Villar wants education targets set

Senate President Manny Villar filed Senate Bill 2366 seeking to guarantee the sending of all Filipino children and youth to elementary and high school.

Entitled, "No Filipino Child Left Behind Act," the proposed measure sets the following crucial objectives:

• By 2012, all Filipino children of compulsory age must have completed elementary education;

• By 2016, all Filipinos must have obtained and completed high school education.

Villar said, "It is a declared policy of the State to protect and promote the right of citizens to quality education and take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all."

"This measure seeks to ensure the full realization of the constitutional right of all citizens to quality education, with a concrete plan and timetable laid out," he stressed.

The bill provides for the allocation of P10 billion more to the existing budget of the Department of Education to realize the educational goals.

"Without diminishing their entitlements, all members of Congress must appropriate 30 percent of their congressional initiatives to education-related projects in their respective districts," the proposed measure likewise states.

The Senate President and Nacionalista Party president said, "By leading all our Filipino children and youth to the ladder of essential education, we are equipping them with the ammunition necessary to advance in life."

Villar, who himself struggled as a poor boy from Tondo to get education and eventually earned his degree from the University of the Philippines, stressed that concrete support must be given to all Filipino children and youth to enable them to obtain education.