DAVAO CITY – The local heads in Davao Region are urged to improve their programs and supports to the education system following a survey result that revealed a high rate of out-of-school youth in the region.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) recently released the results of the 2013 Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey (FLEMMS), showing that Region XI was third among the regions to have the highest rate of OSY in the entire country.
With 12.2 per cent of OSY aged 6-24 years old, Davao Region, followed the trail of Region XII or the SOCCSKSARGEN area with 12.3% and Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao with the highest rate of 14.4%.
Aside from Davao and SOCCSKSARGEN, Central Luzon, Zamboanga Peninsula, Caraga and MIMAROPA have a higher percentage of out-of-school children and youth as compared to the national figure of 10.6%.
The percentage of out-of-school children and youth is lowest in CAR with 7.1%.
In a Philippine Information Agency dispatch, PSA Demographic and Health Statistics division chief Benedicta A. Yabut said the local government has a very crucial role to strengthen its education program.
“It’s a wake-up call for the LCEs to exert efforts in the existing education programs,” Yabut said.
According to PSA, the OSY children and youth are school age children and youth who are unable to avail of the education opportunities of the normal school system or who dropped out of formal elementary or secondary education (RA 9155).
OSY children are defined in the FLEMMS as persons aged 6 to 14 years who are not attending school. Out-of-school youth as persons aged 15 to 24 years who are not attending school, have not finished any college or post secondary course, and are not working.
The 2013 FLEMMS results also showed that seven out of 10 youth in the 16-24 age group are not currently attending school, and the primary reason was employment or looking for work with 26 percent.
DepEd Region XI Planning and Research Division chief Marilyn Madraso said the results revealed a big discrepancy in the number of enrollees from elementary to secondary public schools.
Madraso said that the enrollees in the primary schools in school year 2014-2015 reached to 796,705, while only 273,836 were enrolled in high school.
In the current school year (2015-2016), the elementary students attending school are 791,036, while only 283,776 are in high school, she said.
The other FLEMMS results revealed that around 27 percent of the estimated 4.2 million six years old and over in Davao Region had attended elementary grades but did not complete the elementary level.
Although with the quite high rate of 95.2% of the population of 10 years old and over are basically literate, Yabut said the basic literacy rate of the region did not significantly improved from 2008 to 2013.
The basic literacy rate among females (96.4 %) is higher compared to their male counterpart (94.1 %), the 2013 FLEMMS results bared.
Basic simple literacy is defined as the ability of a person to read and write with understanding a simple message in any language or dialect. (davaotoday.com)
