the education system, three entities are responsible for implementing respectively green standards, the green curriculum and green skills. These are the Department of Education (DepEd), the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and TESDA. In addition, the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) is responsible for facilitating the recognition of knowledge, skills and competency of professionals working in the green economy. The TESDA, the DOLE, and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) will also analyse skills, training and retraining needs in relation to the use of green technology that has the potential to create new green occupations.

Meanwhile, the DTI, which has promoted the three-year Green Economic Development (ProGED) Project jointly with the GIZ of Germany since January 2013, aims to enhance the competitiveness of MSMEs by helping them adopt climate-smart and environmentally friendly strategies through a value chain approach (Silva 2016 ).

Challenges of greening TVET

TVET has been called upon to make a pivotal contribution to the national goals of inclusive growth, poverty reduction and greening of skills in the context of the Third cycle (2011–2016) of the National Technical Education and Skills Development Plan (NTESDP) anchored on the PDP. Under Strategic Direction 15, TVET needs to ‘develop and implement programmes intended for green jobs.’ This is pursued through the development of new training regulations (TRs) or amendment/ review of existing TRs for green jobs and sustainable development, including agro-forestry, developing the capacity of trainers and administrators to implement ‘green skills’ programmes and linking-up with local and international agencies in the design, implementation and monitoring of ‘green skills’ programmes. ( www.tesda.gov.ph ). TESDA is responsible for formulating the necessary TRs for the implementation of skills training, programme registration and assessment, and certification in support of the requirements for skilled manpower for the ‘green economy’ (Department of Labour and Employment 2017 ).

TVET plays a crucial role in enhancing workers’ productivity and employability and facilitates the active and meaningful participation of workers in the development process. The plan highlighted strategies that will address issues pertaining to innovation and the greening of skills. Most of all, TVET will be responsible for mitigating the effects of climate change in the world of work and workplaces. In this regard, TVET has the aims of (1) ‘greening’ existing jobs to meet the current demand for retrofitting and the retooling of the industry to ensure that existing industries continue to grow; and (2) training new workers with the appropriate green skills particularly for the renewable industries and emergent ‘green’ technology sectors. The challenge, therefore, is to strategise environmental education and skills development in anticipation of a green shift in the priority sectors that include agriculture, forestry, fishery, manufacturing (electronics and automotive) services, solid waste and waste water management, energy, transportation and construction (based on the draft NGJHRDP of DOLE 2017 ).

TVET has a big role to play to support the government policy of protecting and caring the environment. New competences need to be developed relevant to this concern. Going into ‘green jobs’ will require the retooling of skilled workers in sectors with high environmental impacts.

The status of the recognition of green skills

In the Philippines, recognition, validation and accreditation of learning outcomes and competencies of workers in enterprises (i.e. in non-formal learning) is one of the components of competency-based TVET and is part of the strategic directions of the National TESD Plan 2005–2009 (NTESDP) ( www.tesda.gov.ph ). As of December 2017, TESDA had 33 qualifications/TRs out of 2589 promulgated TRs covering environment-related knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the TRs and curricula. In catering services, automotive, PVC manufacturing and waste management sectors, 5S (sort, set in order, shine, standardise and sustain) and 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) are included in the required knowledge and skills which were considered ‘green’. The 5S methodology is also a ‘must’ for all TVET trainers. TESDA likewise amended the TRs for automotive servicing NC III to include LPG conversion and repowering in the set of competences to promote cleaner emissions of vehicles. Ship’s catering takes precautions to prevent pollution in the marine environment by implementing waste management and disposal systems. See Table 11.1 for the list of TESDA TRs with a ‘green’ outlook related to the four industries.

TESDA also conducted a training programme in collaboration with the Department of Energy (DOE) to integrate the use of energy-efficient lighting in the TR for electrical installation and maintenance qualifications. All the qualifications with a green outlook have been accommodated in the Philippine Qualifications Framework (PQF). The Competency Standards are aligned with the PQF, a national policy describing the levels of educational qualifications and setting the standards for qualification outcomes. It is competency-based and labour market driven. It consists of eight levels of education and training that encourage lifelong learning to allow individuals to start at the level that suits them and then build-up their qualifications as their needs and interests develop and change over time ( www.gov.ph ). The Philippine TVET Qualification and Certification System (PTQCS), consistent with the PQF, has five different levels of complexity across the three different domains. The qualification levels under PTQCS start from NC I to Diploma.

Development of green qualifications

In accordance with international requirements, TESDA developed qualifications related to refrigeration and air-conditioning. This was done in partnership with DENR and practitioners as part of the national CFC phase-out plan and in accordance with the Montreal Protocol and the Clean Air Act. Through the TESDA training regulations (TRs) on the refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) sectors, competences for technicians are identified and addressed during training programmes on recovery, recycling, and retrofitting of RAC systems, which are major sources of ozone-depleting CFCs. In line with this, a code of practice (COP) for RAC was developed by the project with some funding from the World Bank and the Government of Sweden. The TRs promote safety parameters for workers, customers, tools/equipment, and most importantly environmental concerns.

The competency standards of the PQF follow the ILO Regional Model of Competency Standards (RMCS), which prescribes three types of competences, namely: (1) basic competences all workers in all sectors must possess; (2) common competences workers in a sector must possess; and (3) core competences workers in a qualification must possess. Environmental concerns/ concepts are integrated into the basic competences of the TRs. The three learning domains of the competency standards are aligned to the principles of lifelong learning: learning to live together, learning to be, learning to do, and learning to know, as well as to the twenty-first-century skills.

Inviting experts from industry to develop training regulations

TESDA invites experts from industry and/or industry associations who follow guidelines and procedures on how to align each unit of competency to the PQF descriptors. The TRs have four major parts: (1) description of the qualification and job title; (2) competency standards, including the basic, common and core competences; (3) training standards; and (4) national assessment and certification arrangements.

The competency-based TVET (CBT) system recognises various delivery modes in different learning settings – both on- and off-the-job – if CBT specified by the industry drives the training. TVET has developed three delivery modes: (1) Institution-based, which delivers training programmes in public and private TVET institutions, including regional, provincial, and specialised training centres; (2) Enterprise-based, which implements training programmes within enterprises/firms; and (3) Community-based, which delivers training programmes at the local/community level, mostly in partnership with LGUs and NGOs.

For every unit of competency that is completed by a learner during training, a certificate of training achievement is awarded, and after completing all the required units of competency, he/she is awarded with a Certificate of Training. The latter indicates the title of the course, the qualification level according to the PQF descriptors, and the units of competency that the learner has acquired. The attainment of each unit of competency is pre-conditioned on the attainment of specific learning outcomes as described in the competency standards. As a prerequisite for graduation, a learner undergoes the national competency assessment, and he/she is given a certificate of competency (COC) after satisfactorily demonstrating competence in a cluster of units of competency or a national certificate (NC) after satisfactorily demonstrating all units of competency comprising a qualification using the assessment criteria provided by the TR/CS computed by an accredited competency assessor.

Assessment and certification also include the recognition, validation, and accreditation of competences and learning and work experience. This system observes two major principles: (1) competency assessment to collect evidence relative to a unit or cluster of units of competency, and (2) RPL to give recognition to an individual’s skill, knowledge, and attitudes acquired through previous training, work, or life experiences.

3 Methodology of Primary Data Collection

The study adopts the overall methodology developed by the project for all participating jurisdictions and used the developed instruments such as survey/interview questions, the observation list and the list of generic green skills to collect data (see Chap. 1 ). This country study reflects results from 29 of 32 enterprises (targeting eight companies in each sector). The study was confined within the National Capital Region (NCR) or Metro Manila, given that in this area there were enterprises representing the four targeted industries (catering, automobile, PVC and waste management). Of the 29 respondent firms, seven were from the automotive industry, six from PVC manufacturing, eight from catering services and eight from waste management. Sixteen enterprises from the formal sector were interviewed and five from the informal sector. Given the limited size of the sample, the study does not pretend to generalise across the four industries. It is exploratory in nature and draws on preliminary insights into the recognition and development of greener skills in the identified industry sectors.

Box 11.3 General information on the enterprises

Enterprises in waste management undertook testing of used oil and waste products; microbiological and mechanical testing; verification and certification of public and private firms; and buying and selling recyclable materials such as plastics, meats and paper products.

Enterprises in automotive services and sales undertook servicing of new vehicles and restoration and sale of used vehicles.

Catering services included food delivery, fast food restaurants, stalls and eateries.

PVC enterprises included the sale and installation of plastic pipes and piping systems.

4 Results and Discussion

Educational attainment of the employees

Analysis of the educational attainment of 1,490 employees in the 29 firms showed that overall, the four industries displayed a very high level of education of personnel—81% of employees across all sectors had higher education, 9–10% had attained a secondary education and TVET qualification, and only 1% was below secondary. Enterprises in PVC manufacturing had 92% (454 out of 495) of their employees with a higher education qualification, followed by waste management, 78% (415 out of 529), automotive industry 76% (296 out of 391) and catering services, 55% (41 out of 75).

Environmentally friendly practices in the enterprises

On the question, ‘What environmentally friendly practices enterprises are followed?’ only 11 (42%) out of 26 respondent enterprises had ‘green jobs’ such as waste water management, renewable energy, energy saving and pollution minimisation. Waste management firms ranked the highest, with seven out of seven respondent enterprises attesting to having such ‘green jobs’, whereas only two of the four firms in PVC manufacturing claimed to have ‘green’ jobs and only one out of seven automotive enterprises had ‘green’ jobs. Only one out of the eight catering enterprises had ‘green jobs’. However, environmentally friendly practices were not only restricted to green jobs. This became clear when firms were asked about the various practices, illustrated in Table 11.2 , reflecting environmental sustainability at work in the four industries.

Promoting green practices

Respondents were asked to give their perceptions on how much importance they attached to the theme of green skills in their enterprises on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 meant low consideration and 10 meant high consideration to these issues. Twenty-five out of 29 responses fell under the scale of 6–10. Four enterprises answered between scales 2–5. However, while high importance is placed on ‘green skills’, there is only a modest promotion of the required skills for the implementation of environment-friendly practices as illustrated in Table 11.3 . PVC enterprises employed the highest number of methods for promoting green skills.

Skill requirements for the implementation of environmentally friendly practices

Enterprises in the four industries described important green skills required for the daily operations undertaken by employees (Table 11.4 ).

How do the respondents acquire their skills?

The employees in the 29 firms across the four industries acquired their green skills in a variety of ways. Both the automotive and PVC manufacturing enterprises identified all the contexts of acquisition. In the catering services and waste management, employees acquired their skills predominantly through self-directed training (seven out of eight) and three out of five respectively (Table 11.5 ).

Benefits of practising green jobs and skills

On the question of whether including green skills in RVA mechanisms could be beneficial, responses from 25 firms showed that 36 per cent of respondents expected the recognition of green skills to be beneficial for enterprises. They said that it could improve productivity and make enterprises more competitive. On the other hand, 32 per cent of these enterprises expected green skills recognition to benefit the individual in strengthening confidence and motivation, and in promoting core generic skills, social inclusion, higher earnings and better career prospects. Another 32 per cent highlighted benefits for the country by recognising skills that are environmentally friendly.

The benefits of green practices and green skills were also confirmed by a 2012 survey conducted by the Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP) in collaboration with ILO (ECOP & ILO, 2012 ) covering three areas (NCR, Cagayan De Oro, and Cebu) in the Philippines. Forty-three participants, representing enterprises from manufacturing, food and beverage, land development and real estate enumerated benefits at the level of enterprise, individuals and the nation (Table 11.6 ).

Reasons for not having ‘green’ jobs with ‘green’ practices

This study also examined the reasons for not adopting green practices. The background research by the ECOP and ILO ( 2012 ) pointed out the disadvantages of adopting green projects. They were:

Restrictive in terms of the permitted practices (38 per cent of survey respondents);

Threat of reducing the profit (25 per cent);

Causing job loss (13 per cent);

High start-up costs to implement initially (13 per cent);

Risk of business shut-downs (13 per cent).

The participants of that project further elaborated that, aside from financial considerations, there is also a lack of awareness and expertise in the Philippines on climate change, environmental issues and green jobs. Additional and appropriate financial and technical support is needed to shift towards green initiatives or launch environmentally friendly practices.

The current study revealed the following reasons why some enterprises did not have green jobs or green practices:

Lack of oversight due to sub-contracting especially in waste management and automotive, where a lot of jobs are outsourced to external contractors;

Lack of money to buy expensive equipment. This was mentioned by enterprises in the automotive and PVC manufacturing sectors;

Presence of policies (i.e. city ordinance) that prohibit the use of environmentally harmful materials, such as plastics, in the case of the catering sector.

Mechanisms for recognising skills, prior learning and work experience in the enterprises

Awareness of RVA frameworks

Very few firms (both employers and employees) said they were aware of the existence and use of RVA frameworks. Only two (1.67 per cent) of 120 respondents said they had heard of frameworks such as the Philippine Qualifications Framework, or other competency-based training frameworks or guidelines prepared by DENR. Only one (0.83 per cent) respondent was aware of a framework developed for human resource development.

Methods used to assess green skills

Only seven out of 30 total responses on methods used to assess green skills alluded to having a job-card system in which employees’ skills were documented. The identified green skills were in waste segregation and disposal, energy conservation, and knowledge of environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and recycling, among others. In terms of the different sectors, six respondents highlighted the use of different methods, as illustrated in Table 11.7 .

The green skills that are not assessed include: the theoretical understanding of green practice; research and development; waste disposal and familiarity with hazardous waste products.

Enterprises did not have a systematic use of RVA mechanisms, in the absence of which, four respondents stated, the use of ad hoc examples such as ‘mentoring’, coaching and apprenticeships acted as approaches to RVA.

Vision for green skills recognition as part of workplace training

Most of the respondents in the four industry sectors talked about their enterprises’ increasing initiatives to implement ‘green’ training programmes for protecting the environment:

Box 11.4 Importance of green training programmes for protecting the environment

Automotive sector

Upgrading automotive technology to meet the demand for fuel efficiency and reduce emissions;

Providing green customer services;

Learning to use eco-friendly equipment and materials.

Important for recognising green skills;

Updating existing training manuals;

Waste management

Promoting sanitation standards;

Promoting the systematic collection of waste;

Promoting more programmes and incentives at the international level;

Promoting compliance with governmental efforts and standards (i.e. DENR and Laguna Lake Development Authority).

Prospects of staff training and RVA

In September 2017, the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) for the Philippine Green Jobs Law was signed. Clearly, the potential for the inclusion of the green skills in RVA is great, not only at the macro level but also at the individual level. Enterprises made suggestions on the prospects of improving skills training and RVA as shown in Table 11.8 . Only 12 (41.38 per cent) out of 29 firms cited recommendations for the inclusion of green skills in RPL. All recommendations called for staff training programmes.

5 Conclusions and Recommendations

This chapter, based on research conducted by TESDA, has examined issues pertaining to skills recognition as a tool to improve the environmental and sustainable development in the four industry sectors, namely, automotive, catering services, PVC manufacturing, and waste management.

The Green Jobs Law of 2016 has been pivotal in the increase of green jobs and green practices in enterprises participating in this research. Most of the enterprises remarked on the absence of jobs specifically dealing with green practices before the promulgation of this law. Despite this, a huge majority of these firms observed several practices reflecting environmental sustainability in the workplace, such as waste segregation, waste management disposal, and compliance with environmental rules. The importance given to the topic of green skills and environmentally friendly practices is high, especially in the catering sector. However, the promotion of required skills for the implementation of environment-friendly practices is still modest and there is low utilisation of strategies such as the use of brochures and events, innovations, and incentives for cleaner products/ services and marketing.

Interestingly, employers perceived that the creation of green jobs would lead to improved competitiveness of workers, promotion of decent jobs, and additional employment. Some of them, however, cited disadvantages such as a reduction in profit, and increased costs related to the financial and technical support of green initiatives.

Assessment of RPL in some enterprises involves the verification of certificates. In other enterprises, documentation is undertaken with a job-card system while the certification of RPL is carried out by government agencies (e.g., some environmental authority), the mother company, or training institutions.

Employees’ green skills included technical, cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal skills. Employers appreciated the cognitive skills of their employees, the most prominent of which were environmental awareness and willingness to undertake green practices. However, both intra-personal and inter-personal competences registered low appreciation from the employees participating in the research.

The enterprises were not knowledgeable about the national RPL framework, and this was evident given the low utilisation of learning outcomes described in the Philippines Qualifications Framework, competency-based training, HRD frameworks and guidelines designed by the EMB-DENR.

A small number of these enterprises have mechanisms to recognise/assess existing green skills that employees acquire in the workplace, community, or through non-formal education and training programmes. There is no systematic use of RPL; rather, RPL is based on ad hoc examples such as mentoring, coaching and apprenticeship.

It was found that employers used simple methods of RPL assessment (i.e. self-evaluation and interview). Through such methods, employers noticed gaps and deficits in the green skills of workers. The areas where these gaps were most prominent were research and development, waste disposal and familiarity with hazardous waste products, among others.

Most workers acquired their skills non-formally or informally through self-directed learning or on the job or in-company training. Only a few workers had acquired their skills through initial and continuing vocational education and training.

Enterprises believed that green skills had a great potential if enterprises, associations and organizations would support their inclusion in RPL mechanisms. Green skills inclusion in RPL needs to be complemented by other elements such as awareness raising, efficient information dissemination, and technical and financial assistance. Such support activities must be implemented through governmental and societal support.

Factors, in order of prominence, contributing to the effective inclusion of green skills in RVA include: laws/ government policies; business opportunities; environmental and economic realities; support/funding/incentives from the government; international conventions; strong LGU enforcement. All these factors are predicated upon sustained information, education and communication (IEC) actions; advocacy; and social marketing.

The passage of the Green Jobs Law, which provides incentives and tax and duty-free importation of capital equipment, makes the potential for green skills inclusion in recognition in the Philippines realisable.

This study, which includes the participation of seven other Asian countries and one Asian territory, should provide valuable inputs in designing and implementing rules and regulations for the recently enacted Green Jobs Law in the Philippines. Specifically, the mechanisms in the identification of green jobs and the attendant green skills leading to the design of training and assessment and certification of programmes should investigate the different models, not only from the Philippines, but also from the international community.

International development organizations can strategically support the development and distribution of learning/ instructional materials – preferably with formats – that can be shared to facilitate massive and immediate learning to benefit the developing economies and the micro-enterprises of/ in the informal sector.

Individual, family, micro-, small-, and medium enterprises that extract valuable materials from the waste system and valorise them for own use, repair and sale, fabrication, or recycling.

The figure pertains only to the US because of unavailability of global data, and given that the US is the biggest producer of industrial waste, this figure is taken as some kind of watermark for all other industrialized countries for purposes of this study (see E. Stewards at http://e-stewards.org/learn-more/for-consumers/effects-of-e-waste/who-gets-stepped-on/ ).

Abbreviations

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain

Association of Southeast Asian Nations

Annual Survey of Philippine Business and Industry

Board of Investment

Comprehensive Automotive Resurgence Strategy

Competency-based TVET

Centre Européen pour le Développement de la Formation Professionnelle

Commission on Higher Education

Compact Mobile Unit

Certificate of Competency

Code of Practice

Competency Standards

Department of Environment and Natural Resource

Department of Education

Department of Energy

Department of Labour and Employment

Department of Public Works and Highways

Department of Science and Technology

Department of Tourism

Department of Transportation and Communication

Department of Trade and Industry

Environmental Compliance Certificate

Employers Confederation of the Philippines

Environmental Management Bureau

Enhanced Philippine Agenda 21

Gross Domestic Product

Green Our DOLE Programme

Information, Education, and Communication

International Labour Organization

International Monetary Fund

Implementing Rules and Regulations

Information Technology

Local Government Unit

Laguna Lake Development Authority

Liquefied Petroleum Gas

Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises

National Ambient Air Quality Standards

National Certificate

National Capital Region

National Economic and Development Authority

National Emission Standards for Source Air Pollutants

Non-governmental Organization

National Institute for Technical Education and Skills Development

National Technical Education and Skills Development Plan

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

Philippine Automotive Manufacturing Industry

Philippine Development Plan

Philippine Peso

Persistent Organic Pollutants

Philippine Qualifications Framework

Professional Regulation Commission

Philippine Resins Industries, Inc.

Promotion of Green Economic Development

Philippine Statistics Authority

Philippines Strategy for Sustainable Development

Philippine TVET Qualification and Certification System

Polyvinyl chloride

Refrigeration and Air Conditioning

Regional Model of Competency Standards

Recognition of Prior Learning

Recognition, Validation, and Accreditation

Solid Waste/s

Technical Education and Skills Development Authority

Toyota Motor Philippines

Training Regulations

Technical Vocational Education and Training

United Nations

United Nations Environment Programme

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment

World Health Organization

World Trade Organization

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Talavera, E. (2022). Case Study: Philippines. Recognising Green Skills for Environmental and Sustainable Development in Four Selected Industries. In: Pavlova, M., Singh, M. (eds) Recognizing Green Skills Through Non-formal Learning. Education for Sustainability, vol 5. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2072-1_11

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After Covid, now heat forces schools to go online in the Philippines

Record heat in the Philippines this month has forced schools to send children home for online classes, reviving memories of Covid lockdowns and raising fears that more extreme weather in the years to come could deepen educational inequalities.

Pupils at 7,000 public schools in the Southeast Asian country were sent home last week due to unusually hot weather in many areas that forecasters have linked to the effects of the El Nino weather phenomenon.

Teacher Erlinda Alfonso, who works at a public elementary school in Quezon City near the capital, said she did not know what was worse for her pupils - sweltering in an overcrowded classroom or trying to study at home.

“Some students told me they prefer going to school because the heat is worse at home,” she said, adding that many of her students live in nearby shantytowns and have no internet connection to take part in online classes.

While teachers are providing offline assignments for students without internet access, Alfonso said the arrangement left children with no one to raise questions with.

“If there’s something they could not understand, their parents or siblings are often not at home because they need to earn a living,” said the 47-year-old, who also heads the city’s association of public school teachers.

The Philippines had one of the world’s longest school shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted the education gap faced by children from low-income families without computers or sufficient internet access.

But with most public schools in the country of 115 million people poorly equipped to deal with soaring temperatures and other extreme weather, online classes have become the safest option during the current heatwaves, teachers and unions say.

In public schools in Metro Manila, the capital region, a survey of more than 8,000 teachers last month showed 87% of students had suffered from heat-related conditions.

More than three-quarters of teachers described the heat as “unbearable” in the survey conducted by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers of the Philippines – National Capital Region (ACT-NCR), a teaching association.

Nearly half or 46% of teachers said classrooms have only one or two electric fans, highlighting inadequate ventilation measures to deal with rising temperatures.

“The heat had tremendous impacts on children. Some students even collapsed inside classrooms. Teachers suffered from the heat, too, but often they would prioritise their students’ health inside classrooms,” Ruby Bernardo, spokesperson of ACT-NCR, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

HOTTER AND LONGER HEATWAVES

As climate crisis fuels the frequency and severity of heatwaves, the problems faced by teachers and students in the Philippines look set to play out elsewhere.

About 243 million children in Asia and the Pacific are expected to be exposed to hotter and longer heatwaves over the coming months, the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, said last week.

Children are particularly susceptible to heat stroke, and UNICEF said prolonged exposure to intense heat also impacts their ability to concentrate and learn.

Since the start of El Nino, “danger category” temperatures as high as 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit) have been predicted by country’s weather agency.

Filipino teachers say more measures are needed to deal with extreme heat in schools - from tackling shortages of classrooms and teachers, which lead to overcrowding, to providing free drinking water and having a school nurse or doctor on site.

The Alliance of Concerned Teachers has called on the Department of Education (DepEd) to address such issues.

It has also proposed the immediate reversion to the pre-pandemic school calendar, when the hot months of April and May fell during the long school break.

Asked to comment, a DepEd spokesperson said its policy of letting head teachers decide when to switch to online or offline home classes “provides a more immediate and effective response to heat conditions rather than knee-jerk changes that would further compromise learning recovery”.

Some teachers say the current situation also underlines the need for more education about climate change.

“Climate change has not been comprehensively taught in our classrooms. But it’s a pressing issue linked to all the other challenges our education system is facing now,” Bernardo said.

For many low-paid public sector teachers, working in packed schools with non-existent or inadequate cooling has been the last straw.

“The heat makes me want to resign or retire early,” said Alfonso.

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Research ethics and artificial intelligence for global health: perspectives from the global forum on bioethics in research

• James Shaw 1 , 13 ,
• Joseph Ali 2 , 3 ,
• Caesar A. Atuire 4 , 5 ,
• Phaik Yeong Cheah 6 ,
• Armando Guio Español 7 ,
• Judy Wawira Gichoya 8 ,
• Adrienne Hunt 9 ,
• Daudi Jjingo 10 ,
• Katherine Littler 9 ,
• Daniela Paolotti 11 &
• Effy Vayena 12  

BMC Medical Ethics volume  25 , Article number:  46 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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The ethical governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health care and public health continues to be an urgent issue for attention in policy, research, and practice. In this paper we report on central themes related to challenges and strategies for promoting ethics in research involving AI in global health, arising from the Global Forum on Bioethics in Research (GFBR), held in Cape Town, South Africa in November 2022.

The GFBR is an annual meeting organized by the World Health Organization and supported by the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the South African MRC. The forum aims to bring together ethicists, researchers, policymakers, research ethics committee members and other actors to engage with challenges and opportunities specifically related to research ethics. In 2022 the focus of the GFBR was “Ethics of AI in Global Health Research”. The forum consisted of 6 case study presentations, 16 governance presentations, and a series of small group and large group discussions. A total of 87 participants attended the forum from 31 countries around the world, representing disciplines of bioethics, AI, health policy, health professional practice, research funding, and bioinformatics. In this paper, we highlight central insights arising from GFBR 2022.

We describe the significance of four thematic insights arising from the forum: (1) Appropriateness of building AI, (2) Transferability of AI systems, (3) Accountability for AI decision-making and outcomes, and (4) Individual consent. We then describe eight recommendations for governance leaders to enhance the ethical governance of AI in global health research, addressing issues such as AI impact assessments, environmental values, and fair partnerships.

Conclusions

The 2022 Global Forum on Bioethics in Research illustrated several innovations in ethical governance of AI for global health research, as well as several areas in need of urgent attention internationally. This summary is intended to inform international and domestic efforts to strengthen research ethics and support the evolution of governance leadership to meet the demands of AI in global health research.

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Introduction

The ethical governance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in health care and public health continues to be an urgent issue for attention in policy, research, and practice [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Beyond the growing number of AI applications being implemented in health care, capabilities of AI models such as Large Language Models (LLMs) expand the potential reach and significance of AI technologies across health-related fields [ 4 , 5 ]. Discussion about effective, ethical governance of AI technologies has spanned a range of governance approaches, including government regulation, organizational decision-making, professional self-regulation, and research ethics review [ 6 , 7 , 8 ]. In this paper, we report on central themes related to challenges and strategies for promoting ethics in research involving AI in global health research, arising from the Global Forum on Bioethics in Research (GFBR), held in Cape Town, South Africa in November 2022. Although applications of AI for research, health care, and public health are diverse and advancing rapidly, the insights generated at the forum remain highly relevant from a global health perspective. After summarizing important context for work in this domain, we highlight categories of ethical issues emphasized at the forum for attention from a research ethics perspective internationally. We then outline strategies proposed for research, innovation, and governance to support more ethical AI for global health.

In this paper, we adopt the definition of AI systems provided by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as our starting point. Their definition states that an AI system is “a machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations, or decisions influencing real or virtual environments. AI systems are designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy” [ 9 ]. The conceptualization of an algorithm as helping to constitute an AI system, along with hardware, other elements of software, and a particular context of use, illustrates the wide variety of ways in which AI can be applied. We have found it useful to differentiate applications of AI in research as those classified as “AI systems for discovery” and “AI systems for intervention”. An AI system for discovery is one that is intended to generate new knowledge, for example in drug discovery or public health research in which researchers are seeking potential targets for intervention, innovation, or further research. An AI system for intervention is one that directly contributes to enacting an intervention in a particular context, for example informing decision-making at the point of care or assisting with accuracy in a surgical procedure.

The mandate of the GFBR is to take a broad view of what constitutes research and its regulation in global health, with special attention to bioethics in Low- and Middle- Income Countries. AI as a group of technologies demands such a broad view. AI development for health occurs in a variety of environments, including universities and academic health sciences centers where research ethics review remains an important element of the governance of science and innovation internationally [ 10 , 11 ]. In these settings, research ethics committees (RECs; also known by different names such as Institutional Review Boards or IRBs) make decisions about the ethical appropriateness of projects proposed by researchers and other institutional members, ultimately determining whether a given project is allowed to proceed on ethical grounds [ 12 ].

However, research involving AI for health also takes place in large corporations and smaller scale start-ups, which in some jurisdictions fall outside the scope of research ethics regulation. In the domain of AI, the question of what constitutes research also becomes blurred. For example, is the development of an algorithm itself considered a part of the research process? Or only when that algorithm is tested under the formal constraints of a systematic research methodology? In this paper we take an inclusive view, in which AI development is included in the definition of research activity and within scope for our inquiry, regardless of the setting in which it takes place. This broad perspective characterizes the approach to “research ethics” we take in this paper, extending beyond the work of RECs to include the ethical analysis of the wide range of activities that constitute research as the generation of new knowledge and intervention in the world.

Ethical governance of AI in global health

The ethical governance of AI for global health has been widely discussed in recent years. The World Health Organization (WHO) released its guidelines on ethics and governance of AI for health in 2021, endorsing a set of six ethical principles and exploring the relevance of those principles through a variety of use cases. The WHO guidelines also provided an overview of AI governance, defining governance as covering “a range of steering and rule-making functions of governments and other decision-makers, including international health agencies, for the achievement of national health policy objectives conducive to universal health coverage.” (p. 81) The report usefully provided a series of recommendations related to governance of seven domains pertaining to AI for health: data, benefit sharing, the private sector, the public sector, regulation, policy observatories/model legislation, and global governance. The report acknowledges that much work is yet to be done to advance international cooperation on AI governance, especially related to prioritizing voices from Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) in global dialogue.

One important point emphasized in the WHO report that reinforces the broader literature on global governance of AI is the distribution of responsibility across a wide range of actors in the AI ecosystem. This is especially important to highlight when focused on research for global health, which is specifically about work that transcends national borders. Alami et al. (2020) discussed the unique risks raised by AI research in global health, ranging from the unavailability of data in many LMICs required to train locally relevant AI models to the capacity of health systems to absorb new AI technologies that demand the use of resources from elsewhere in the system. These observations illustrate the need to identify the unique issues posed by AI research for global health specifically, and the strategies that can be employed by all those implicated in AI governance to promote ethically responsible use of AI in global health research.

RECs and the regulation of research involving AI

RECs represent an important element of the governance of AI for global health research, and thus warrant further commentary as background to our paper. Despite the importance of RECs, foundational questions have been raised about their capabilities to accurately understand and address ethical issues raised by studies involving AI. Rahimzadeh et al. (2023) outlined how RECs in the United States are under-prepared to align with recent federal policy requiring that RECs review data sharing and management plans with attention to the unique ethical issues raised in AI research for health [ 13 ]. Similar research in South Africa identified variability in understanding of existing regulations and ethical issues associated with health-related big data sharing and management among research ethics committee members [ 14 , 15 ]. The effort to address harms accruing to groups or communities as opposed to individuals whose data are included in AI research has also been identified as a unique challenge for RECs [ 16 , 17 ]. Doerr and Meeder (2022) suggested that current regulatory frameworks for research ethics might actually prevent RECs from adequately addressing such issues, as they are deemed out of scope of REC review [ 16 ]. Furthermore, research in the United Kingdom and Canada has suggested that researchers using AI methods for health tend to distinguish between ethical issues and social impact of their research, adopting an overly narrow view of what constitutes ethical issues in their work [ 18 ].

The challenges for RECs in adequately addressing ethical issues in AI research for health care and public health exceed a straightforward survey of ethical considerations. As Ferretti et al. (2021) contend, some capabilities of RECs adequately cover certain issues in AI-based health research, such as the common occurrence of conflicts of interest where researchers who accept funds from commercial technology providers are implicitly incentivized to produce results that align with commercial interests [ 12 ]. However, some features of REC review require reform to adequately meet ethical needs. Ferretti et al. outlined weaknesses of RECs that are longstanding and those that are novel to AI-related projects, proposing a series of directions for development that are regulatory, procedural, and complementary to REC functionality. The work required on a global scale to update the REC function in response to the demands of research involving AI is substantial.

These issues take greater urgency in the context of global health [ 19 ]. Teixeira da Silva (2022) described the global practice of “ethics dumping”, where researchers from high income countries bring ethically contentious practices to RECs in low-income countries as a strategy to gain approval and move projects forward [ 20 ]. Although not yet systematically documented in AI research for health, risk of ethics dumping in AI research is high. Evidence is already emerging of practices of “health data colonialism”, in which AI researchers and developers from large organizations in high-income countries acquire data to build algorithms in LMICs to avoid stricter regulations [ 21 ]. This specific practice is part of a larger collection of practices that characterize health data colonialism, involving the broader exploitation of data and the populations they represent primarily for commercial gain [ 21 , 22 ]. As an additional complication, AI algorithms trained on data from high-income contexts are unlikely to apply in straightforward ways to LMIC settings [ 21 , 23 ]. In the context of global health, there is widespread acknowledgement about the need to not only enhance the knowledge base of REC members about AI-based methods internationally, but to acknowledge the broader shifts required to encourage their capabilities to more fully address these and other ethical issues associated with AI research for health [ 8 ].

Although RECs are an important part of the story of the ethical governance of AI for global health research, they are not the only part. The responsibilities of supra-national entities such as the World Health Organization, national governments, organizational leaders, commercial AI technology providers, health care professionals, and other groups continue to be worked out internationally. In this context of ongoing work, examining issues that demand attention and strategies to address them remains an urgent and valuable task.

The GFBR is an annual meeting organized by the World Health Organization and supported by the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the South African MRC. The forum aims to bring together ethicists, researchers, policymakers, REC members and other actors to engage with challenges and opportunities specifically related to research ethics. Each year the GFBR meeting includes a series of case studies and keynotes presented in plenary format to an audience of approximately 100 people who have applied and been competitively selected to attend, along with small-group breakout discussions to advance thinking on related issues. The specific topic of the forum changes each year, with past topics including ethical issues in research with people living with mental health conditions (2021), genome editing (2019), and biobanking/data sharing (2018). The forum is intended to remain grounded in the practical challenges of engaging in research ethics, with special interest in low resource settings from a global health perspective. A post-meeting fellowship scheme is open to all LMIC participants, providing a unique opportunity to apply for funding to further explore and address the ethical challenges that are identified during the meeting.

In 2022, the focus of the GFBR was “Ethics of AI in Global Health Research”. The forum consisted of 6 case study presentations (both short and long form) reporting on specific initiatives related to research ethics and AI for health, and 16 governance presentations (both short and long form) reporting on actual approaches to governing AI in different country settings. A keynote presentation from Professor Effy Vayena addressed the topic of the broader context for AI ethics in a rapidly evolving field. A total of 87 participants attended the forum from 31 countries around the world, representing disciplines of bioethics, AI, health policy, health professional practice, research funding, and bioinformatics. The 2-day forum addressed a wide range of themes. The conference report provides a detailed overview of each of the specific topics addressed while a policy paper outlines the cross-cutting themes (both documents are available at the GFBR website: https://www.gfbr.global/past-meetings/16th-forum-cape-town-south-africa-29-30-november-2022/ ). As opposed to providing a detailed summary in this paper, we aim to briefly highlight central issues raised, solutions proposed, and the challenges facing the research ethics community in the years to come.

In this way, our primary aim in this paper is to present a synthesis of the challenges and opportunities raised at the GFBR meeting and in the planning process, followed by our reflections as a group of authors on their significance for governance leaders in the coming years. We acknowledge that the views represented at the meeting and in our results are a partial representation of the universe of views on this topic; however, the GFBR leadership invested a great deal of resources in convening a deeply diverse and thoughtful group of researchers and practitioners working on themes of bioethics related to AI for global health including those based in LMICs. We contend that it remains rare to convene such a strong group for an extended time and believe that many of the challenges and opportunities raised demand attention for more ethical futures of AI for health. Nonetheless, our results are primarily descriptive and are thus not explicitly grounded in a normative argument. We make effort in the Discussion section to contextualize our results by describing their significance and connecting them to broader efforts to reform global health research and practice.

Uniquely important ethical issues for AI in global health research

Presentations and group dialogue over the course of the forum raised several issues for consideration, and here we describe four overarching themes for the ethical governance of AI in global health research. Brief descriptions of each issue can be found in Table  1 . Reports referred to throughout the paper are available at the GFBR website provided above.

The first overarching thematic issue relates to the appropriateness of building AI technologies in response to health-related challenges in the first place. Case study presentations referred to initiatives where AI technologies were highly appropriate, such as in ear shape biometric identification to more accurately link electronic health care records to individual patients in Zambia (Alinani Simukanga). Although important ethical issues were raised with respect to privacy, trust, and community engagement in this initiative, the AI-based solution was appropriately matched to the challenge of accurately linking electronic records to specific patient identities. In contrast, forum participants raised questions about the appropriateness of an initiative using AI to improve the quality of handwashing practices in an acute care hospital in India (Niyoshi Shah), which led to gaming the algorithm. Overall, participants acknowledged the dangers of techno-solutionism, in which AI researchers and developers treat AI technologies as the most obvious solutions to problems that in actuality demand much more complex strategies to address [ 24 ]. However, forum participants agreed that RECs in different contexts have differing degrees of power to raise issues of the appropriateness of an AI-based intervention.

The second overarching thematic issue related to whether and how AI-based systems transfer from one national health context to another. One central issue raised by a number of case study presentations related to the challenges of validating an algorithm with data collected in a local environment. For example, one case study presentation described a project that would involve the collection of personally identifiable data for sensitive group identities, such as tribe, clan, or religion, in the jurisdictions involved (South Africa, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and the US; Gakii Masunga). Doing so would enable the team to ensure that those groups were adequately represented in the dataset to ensure the resulting algorithm was not biased against specific community groups when deployed in that context. However, some members of these communities might desire to be represented in the dataset, whereas others might not, illustrating the need to balance autonomy and inclusivity. It was also widely recognized that collecting these data is an immense challenge, particularly when historically oppressive practices have led to a low-trust environment for international organizations and the technologies they produce. It is important to note that in some countries such as South Africa and Rwanda, it is illegal to collect information such as race and tribal identities, re-emphasizing the importance for cultural awareness and avoiding “one size fits all” solutions.

The third overarching thematic issue is related to understanding accountabilities for both the impacts of AI technologies and governance decision-making regarding their use. Where global health research involving AI leads to longer-term harms that might fall outside the usual scope of issues considered by a REC, who is to be held accountable, and how? This question was raised as one that requires much further attention, with law being mixed internationally regarding the mechanisms available to hold researchers, innovators, and their institutions accountable over the longer term. However, it was recognized in breakout group discussion that many jurisdictions are developing strong data protection regimes related specifically to international collaboration for research involving health data. For example, Kenya’s Data Protection Act requires that any internationally funded projects have a local principal investigator who will hold accountability for how data are shared and used [ 25 ]. The issue of research partnerships with commercial entities was raised by many participants in the context of accountability, pointing toward the urgent need for clear principles related to strategies for engagement with commercial technology companies in global health research.

The fourth and final overarching thematic issue raised here is that of consent. The issue of consent was framed by the widely shared recognition that models of individual, explicit consent might not produce a supportive environment for AI innovation that relies on the secondary uses of health-related datasets to build AI algorithms. Given this recognition, approaches such as community oversight of health data uses were suggested as a potential solution. However, the details of implementing such community oversight mechanisms require much further attention, particularly given the unique perspectives on health data in different country settings in global health research. Furthermore, some uses of health data do continue to require consent. One case study of South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda suggested that when health data are shared across borders, individual consent remains necessary when data is transferred from certain countries (Nezerith Cengiz). Broader clarity is necessary to support the ethical governance of health data uses for AI in global health research.

Recommendations for ethical governance of AI in global health research

Dialogue at the forum led to a range of suggestions for promoting ethical conduct of AI research for global health, related to the various roles of actors involved in the governance of AI research broadly defined. The strategies are written for actors we refer to as “governance leaders”, those people distributed throughout the AI for global health research ecosystem who are responsible for ensuring the ethical and socially responsible conduct of global health research involving AI (including researchers themselves). These include RECs, government regulators, health care leaders, health professionals, corporate social accountability officers, and others. Enacting these strategies would bolster the ethical governance of AI for global health more generally, enabling multiple actors to fulfill their roles related to governing research and development activities carried out across multiple organizations, including universities, academic health sciences centers, start-ups, and technology corporations. Specific suggestions are summarized in Table  2 .

First, forum participants suggested that governance leaders including RECs, should remain up to date on recent advances in the regulation of AI for health. Regulation of AI for health advances rapidly and takes on different forms in jurisdictions around the world. RECs play an important role in governance, but only a partial role; it was deemed important for RECs to acknowledge how they fit within a broader governance ecosystem in order to more effectively address the issues within their scope. Not only RECs but organizational leaders responsible for procurement, researchers, and commercial actors should all commit to efforts to remain up to date about the relevant approaches to regulating AI for health care and public health in jurisdictions internationally. In this way, governance can more adequately remain up to date with advances in regulation.

Second, forum participants suggested that governance leaders should focus on ethical governance of health data as a basis for ethical global health AI research. Health data are considered the foundation of AI development, being used to train AI algorithms for various uses [ 26 ]. By focusing on ethical governance of health data generation, sharing, and use, multiple actors will help to build an ethical foundation for AI development among global health researchers.

Third, forum participants believed that governance processes should incorporate AI impact assessments where appropriate. An AI impact assessment is the process of evaluating the potential effects, both positive and negative, of implementing an AI algorithm on individuals, society, and various stakeholders, generally over time frames specified in advance of implementation [ 27 ]. Although not all types of AI research in global health would warrant an AI impact assessment, this is especially relevant for those studies aiming to implement an AI system for intervention into health care or public health. Organizations such as RECs can use AI impact assessments to boost understanding of potential harms at the outset of a research project, encouraging researchers to more deeply consider potential harms in the development of their study.

Fourth, forum participants suggested that governance decisions should incorporate the use of environmental impact assessments, or at least the incorporation of environment values when assessing the potential impact of an AI system. An environmental impact assessment involves evaluating and anticipating the potential environmental effects of a proposed project to inform ethical decision-making that supports sustainability [ 28 ]. Although a relatively new consideration in research ethics conversations [ 29 ], the environmental impact of building technologies is a crucial consideration for the public health commitment to environmental sustainability. Governance leaders can use environmental impact assessments to boost understanding of potential environmental harms linked to AI research projects in global health over both the shorter and longer terms.

Fifth, forum participants suggested that governance leaders should require stronger transparency in the development of AI algorithms in global health research. Transparency was considered essential in the design and development of AI algorithms for global health to ensure ethical and accountable decision-making throughout the process. Furthermore, whether and how researchers have considered the unique contexts into which such algorithms may be deployed can be surfaced through stronger transparency, for example in describing what primary considerations were made at the outset of the project and which stakeholders were consulted along the way. Sharing information about data provenance and methods used in AI development will also enhance the trustworthiness of the AI-based research process.

Sixth, forum participants suggested that governance leaders can encourage or require community engagement at various points throughout an AI project. It was considered that engaging patients and communities is crucial in AI algorithm development to ensure that the technology aligns with community needs and values. However, participants acknowledged that this is not a straightforward process. Effective community engagement requires lengthy commitments to meeting with and hearing from diverse communities in a given setting, and demands a particular set of skills in communication and dialogue that are not possessed by all researchers. Encouraging AI researchers to begin this process early and build long-term partnerships with community members is a promising strategy to deepen community engagement in AI research for global health. One notable recommendation was that research funders have an opportunity to incentivize and enable community engagement with funds dedicated to these activities in AI research in global health.

Seventh, forum participants suggested that governance leaders can encourage researchers to build strong, fair partnerships between institutions and individuals across country settings. In a context of longstanding imbalances in geopolitical and economic power, fair partnerships in global health demand a priori commitments to share benefits related to advances in medical technologies, knowledge, and financial gains. Although enforcement of this point might be beyond the remit of RECs, commentary will encourage researchers to consider stronger, fairer partnerships in global health in the longer term.

Eighth, it became evident that it is necessary to explore new forms of regulatory experimentation given the complexity of regulating a technology of this nature. In addition, the health sector has a series of particularities that make it especially complicated to generate rules that have not been previously tested. Several participants highlighted the desire to promote spaces for experimentation such as regulatory sandboxes or innovation hubs in health. These spaces can have several benefits for addressing issues surrounding the regulation of AI in the health sector, such as: (i) increasing the capacities and knowledge of health authorities about this technology; (ii) identifying the major problems surrounding AI regulation in the health sector; (iii) establishing possibilities for exchange and learning with other authorities; (iv) promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in AI in health; and (vi) identifying the need to regulate AI in this sector and update other existing regulations.

Ninth and finally, forum participants believed that the capabilities of governance leaders need to evolve to better incorporate expertise related to AI in ways that make sense within a given jurisdiction. With respect to RECs, for example, it might not make sense for every REC to recruit a member with expertise in AI methods. Rather, it will make more sense in some jurisdictions to consult with members of the scientific community with expertise in AI when research protocols are submitted that demand such expertise. Furthermore, RECs and other approaches to research governance in jurisdictions around the world will need to evolve in order to adopt the suggestions outlined above, developing processes that apply specifically to the ethical governance of research using AI methods in global health.

Research involving the development and implementation of AI technologies continues to grow in global health, posing important challenges for ethical governance of AI in global health research around the world. In this paper we have summarized insights from the 2022 GFBR, focused specifically on issues in research ethics related to AI for global health research. We summarized four thematic challenges for governance related to AI in global health research and nine suggestions arising from presentations and dialogue at the forum. In this brief discussion section, we present an overarching observation about power imbalances that frames efforts to evolve the role of governance in global health research, and then outline two important opportunity areas as the field develops to meet the challenges of AI in global health research.

Dialogue about power is not unfamiliar in global health, especially given recent contributions exploring what it would mean to de-colonize global health research, funding, and practice [ 30 , 31 ]. Discussions of research ethics applied to AI research in global health contexts are deeply infused with power imbalances. The existing context of global health is one in which high-income countries primarily located in the “Global North” charitably invest in projects taking place primarily in the “Global South” while recouping knowledge, financial, and reputational benefits [ 32 ]. With respect to AI development in particular, recent examples of digital colonialism frame dialogue about global partnerships, raising attention to the role of large commercial entities and global financial capitalism in global health research [ 21 , 22 ]. Furthermore, the power of governance organizations such as RECs to intervene in the process of AI research in global health varies widely around the world, depending on the authorities assigned to them by domestic research governance policies. These observations frame the challenges outlined in our paper, highlighting the difficulties associated with making meaningful change in this field.

Despite these overarching challenges of the global health research context, there are clear strategies for progress in this domain. Firstly, AI innovation is rapidly evolving, which means approaches to the governance of AI for health are rapidly evolving too. Such rapid evolution presents an important opportunity for governance leaders to clarify their vision and influence over AI innovation in global health research, boosting the expertise, structure, and functionality required to meet the demands of research involving AI. Secondly, the research ethics community has strong international ties, linked to a global scholarly community that is committed to sharing insights and best practices around the world. This global community can be leveraged to coordinate efforts to produce advances in the capabilities and authorities of governance leaders to meaningfully govern AI research for global health given the challenges summarized in our paper.

Limitations

Our paper includes two specific limitations that we address explicitly here. First, it is still early in the lifetime of the development of applications of AI for use in global health, and as such, the global community has had limited opportunity to learn from experience. For example, there were many fewer case studies, which detail experiences with the actual implementation of an AI technology, submitted to GFBR 2022 for consideration than was expected. In contrast, there were many more governance reports submitted, which detail the processes and outputs of governance processes that anticipate the development and dissemination of AI technologies. This observation represents both a success and a challenge. It is a success that so many groups are engaging in anticipatory governance of AI technologies, exploring evidence of their likely impacts and governing technologies in novel and well-designed ways. It is a challenge that there is little experience to build upon of the successful implementation of AI technologies in ways that have limited harms while promoting innovation. Further experience with AI technologies in global health will contribute to revising and enhancing the challenges and recommendations we have outlined in our paper.

Second, global trends in the politics and economics of AI technologies are evolving rapidly. Although some nations are advancing detailed policy approaches to regulating AI more generally, including for uses in health care and public health, the impacts of corporate investments in AI and political responses related to governance remain to be seen. The excitement around large language models (LLMs) and large multimodal models (LMMs) has drawn deeper attention to the challenges of regulating AI in any general sense, opening dialogue about health sector-specific regulations. The direction of this global dialogue, strongly linked to high-profile corporate actors and multi-national governance institutions, will strongly influence the development of boundaries around what is possible for the ethical governance of AI for global health. We have written this paper at a point when these developments are proceeding rapidly, and as such, we acknowledge that our recommendations will need updating as the broader field evolves.

Ultimately, coordination and collaboration between many stakeholders in the research ethics ecosystem will be necessary to strengthen the ethical governance of AI in global health research. The 2022 GFBR illustrated several innovations in ethical governance of AI for global health research, as well as several areas in need of urgent attention internationally. This summary is intended to inform international and domestic efforts to strengthen research ethics and support the evolution of governance leadership to meet the demands of AI in global health research.

Data availability

All data and materials analyzed to produce this paper are available on the GFBR website: https://www.gfbr.global/past-meetings/16th-forum-cape-town-south-africa-29-30-november-2022/ .

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the outstanding contributions of the attendees of GFBR 2022 in Cape Town, South Africa. This paper is authored by members of the GFBR 2022 Planning Committee. We would like to acknowledge additional members Tamra Lysaght, National University of Singapore, and Niresh Bhagwandin, South African Medical Research Council, for their input during the planning stages and as reviewers of the applications to attend the Forum.

This work was supported by Wellcome [222525/Z/21/Z], the US National Institutes of Health, the UK Medical Research Council (part of UK Research and Innovation), and the South African Medical Research Council through funding to the Global Forum on Bioethics in Research.

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Caesar A. Atuire

Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

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Health Ethics & Governance Unit, Research for Health Department, Science Division, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

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JS led the writing, contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. JA contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. CA contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. PYC contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. AE contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. JWG contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. AH contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. DJ contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. KL contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. DP contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper. EV contributed to conceptualization and analysis, critically reviewed and provided feedback on drafts of this paper, and provided final approval of the paper.

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Shaw, J., Ali, J., Atuire, C.A. et al. Research ethics and artificial intelligence for global health: perspectives from the global forum on bioethics in research. BMC Med Ethics 25 , 46 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-024-01044-w

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Received : 31 October 2023

Accepted : 01 April 2024

Published : 18 April 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12910-024-01044-w

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