Lee Robin De Lara                                                                                          11-STEM A

Rachel Anne Urbano

“Alarming rate of out of school youth in the Philippines”

            One in every ten Filipinos aged 6 to 24 years is an out of school youth child. The number or elementary and high school dropouts have risen. The government has implemented numerous programs to make education more accessible to the youth but it doesn’t ensure that Filipinos students are able to complete their basic education. The most common reasons among out of school youth for not attending school were family matters, high cost of education or financial concern and, lack of personal interest. Another huge factor for out of school youth is teenage pregnancy. What complicates the already complicated situation even more is then lack of adolescent sexual and reproductive health education. This lack of knowledge compounds the tendency for risky sexual behavior among the youth. Poverty is also the reason from keeping the children from getting good education. Children who learn to earn at an early stage seem to drop out of school because they do not see the immediate value of finishing high school education or getting a degree. Even most education is free still, many Filipinos cannot afford still to go to school because of the lack of essential needs like bag, notebooks, paper, writing materials. We cannot really deny the fact that the Philippines is a third world country where poverty is eminent and the hardships of life is in one package deal already. To very poor people they can barely even afford to eat a complete and sufficient meal a day that's why surviving is more important for them than investing for the education for their children.  With that being the obvious, The Filipino government does not have the ability to give a good and standard education wherein the poorest of the poor are supported.  The Government does try to give the needs of the students like books, classrooms and a teacher that would facilitate the learners, but this is not enough for the children who are being squeezed into tiny classrooms that has a population of over 70 students. It is often looked past on but the environment of the learner has also an impact because students are discourage to go to schools when their surrounding is not fit enough for learning.  That’s only a few of the factors that affect the out of school youths in the Philippines, it can vary from unsupportable parents to plain old peer pressure and even child labor. At the end, Education is a vital part of our life.  It doesn’t just decide what we become in the future but gives us knowledge of the world around us and changes it into something better.