Juan Carlos Eusebio

Lyceum of the Philippines University Intramuros, Manila A.Y- Looking into the Quality of Education in the Philippines: A Study of USAID and its Assistance in the Educational Sector of the Philippines In partial fulfilment of the requirements in REMN10R – Research Methods Prepared by: Eusebio, Juan Carlos Submitted to: Prof. Jessa Frida Tobias Festijo 1 Table of Contents Page Title Page 1 CHAPTER I 4 Introduction 4 Background of the Study 6 Statement of the Problem 8 Significance of the Study 9 Objectives of the Study 9 Scope and Limitation of the Study 10 Definition of Terms 10 CHAPTER II 11 Introduction 11 Social Status of the Philippines 11 The start of USAID assistance to the Philippines 16 USAID Educational Assistance 19 Liberalism and Foreign Aid 22 Effects of Foreign Aid 23 Debates on Foreign Aid 25 CHAPTER III 27 Research Design 27 Research Instrument 27 Research Procedure 29 Conceptual Framework 30 2 Research Location 33 Interview 34 Ethical Consideration 34 CHAPTER IV 36 Introduction 36 Presentation of the Semi-structured Interview Data 36 CHAPTER V 52 Summary 52 Conclusion 53 Recommendation 54 References 55 Appendix A 63 Appendix B 65 3 Chapter I Introduction In any part in the world, there is an existing and widening gap between the rich and the poor. In fact, based on the Anti-poverty Charity Oxfam's study (Elliott and Pilkington, 2015), the share of the world’s wealth owned by 1% of the wealthiest people has increased from 44% in 2009 to 48% in 2014, while the 80% least wealthy people currently just own 5.5%. We cannot deny the fact that there are wealthy and highly developed nations while on the other hand, poor and less developed nations also exist. It is also important to take note that countries that are less developed are often related to poverty. The United Nations Human Development Report (1998) defined poverty as a complex phenomenon that generally refers to inadequacy of resources and deprivation of choices that would enable people to enjoy decent living conditions. According to the National Development Plan, elements of a decent standard living include proper nutrition, housing, water, sanitation, electricity and transport. Having a clean environment, safety and security, education and employment are also considered as elements of a decent standard of living. All of these, if not, some, are what less developed countries are lacking. Based on the reports of Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on the official poverty statistics of the country (Yap, 2016), the poverty incidence among Filipinos for the first semester of 2015 was approximately at 26.3 percent. On the same period in 2012, Filipino’s poverty incidence was recorded at 27.9 percent. For the past four decades moderate poverty reduction has been much slower than in neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Education is the first stage in order to fulfil a desired profession. There are a lot of jobs that require an educational background in order to be qualified into plenty of opportunities, most notably, professional jobs. In developing countries like the Philippines, in order to have a proper education, a student that would like to pursue it must have the financial capabilities to do so. Fortunately, such organizations like the USAID have programs that help poor countries generate schools and classrooms to remote areas in order for the communities that live in those areas gain access to good quality education. According to a blog made by the editors of Global Partnership for Education, there are evidences from the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report and the Education Commission’s Learning Generation Report that could be very helpful. According to the blog, there are five (5) ways that education could help end extreme poverty. First, by just attaining 4 basic education or the basic reading skills, 171 million people could get out of extreme poverty. Second, education increases individual earnings, most jobs currently require an educational background, according to the gathered data, for every $1 dollar spent on education, the earnings of the individuals from low-income countries earn $2.5 dollars for every dollar that they have invested in education. Third, education reduces economic inequalities; if the poor receive the same educational background that of the rich people currently receives then the inequality would decrease by as much as 39% according to the blog. The quality in education for every person is very important. Fourth, education promotes economic growth. Most developing countries have made plenty of job opportunities because of massive infrastructures that are currently being made, but after the infrastructures are built, where will the builders go? The importance of quality education answers the question because basic education might produce jobs but not long lasting jobs, but with having a quality education, those that have gained it will be protected and will have long lasting job experiences and opportunities along the way. And lastly, education helps save the planet, the author of the blog pointed out that due to climate changes in the near future, workers must be highly skilled and educated. The reason is that green industries will trend in the future because of climate change, in order to run green industries, the workers must be on-par with the technological advancements of green industries. People are entitled to a decent way of life even though poverty exists. The journey to a world where poverty will cease to exist will take time but the road has already started. Foreign aid can be defined as the international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or international organization for the benefit of the recipient country or its population. The components of aid can be economic, military, or emergency humanitarian. The most common type of foreign aid is Official Development Assistance (ODA), it is an assistance given to boost development and to eradicate poverty. The primary source of ODA is from bilateral grants from one country to another. However, some forms of aid are from loans which are channelled through International Organizations and Non-Government Organizations. President Kennedy acknowledged the need to unite development into a single agency responsible for administering aid and assistance to foreign countries to promote social and economic development and eradicate poverty. During 1950s, the first concept of the foreign assistance to developing countries was adapted by the main concern of the world leaders to rebuild the world economy destroyed by the Second World War and to promote economic development worldwide. Throughout the years, foreign aid developed its main goals through poverty reduction and facilitating economic and institutional development in developing 5 countries. Official Development Assistance (ODA) is the most common measure of foreign aid which is reported through OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC). DAC members give the most aid to developing countries. In a Resolution on Common Aid Effort adopted in London on 1961, the DAC members which benefit the needs of developing countries also benefit themselves by increasing economic and technical assistance and by adapting this to the needs and requirements of developing countries. Proponents argue that foreign aid can help decrease poverty by subsidizing the core inputs to development such as education, health care, humanitarian assistance, and environmental sustainability (United Nations, 2004). USAID was built-in on November 3, 1961, with it an essence of advance and development. USAID plays a crucial role in the effort to ballast the poor countries with a specific end goal to meet the aims of rationalizing humanitarian disasters and directing to lessen the poverty. USAID, the leading global advancement arm of the U.S., utilizes thousands of experts with profession in a broad range of areas and geographical zones. In the past, the significance of USAID expansion programs in addressing security hazard has been argued by the Department of Defense secretaries. In addition, it is a main facilitator of welfare and strategic administrative reinforcement to security goals. It is more focuses on building reliability and addressing services on stable development. However, its main role is to advocate large-scale human growth. Today, USAID works with different countries. It works on reinforcing democracy in the effort to enhance international wellness and delivering food stability. Background of the Study In 2007, the global financial and economic crisis have started in the U.S. and spread to many other developed countries as well as to developing countries. It resulted into inadequate export incomes, lower asset and GDP increase rates and decrease of employment. In the social effect, the decreasing growth would lead into greater level of poverty and slower the Millennium Development Goals’ development (Velde, 2008).The Philippines was not able to escape the adverse consequences of the crisis. Problems pertaining to poverty and inequality have always been a recurring challenge to the Philippines and have yet to become more challenging than ever in light of the rising food, fuel, and commodity prices. According to the reports of the United Nations (U.N.), the Republic of the Philippines has one of the highest poverty rates in Asia despite a steady decline. According to the data from the Asian Development Bank, the Philippines was ranked as the third country having the highest rate of 6 poverty incidence among the Southeast Asian countries in 2015. The first country was Myanmar with 25.6%, the second country was Lao People’s Democratic Republic having 23.2%, and the Philippines, based on the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) had the poverty incidence estimated at 21.6%. The PSA reports also stated that five among the nine basic sectors stand as having the highest poverty incidence than the general population. Among the five basic sectors, farmers (with 34.3%), fishermen (with 34.0%), and children (with 31.4%) belonging to poor families have the highest poverty incidences in 2015.This approximate is affect the government of the Philippines because it shows that poverty level have still prevailed comparatively unchanged regardless of the government’s intended efforts. The U.S. foreign assistance purpose is to improve lives in the developing countries and this is carried out by the United States Agency for International Development or commonly known as USAID. The USAID promotes shared economic prosperity, improve environment sustainability, help societies prevent and recover from conflicts, advance food security and provide humanitarian assistance in the wake of natural and man -made disasters. The mission of the USAID highlights two complementary goals which are ending extreme poverty and promoting resilient democratic societies in order to realize the country’s true potential of growth. The USAID does not only focus on alleviating poverty but also in addressing issues about hunger and food insecurity, ill-health and vulnerability. Given these help that the USAID is providing for different countries especially to the developing countries, it is also important to take note of the assistance that USAID has already given to the Philippines when it comes to education in order to further understand its relevance. Since 1946, the United States has always been of great help to the Philippines especially in terms of giving assistance in achieving development in infrastructure, increasing agricultural productivity and economic growth, improving health and nutrition and fostering democracy and decentralization. According to the 2011 Partnership for Growth Statement of Principles, the partnership of the United States and the Philippines shows the same interest of both countries in terms of promoting inclusive and economic growth in the Philippines and making the Philippines a prosperous nation. In 2015, the largest Bilateral Assistance Agreement for Basic Education was signed by the government of the U.S. and the Philippines which will help improve literacy and numeracy in the country. The five-year Agreement will develop writing and reading skills for one million Filipino children. Approximately US$25.33 million was donated in Primary Education, and half of this amount US$12.49 million, went to the BasaPilipinas project of the USAID. 7 Through this project, the US advances learning and teaching materials, development of appropriate materials, and English books for local teachers to use for their Grades 1-3 pupils. Another US$5.35 million in US aid was also spent for Higher Education. Through USAID, the bilateral education agreement will sustain with combined efforts of the Philippines’ government to enhance the access of quality assurance in educational system. In the partnership with the Department of Education, USAID works to encourage the Philippine Government’s Every-Child-A-Reader Program to improve reading result of the youth Filipino, English and preferred native languages. In order to fulfill this, USAID developed the quality of reading structure, precaution of computers and school articles, improvisation and reconstruction of classrooms, technological facilitation to enhance guidelines, utilization of school activities, and living ability practice for out-of-school youth. Statement of the Problem The United States has been giving foreign assistance through USAID to countries like the Philippines over the past years. Organizations such as USAID plays a crucial role in the effort to lessen the widening gap of the rich and poor countries by helping developing countries achieve a desirable growth. A good example of this is the USAID Philippines basic education project known as BasaPilipinas in support of the Philippine Government’s early grade reading program. This program promotes development for teachers training support for reading and accessibility for reading materials to use in USAID-assisted schools. Evaluation results in 2015 showed that USAID’s intervention, through Basa, helped increased the fluency of students by an additional nine words per minute and reading comprehension gains by 23 percent. Despite the good intentions of USAID as mentioned herein, questions are arising as to whether or not Philippines can lower poverty levels through good quality education and achieve social development without the assistances coming from USAID. Particularly, the researchers have the following problems: 1. How does this assistance help the Philippines achieve good quality education? 2. What are the factors that serve as hindrances to the objectives of foreign assistance which is to improve lives in the developing countries? 3. Can Philippines achieve good quality education and social development without the assistances coming from USAID? 8 Significance of the Study The findings of this study will provide insights on the effects of foreign assistance to the quality of education in developing countries specifically the Philippines. This study will also serve as a ground in order to determine the significant relation of international community and cooperation. Through this study, the citizens of the Philippines may ponder on their views regarding foreign assistance and its impact to our country and promote widespread discussion among citizens enabling them in staying informed about the issues that affect the country thus, making them a little bit closer to being a good and responsible citizen. This research aims to show the importance of education to the Filipino community. The researchers believe that the Philippine government needs to give more emphasis to the quality of education because it is not enough to just build schools and classrooms, rather, the learning that will hone the knowledge, skills and talent of the students is more important. Developing countries often have high poverty levels. Foreign assistance has long been recognized as a crucial factor in helping developing nations eliminate, if not, at least lessen poverty. Assume on the underlying presumption that assistance works in diminishing poverty are the many constructive aims that aid is supposed to obtain. Nevertheless, for many decades, the potency of aid in decreasing poverty and attaining other relevant issue of social progress outcomes has still been questioned. The researchers assume that there are factors that serve as a hindrance to the objectives of foreign assistance which is to improve lives in the developing countries thus preventing Philippines lessen poverty through good quality education. Corruption, unequal allocation of assistance coming from USAID or other foreign aid organizations and ineffective governance are the factors that the researchers consider as obstacles in achieving its goals. Objectives of the Study To study the significant relation of foreign assistance to poverty reduction and social development, this study aims to collect valid and reliable information regarding the importance of assistance coming from USAID in lessening poverty levels through good quality education in the Philippines. Particularly, the study has the following specific objectives: • To understand how the assistance help the Philippines achieve good quality education • To identify what are the factors that serve as hindrances to the objectives of foreign assistance which is to improve lives in the developing countries. 9 • To know whether or not the Philippines can achieve good quality education and social development without the assistances coming from USAID. Scope and Limitation of the Study The time series data for this study covers a period of 5-10 years from 2007 up to present. This has limited the study in analyzing a reasonably lengthy period. Furthermore, the data for different assistances given by USAID to the Philippines will tackle development in terms of social progress through good quality education only. Assistance that enabled individuals, families, groups and communities in the Philippines to overcome social problems through education will be the main focus of the research. Definition of Terms • Chronic Poverty - it is a phenomenon whereby an individual or group is experiencing poverty over an extended period of time. • Social Development - it is a term for enhancement of the wellness of every individual in a group or a society in order to reach their full potential that is driven by good quality education. • Dutch Disease - it is a negative impact on an economy that emphasizes the rise to a sharp inflow of foreign currency. • Millennium Development Goals - it is the world's time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in many dimensions income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion-while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. • MNCH or Maternal, Newborn and Child Health - it is the largest component of the Millenium Developmenr Goals' activities, focusing on maternal and newborn health, child health, immunization, nutrition, and health promotion. The purpose of MNCH is to support societal health planning and service delivery in order to scale-up and strengthen access to health services. • Official Development Assistance – it is a loan or a grant administered with the objective of promoting sustainable social and economic development and welfare in the Philippines. • Poverty Incidence - it is the number of households living below the poverty rate. 10 Chapter II Introduction Ever since the second World War occurred, countries who are privilege enough to be included in the groups of high income countries, has been recognizing foreign aid as one of the most significant tools in assisting low income countries to achieve a desirable economic growth and improve lives of the people. The United Nations General Assembly highlighted in a 1970 resolution the responsibility of rich countries to aim to give 0.7% of their GNP to low income countries in the form of official development aid or ODA. “In recognition of the special importance of the role that can be fulfilled only by official development assistance, a major part of financial resource transfers to the developing countries should be provided in the form of official development assistance. Each economically advanced country will progressively increase its official development assistance to the developing countries and will exert its best efforts to reach a minimum net amount of 0.7 percent of its gross national product at market prices by the middle of the decade.” (UN 1970, paragraph 43) From the timeline of 1960 to 2013, developing countries received at least 3.5 trillion dollars (2009 USD) from developed countries. However, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) flows, the goal to reach 0.7% was only met by seven countries. Consequently, this commitment was re-stated in the Millennium Development Goals. Sixteen countries who are members of the OECD DAC have agreed to this commitment. Social Status of the Philippines The Philippines as one of the developing countries, has achieved average economic growth in present years which results on a slow reduction on poverty. Inequality serves as a factor which alleviates the positive impact on the development of poverty reduction. According to the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the lowest record of poverty incidence in the Philippines has attained a record of 26.3% during the first semester of 2015. Up until then, the level of poverty incidence had been unaltered since 2006. The poverty incidence in the Philippines increased from 26.4% in 2006 up to 26.5% in 2009. This result 11 was from the wide range of factors such as, catastrophic typhoons, the 2008 food crisis, and the global financial crisis in 2009. According to the data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), a decreased output of 1.6 percentage which was estimated from 27.9% in 2012 to 26.3% in the first semester of 2015, resulted in an increase with poverty and food thresholds. The poverty threshold contains non-food expenses or basic needs such as, housing, clothing, health, transportation, and education. During the first semester of 2015, a family with five members has the necessity of at least ₱9, 140 ($197) in a month for their basic food and non-food expenses. Food threshold refers to a minimum income that is required to purchase enough basic food items that are satisfies the sufficient nutritional prerequisites set by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI). As stated by the PSA figures, the recent poverty and food thresholds stipulate increases with 17 percentage during 2012 levels. Simultaneously, in the first semester of 2015, Filipinos whose incomes descend under the food threshold, was roughly at 12.1% or 1.3 percentage lower than in 2012. One of the main effects of poverty includes the country’s poor development in terms of the education system and also affected the participation in education in different major factors. The factors involving, school distance, social exclusion, and poor health services deeply affect the interest to pursue the studies of the children. The top reason with almost 30 percent of people with 6 to 24 years of age for not pursuing school is employment. Lack of personal interest places in second with approximately 22 percent, the third place is roughly estimated at 19.9 percent, which covers the high cost of education. (Functional Literacy, Education and Mass Media Survey, 2003) Based on the information provided by the Department of Education (DepEd) and the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), 1 out of 6 school-age Filipino children are not included in the list of students who are enrolled. For the academic year-, the Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) or the participation rate of students at the elementary level was 83.2 % which went down by 1.2 percentage points from the foregoing academic year. A high level of discrepancy in education figures among regions with most of embattled Mindanao areas behind urban centers. Despite a 0.38 percent increase in the enrolment of children in 2006 compared to 2005, the figure is lower than expected (National Economic and Development Authority, 2006). 12 There are also other barriers to participation in education example of which are hunger and malnutrition. In the year 2007, the school feeding program of the Department of Education was improved, with additional 300% beneficiaries in comparison to the preceding year. The Food for School Program was implemented which was under the scope of the Accelerated Hunger Mitigation Plan in the endmost quarter of 2005. Despite the DepEd's effort which was shown through the program mentioned herein, the number of Filipino children who are experiencing chronic malnutrition continues to grow. In integration to the slow decrease in poverty incidence, there has been commixed progress in addressing human development concerns, categorically outcomes in the education and health sectors. The government has committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs through pro-poor sustained economic progress as reflected in the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan or MTPDP from 2004 to 2010. Nevertheless, the Philippines is still lacking behind when it comes to determining the targets or specifically the Filipinos in need in order to access primary education, maternal mortality rates, and also the access to reproductive health care. According to Lockheed, Jamison, and Lau, their article defined that education allows employees to be formally paid in order for them to earn higher wages. A year of education is combined with a ten percent increase in wages. Education also affects the structures in food security. A study from 1980 found that the average annual gain in production mixed with four years of schooling was 8.7 percent based on influential analysed data that on the effects of primary education on agricultural production found in 13 countries. The Filipino people give importance to education because it is a vital role in the political, economical, social, and cultural life in the Philippines. Yearly, in every General Appropriations Act, the budget for education always gets the highest amount. However, among the ASEAN countries, the Philippines ranks one of the lowest when it comes to allocating budget for the educational sector, the reasons for it may vary on widespread political issues and countless predicaments that the Philippine government, specifically corruption as one of the root causes. The quality of Philippine education has regressed a few years ago due to poor results from standard entrance examinations that was conducted with elementary and secondary students, as well as the tertiary levels which caused the results to be way below the target average quota. The quality of Philippine education due to increasing number of dropout rates, high number of repeaters, low passing average of grades, lack of 13 particular language skills, failure to sufficiently respond and focus on the needs of people with special needs, overcrowded classrooms, and poor teacher and classroom instructor performances have greatly affected the educational stance. Definitions of Development Development of a country involves all characteristics of the development procedure especially for the developing countries to defeat the challenges that hindrance development. It can be achieved through education, man power development, improving market inducement, assimilating favourable social and political method and practices among other components. Individuals need streamlined economic and social schemes that are capable to achieve progress through major shifts in social systems, national establishments, and cultures as well as poverty elimination, devaluation of income inequality and stimulation of economic development. Development is a hopeful idea that gives a vision for a better future. Development measures and indicators are useful device for measuring growth and distinguishing areas for enhancement. Different countries have different definitions explaining on how to achieve development in their own societies. In the United States of America, they are working to accelerate development through implementing programs that works with people to help build the nation that can endure crisis and to support the sort of development that enhance the quality of life for all. Many UN organizations work on particular aspects of development, such as the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNICEF, UNESCO and the UN Environment Programme. While in Japan, their capability to create independent research and advancement became a conclusive aspect in developing the nation's competitiveness. Japanese were occupied in research and advancement, more than the number of French, British, and West Germans combined. In addition, Japan was also creating more engineers than any country except the Soviet Union and United States. There are also international agencies that help countries to overcome global challenges in order to attain development, such as the World Bank. It deals with the every major areas of growth and development. According to the World Bank Group, increasing economic development provides the basis for growing incomes and employment and also the resources needed by the government to fund programs for community boost. Increasing growth leads to wealth which results to enhance the welfare of the people. 14 Regardless of these definitions and statistics, all countries can apply innovative knowledge and achieve development by through taking action to enlarge opportunities, eradicate inequities and improve well-being for individuals. Scope and Definition of Good Quality Education The Philippines’ interpretation of quality education is stated on the Republic Act of 9155 or AN ACT INSTITUTING A FRAMEWORK OF GOVERNANCE FOR BASIC EDUCATION, ESTABLISHING AUTHORITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY, RENAMING THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, CULTURE AND SPORTS AS THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES under section (4) paragraph 11 that Quality Education is the appropriateness, relevance and excellence of the education given to meet the needs and aspirations of an individual and society. In line with this, the Aquino administration has installed a new system of education that is very common in other nations, the K to 12 program. Then former secretary of Department of Education, Armin Luistro have stated that “Our mandate is to provide every Filipino child with access to quality education,” in order to ensure good quality education and to eradicate poverty. Former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III approached Philippine education as an investment for solving the country’s poverty. In the current Duterte Administration, the Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act was passed into law, this law subsidizes the tuition fees for students in State Universities and Colleges, local universities and colleges, and state-run technical-vocational schools. The passage of this law signifies that the Philippines are focused on making progress within its educational sector especially giving priority to students that are experiencing poverty that cannot afford good quality education. Based on a research from the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, the highest achieving states have strengthened its education for aspiring teachers in order to make them well-prepared as they become professionals. In Scandinavian nations, aspiring teachers from Finland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands have programs for two to three years of graduate-level education. The government allocates the budget for these aspiring teachers’ education. As regards to the quality of education in the Philippines, a former Filipino congresswoman that represented Gabriela partylist and now Department of Social Welfare and Development Undersecretary Luz Ilagan commented about the quality of education that the country lacks because in 2013 there were only four (4) schools that reached the list of top three hundred (300) schools and universities in Asia, the congresswoman stated that “[They make do] with 15 the quality of students they get. So even if the performance is mediocre, they make the students pass. There are only very few colleges that insist on high standards. It’s not common to all,” she also told reporters that the K-12 program of the Aquino administration only added two more years of high school education and that it doesn’t solve the problems of having a scarcity of classrooms and teachers for the upcoming years. Former Rep. Ilagan also pointed out the curriculum and the support system of the said K-12 program should be put into question. In 2013, ACT Teachers representative Antonio Tinio has stated that most highranking universities in Asia were state-funded “In Asia, public universities rule. The lesson here is that in order for our higher education sector to become competitive with the regional front-runners, the government must drastically step up its funding and other support for our state universities and colleges.” The start of USAID assistance to the Philippines The United States Agency for International Development in the Philippines was first established during 1961. The USAID and the Government of the Philippines cooperated together to address the problems that constraints the Philippines from achieving its economic possibilities. The Philippines’ alliance with the United States has been based on deep historical and cultural ties. The Philippines recognizes their relationship with the United States as the key development to increased growth through improved competitiveness, strengthening good governance, poverty reduction, and improved trade and security. And the US considers the Philippines as one of their strongest allies within the Southeast Asian countries. The US and the Philippines addresses the improvement of their partnership through foreign assistance provided by the US. Through foreign assistance the United States aims to provide sustained gains and foster more inclusive economic growth for all Filipinos. “USAID's work accelerates and sustains inclusive growth to support a more prosperous, stable and well-governed nation, fosters peace and stability in conflict-affected areas of Mindanao, and enhances the country’s environmental resilience to climate change, natural disasters and threats to biodiversity.” (USAID, 2017) One of the most significant projects of USAID in the Philippines has been the U.S.Philippines Partnership for Growth. According to USAID Philippines, “Since 2012, the U.S.Philippines Partnership for Growth has addressed the Philippines’ most binding constraints to 16 lasting, shared growth: ineffective governance, insufficient public financing, inadequate infrastructure and weak human capacity.” According to Hiebert, The Philippines is one of just four countries selected for the PFG, a program that has the backing of the former US President Obama. Based on the four constraints, an action and strategic plan was formulated and conducted to improve regulatory quality, that was strengthened during his term, the rule of law and anti-corruption measures, improve fiscal performance, and promote human capacity development in the Philippines. The United States has provided over $739 million worth of support to the program which have lead for the USAID to launch twenty-two (22) projects under the PFG program. USAID’s modern action plan attempts to achieve its goals and programs to make the economic growth of the Philippines more comprehensive through, improved competitiveness and developed infrastructure services; reinforced governance, anti-corruption implementation and electoral processes; improved health services and upgraded access to water and sanitation; conserved environmental management; enhanced access to quality basic education; and increased effective risk reduction and disaster preparedness plan and relief management programs. As regards to environmental resilience, USAID works with the Philippine Government to support and enhance the advancement of natural resource management, promote programs that would reduce disaster risks, consolidate low-emission development strategies in local planning and emergency assistance. In 2013, the USAID rushed assistance to the Philippines for the recovery of the victims of typhoon Yolanda. An emergency response team was sent by USAID and provided supplies including emergency shelter and hygiene materials, to help 10,000 families. Significance of Foreign Aid on Education The significance of education in international development has broadly adopted in international community. Education plays a vital role in the effective socio-economic growth of a country. Foreign assistances help to shape actors, funding levels, policy and programs in the educational sector. Many organizations have found statistical support for the claim that education is critical to improving livelihoods and enhancing economic status in developing countries. Research supports the claim that the advantages of education expand beyond individuals, with multiple 17 effects on the larger community. According to the World Bank, an increase of one standard variation in student reading and math scores is related to a level of increase of two percentage points in annual gross domestic product (GDP) through capita growth. However, empirical results on educational sector also propose substantial differences in aid successfulness relying on political governance. The limited literature on aid successfulness in the education sector illustrate heavily from the universal aid effectiveness literature. For the last 50 years, the question whether progress aid is success in enhancing living circumstances in poor countries has been studied. With the recent data and approximation techniques, authors like Hansen and Tarp (2001), Roodman (2004), and Dalgaard et al. (2004) initiate a positive effect of foreign assistance on development. This is in precisely opposition, however, to Boone’s (1996) and Easterly’s (2001, 2002, 2003, 2006)analyses who criticized that aid is rather unsuccessful. Burnside and Dollar (2000) argue that aid might be effective, but only under beneficial political and organized conditions in recipient countries. Inclusive overviews of the experiential studies are presented by Harms and Lutz (2004), Doucouliagos and Paldam (2006) and McGillivray et al. (2005). The appearing image from these evidences is that aid can have effective impact on growth, however, this link is very vulnerable and that both positive and negative experiential evidence seem to rely critically on selection of data and approximation methods. In other words, no clear concurrence on the issue has appeared so far and no considerable conclusion with respect to the overall impact of aid. An inceptive analysis on positive impact of aid in the education sector was provided by Michaelowa (2004) and Michaelowa and Weber (2007). They carried out some evidence for a total aid effectiveness consumed in the education sector on primary and completion. Their approximation suggest that, normally, one percent increase in aid for education of recipient country’s GDP indicate an increase in primary completion rates by 1.6 percentage points per year. However, this impact is quite small given that overall aid to education as a share of GDP recently shift between 0.3 – 0.5 per cent. According to these estimations, to attain an aid produced increase in primary completion rates by 1.6 percentage points, aid apportion to education will increase at least by 200 per cent. It would reach a 10 per cent increase in primary completion if the aid effort was preserved over about 6 years. In addition, the European Commission in 2010, have analyzed its experience of supporting its aid to developing countries regarding education, the commission emphasized the importance of working hand-on-hand on a whole sectoral approach in order to reinforce the linkages 18 between education and the assurance of being work-ready alongside the stages of early childhood education through the capability of learning not just inside the classrooms but also in the outside world. Foreign aid to education has various programs that could help a developing country to move forward such as school feeding programs, building of school buildings and classrooms, quality education for aspiring teachers, curriculum development which targets different levels of education by utilizing all sorts of plans for aid within the educational sector of a particular developing country. “For educational investments to translate into student learning, all the people involved in the education process have to face the right incentives that make them act in ways that advance student performance”. (Hanushek and Woessman (2007: 79) USAID Educational Assistance Extreme poverty is one of the several factors on the slow development of education globally. Moreover, the number of international learning crises have increased worldwide, also, some 121 million children living in crisis and conflict affected countries are not in school. In addition, nearly two thirds of these affected youths are girls and almost 130 million girls are not in school. USAID’s basic education program has benefited children and youth education system and females make up almost half of it (20.2 million females and 21.4 million males). US assistance to the Philippines has progressed under President Barack Obama and his declaration of the US pivot to the Asia Region. From 2010 to 2014, The US economic aid has progressed by almost 15 percent. The USAID has advocated 151 basic education programs throughout 45 countries that helped to give assistance for more than 41.6 million children and youth. This is based on the annual accomplishments of goals under USAID Education Strategy from 2011 – 2015. (USAID Education, 2017) USAID Education Strategy converges with other U.S government agencies and collaborates with other country governments, civil society, multilateral agencies and some private sectors. USAID together with these partnerships works on assuring access to quality education for all children and youth – especially on developing and poverty-stricken countries. The USAID Education Strategy focuses on working on accomplishing their goals which mainly include, enhancing the reading capacity of the primary grades students, establishing 19 impartial access to education system especially in vulnerable and conflicted areas, innovating and strengthening the education systems for the youth to augment employment opportunities to them which will improve the economic growth of their countries. Most importantly the essential part in achieving this strategy is the effectiveness, accountability, transparency and learning between USAID and their host country partners. Furthermore, USAID cooperates with these global partnerships to produce and accomplish constant improvement for the basic education and learning programs. (USAID Education Strategy Progress Report, 2015) USAID Philippines in partnership with the government of the Philippines also works together in order to target development and advancement in different areas. Some of it includes equal access to quality education, improvements for health programs, and also conflict resolution and implementation of peace and stability in Mindanao. In terms of education, the USAID Philippines provided few programs which would enable the Philippine education system to improve. USAID Philippines implemented a project known as BasaPilipinas. This project functions as the flagship basic education program to support the Philippine government’s early grade reading program. Together with the Department of Education, BasaPilipinas acts as an approach to develop further the implementation of the language and literacy component of students – Grades 1 to 3. It also aims to foster the advancement for teachers training support for reading, also to strengthen their skills as they adopt new teaching strategies, and accessibility for reading materials to be use in USAID-assisted schools. As to date, BasaPilipinas has successfully prepared 12,854 Grades 1 to 3 teachers, to effectively promote new reading strategies. Additionally, Basa granted over four million teaching and reading materials which include teacher’s guides, read alouds, and supplementary English bookstand reading materials (USAID, 2016). Another educational project implemented by USAID Philippines was the “University Partnership Linking Out-of-School Youth to Agri-Entrepreneurship and Development to Promote Job Opportunities for Mindanao (UPLOAD JOBS).” In order to address the key limitations and restrictions to peace and stability in Midsayap, Mindanao, the USAID Philippines established this project that aims to provide skills training and development for the reintegration of out-of-school youths (OSY) and for them to be productive members of the society. UPLOAD JOBS also desires to encourage improvement for the peace and stability in Mindanao by increasing OSY access to relevant life skills and entrepreneurship training, and 20 by reinforcing the capacity of local higher education institution for training service and entrepreneurial instructions for the OSY (USAID, 2015). The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) works with the Department of Education in aiding the Philippine Government’s “Every-Child-A-Reader Program” to improve reading comprehension for elementary students in English and Filipino languages. The avail provides instructional quality for edifiers, fortifies reading systems such as reading recuperation and development of materials, and institutionalizes world-class reading diagnostic materials such as the Early Grade Reading Assessment. The assistance in the culled areas contributes to the ecumenical goal of ameliorating reading skills for 100 million children by 2015. Furthermore, USAID perpetuates to work with the local government units, school boards and school governing councils to ameliorate accountability and transparency in inculcation, governance, and increment community engagement. The avail will invigorate the faculty research and innovation capacity through partnerships with the universities from the Amalgamated States of America. A direct and specialized focus was given to science, technology, and innovation disciplines that are highly pertinent to highmagnification and high value-integrated sectors, such as information technology and manufacturing. “Education and Livelihood Skills Alliance” (ELSA), was also an educational project provided by USAID Philippines. This project was rendered US$4.2 million (P231 million) by USAID in partnership with International Youth Foundation, Philippine NGOs, and private corporations. Through ELSA, it seeks to enhance the development of quality education, improve teaching training programs, provide materials for school infrastructures, and upgrade the employment skills of Filipino out-of-school youths (OSY) in Mindanao. ELSA benefited different areas in Mindanao including, Tawi-tawi, Cotabato City, Sarangani and Zamboanga peninsula. Fortunately, due to the projects and programs allocated for the Philippines by the USAID, some parts of the country experience increased growth and strengthened human capital especially in the area of education. 21 Liberalism and Foreign Aid Liberalism surmises that all states have essentially the same goals and demeanors, at least with regards to international cognitions and that individuals and private groups are the fundamental components in world politics and states represent some subset component of the domestic society. In relation to foreign aid, liberalism refers to the willingness of the people in the world to help one another in order to achieve the same goal and that is pursuing wealth and survival. Foreign aid is driven by the desire of the individuals achieve wealth and survival through their government. A Philippine ambassador noted that liberalism postulates that states are not simply seeking to survive and prosper in an anarchic system. They are configurations of individual and group interests who then project those interests into the international system (Cabactulan, 2016). Andrew Moravcsik on Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics wrote the following: Societal pressures transmitted by representative institutions and practices alter ‘‘state preferences.’’ This term designates an ordering among underlying substantive outcomes that may result from international political interaction. This statement supports the idea that foreign aid is driven by individual interests for wealth and survival projected to the international system as state interest. Foreign aid may seem to be a charitable act but it all boils down to states self-interests. However, this self-interest may lead to a positive result since it is projected through their states willingness to be a part of those countries that provide foreign aid despite of having another interest which is to make friends with different countries and widen their influence. According to Edwards, foreign aid affects included economies in extremely involute ways and through multiple and transmuting channels. In integration, this is a two-way relationship for the included countries that affect the actions regarding foreign aid agencies.This two-way relationship shows how the aiding states help the recipient country and in return, this affects the action of the aiding states like whenever the country they are aiding achieved a desirable growth, this also means that the wealth that will be created by the aided country due to its economic growth will create a second wave of wealth that is invested in the world economy (Sachs, 2005). Having the willingness to help other countries is the right thing to do when we think of it as being morally human but it also advances countries diplomacy and national security. 22 Effects of Foreign Aid Previous studies regarding the effects of foreign aid show mixed results. Chatrna on The effect of foreign aid on economic growth in developing countries gave the following results: Papanek (1973), Dowling and Hiemenz (1982), Gupta and Islam (1983), Hansen and Tarp (2000), Gomanee, et al. (2003), and Karras (2006), found evidence for positive impact of foreign aid on growth; Burnside and Dollar (2000) and Brautigam and Knack (2004) found evidence for negative impact of foreign aid and growth, while Mosley (1980), Mosley, et al. (1987), Boone (1996), and Jensen and Paldam (2003) found evidence to suggest that aid has no impact on growth. There is a trend of positive effects of foreign aid but there are also setbacks which makes foreign aid far from being perfect. During the year 2004, Millennium Challenge Corporation launched a support and spends about $1 billion a year. The MCC's mission is "to reduce poverty through investments promoting growth in poor countries that create and maintain sound policy environments." The program was considered a success in countries like Tanzania, where road, water, and sanitation projects have helped 5 million people, with an estimated economic gain of well over $1 billion. According to Addison, Mavrotas and McGillivray, as they examined the trends in official avail to the continent of Africa over the period of 1960 up to the year of 2002, the authors pointed out the underwhelming decrease in avail over the last decade which will have an impact and regression with regards to the Africans living in impecuniosity and the African economy holistically. As a result of the decrease in aid, achieving the Millenium Development Goals will be much harder or might be infeasible to be achieved. Through this data, it can be concluded that aid does in fact promotes growth and development and also reduces poverty. It is also important to mention that MDG’s cannot be achieved through foreign aid alone. There is a considerable gap between what aid could potentially achieve and what aid limitations are, especially in relation to its contribution to improvements in economic growth and reducing poverty. Despite this trend of positive effects of foreign aid, it should also be noted that there are setbacks which makes foreign aid far from being perfect. The lead argument is that foreign aid when seen in its negative aspects undermines or weakens local governance and foreign investments. This can be explained by the phenomenon named as “Dutch Disease”. 23 According to Rajan, on his phrenic conceptions with the International Monetary Fund or IMF, astronomically immense amounts of foreign aid are sent overseas, the receiving country's currency inclines to go up in value, this elevate the value of currency makes it much more sumptuous for denizens with a different nationality to purchase exports emerging from the poor country, and thus foreign investment in the impoverished nation is daunted. Through this, foreign aid undermines or regresses investment. According to Easterly, he induced that if avail was genuinely a prosperous betokens of promoting development impoverished nations should have already eliminated extreme penuriousness by now, given that they received more than $2.3 trillion over the last 50 years. He furthermore argued that much avail is wasted on projects whose primary purport is to glorify the avail organization in lieu of availing the impoverished denizens; adscititious avail is being put to waste on establishing the dictators’ support of opulent world fascinates or overthrowing communist regimes. This was backed up by another book authored by World Bank economist Robert Calderasi entitled The Trouble with Africa, which concludes that international avail should be cut to Africa, verbally expressing that "Contrary to conventional recommendations, direct avail to most African countries should be cut in a moiety, not incremented" since African regimes often utilize the money wastefully and most of the African regimes inclines to become corrupt. In 2009, An economist from Zambia renewed the avail debate with the relinquishment of her book “Dead Aid”, in which she had called for the consummate slash-off of all avail to Africa over the next five years. She verbalized that "Illimitable development assistance to African regimes has fostered dependency, enheartened corruption and ultimately perpetuated poor governance and penuriousness." Moyo argues that Africa's only quandary is the extensive corruption that the regime officials do and interference in the private market; what the continent needs is a major market reformation in order to promote the private sector in Africa. These authors argue that it is only misery that aid brings to developing countries. Instead of helping them in their desire to achieve growth and development, aiding countries only help developing countries for their own interest without taking in consideration whether they are really of great help to the poor countries or not. Richness of rich countries are fueled up by poor countries through the enforcement of foreign assistance in order to increase or improve their public democracy and widen their influence which will help them stay at the top. From this argument, one perspective of foreign assistance is that it is just a form of oppression making countries to continuously depend on rich countries. 24 In the Philippines’ case, the US Agency for International Development or USAID’s programs and projects in conflict-affected areas of the Mindanao region avails to invigorate the substructure for placidity and authoritatively mandate within the area of the Mindanao region. The United States of America has a Peace Corps program in the Philippines for the last five decades. Over the last ten years, disaster palliation and recuperation have withal become an increasingly consequential area of avail to the Republic of the Philippines. The Cumulated States has given over $143 million worth of assistance to the Filipino people in mitigation and recuperation efforts after Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda that infamously devastated the Philippines in 2013. The United States perpetuates to fortify the long-term development, reconstruction, and reconstituting efforts that were eradicated by Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda. However, it has withal genuinely worsened the situation because of the incrementation in corruption as well as the inequality with regards to the income engendered from avail. One such instance is the incrementation in penuriousness in the Philippines under President Marcos' rule. According to Clemes, the Philippines received $33 billion worth of avail between 1966 and 1986, a great portion of assistance was simply transferred by former President Marcos and his family to their private bank accounts all over the world. Consequently, poor Filipinos did not benefit from the benefits and prospects from foreign aid. Despite of the effects of foreign aid has neither incremented penuriousness nor contributed to the overall development, development economists have concurred that the fundamental role of development avail is to avail minimize the calibers of misery and deprivation in poor countries. Foreign aid can be acclimated to meet fundamental human needs such as edification, victuals, health, and shelter. Without foreign aid, the illiteracy, mortality rates and the affected areas of poverty may worsen because governments do not have enough funding to promote the standard of education, health, and living. Debates on Foreign Aid One of the main goals of foreign aid is to promote economic development. However, the ability of foreign aid to achieve its goals is being questioned by many. Although there was a massive flow of foreign aid to developing countries, there are still debates on whether or not foreign aid is effective in the aid-growth link. Two stands are distinguished: • One side believes that foreign aid does not equate to economic growth and has only brought misery to poor countries. 25 This views official aid as creating dependency, fostering corruption, and encouraging currency overvaluation (Easterly, 2014 and Moyo, 2010). It also prevents countries from taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the global economy (Edwards, 2014). • Another side believes that foreign aid in the past few years might been too low, and that increasing it would also increase the chance to reduce poverty. In 2005, Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs released a book entitled "The End of Poverty", in which he argued that the world could eradicate extreme poverty in twenty years’ time if international aid to Africa was roughly doubled over the course of the next decade. His proposal includes the richest countries in the world to give 7% of their GDP to Africa who most likely needed it. For developing countries like the Philippines, foreign aid and development assistance from USAID is an attractive proposition that could energize a range of productive sectors such as social progress and human resource growth because it distributes and takes into account the recipient country’s economic growth and poverty alleviation goals. In recent years, there has been a consequential increase in avail flows in the Philippines which led to a scarcely amelioration in terms of access to edification, maternal health care, and employment rate in the Philippines between the year of 2013 up to the year of 2014 predicated on a report from the Amalgamated Nations Development Programme or UNDP. However, this development ameliorated the Philippines' Human Development Index value only by a negligible 0.004. The Philippines is ranked at 115 and is still in the lower a moiety of the 188 countries assessed by the UNDP, lower than two of its Southeast Asian counterparts Thailand and Indonesia. However, despite the elevating economy in the Philippines, it has not trickled down, the economic magnification into gregarious development. During 1980 to 2013 the pace and intensity of incrementation in the value of HDI remains very slow compared to many Asian and South Asian countries. This may be due to weak implementation of various social security and social protection schemes in the country. Which is why the researchers chose to tackle foreign assistance; to determine whether or not this assistance did truly help the Philippines achieve human development since existing articles and studies showed mixed results leading to different debates as to the importance of foreign assistance. 26 Chapter III Methodology Research Design The researchers utilized institutional ethnography and its two common methods of data collection: data gathering and interviews. As widely accepted, institutional ethnography is the study that works to understand how people in the society are binded to a series of institutional relations beyond the individual subject (Perazzetti, 2013). The researchers also utilized aspects of qualitative type of research. This method is done through analyzing existing studies and documents regarding the subject according to the contents following the criteria brought about by the researchers themselves. In this study, the researchers’ primary focus is to examine the assistance given by USAID to developing countries specifically to the Philippines and how does this assistance helped the Philippines lessen poverty through good quality education. The degree of control of the study was measured in terms of restriction of focus. The research design was restricted to a narrow focus, that is the data for different assistances given by USAID to the Philippines will tackle development in terms of social progress through good quality education only. Research Instrument The research and the collection of the data and information will take place in four phases. The first phase is the gathering of reports from education related agencies and organizations specifically from DepEd. These information are valuable because it will help the readers of this research point out the facts and problems of the educational sector and how the USAID and its strategy could help the Philippines benefit from it. The quality of education in the Philippines will be put into a microscope as it is important to point out what is lacking from the Filipinos and the current system in the Philippine government’s educational programs. The second phase will be based about the collected data from the USAID and its assistance which provides programs that would stimulate educational development in the Philippines with the assumption that through USAID’s strategy, Philippines would improve its economic competitiveness and strengthen its human capital through access to high quality education. 27 USAID’s strategy will also substantially contribute to strengthening weak governance and expanding fiscal space that would sustain the inclusive growth in the Philippines. By providing programs that would improve areas that challenge the social development, such as health services, access to quality education, and poverty reduction, USAID’s aim for maintaining a prosperous and well governed nation would be achieved. The researchers’ goal is to show the importance of education to the Filipino community due to the lack of good quality education that some of the Filipinos do not experience especially in rural places. The researchers believe that the Philippine government needs to give more emphasis to the quality of education because it is not enough to just build schools and classrooms, rather, the learning that will hone the knowledge, skills and talent of the students is more important. In the third phase, the factors that serve as key constraints to the objectives of USAID’s strategy as stated in the second phase will be tackled. The constraints, which includes weak governance and prevalent corruption, and inadequate human capital, serves as hindrances to the growth and development in the Philippines. The main problems in the educational sector will be the main point of the constraints since this research is based on the USAID’s programs for the educational sector of the Philippines. The fourth phase will include interview. The researchers plan to use a semi-structured type of interview as to allow the interviewee to elaborate information that is important to participants but may not have previously been thought of as relevant by the researchers. The proponents of this research are going to be from 1 (one) from USAID Philippines and 1 (one) from the Department of Education. With the semi-structure style of interview, the researchers will uncover a lot of valuable information with regards to the partnerships that the USAID has with local government units and the private sectors. What the researchers are going to find out is how effective the assistance given by USAID to the educational sector in the Philippines and also to what extent does the Philippines need to adjust in order for the quality of education to prosper like other countries with superb quality education. The semi-structured method will give our interviewees the comfort of answering the questions with much more information as this research treats every information coming from the people that they are going to interview are vital. The epitome of this research will be the interviewees as the researchers believe that these groups of people will enlighten the readers of this research regarding the USAID’s involvement with the educational sector in the Philippines. 28 Research Procedure The study will adopt a qualitative approach to investigate the governance of aid transactions by the USAID in the Philippines. Data sources include documentary review, in-depth and multi-faceted explorations of complex issues. In the institutional ethnographic approach, the researchers will include criteria for selecting texts and other materials and procedures for gathering and documenting data. The criteria includes the time frame, level of extensiveness consequence to the field by offering new information or promoting specific actions that enhance the field, and level of clearness of the meaning of the ideas and significance of the work regarding to the notable relation of foreign assistance to the educational sector in the Philippines. The institutional ethnography enables to better understand the relationship between USAID and the Filipino citizens. The importance of real-life context is captured by qualitative research in general and in particular by an institutional ethnographic approach. 29 Conceptual Framework USAID BAD GOVERNANCE CORRUPTION UNEQUAL ALLOCATION GOOD QUALITY EDUCATION POVERTY REDUCTION 30 People are entitled to a decent way of life even though poverty exists. It is an undeniable fact that the citizens of the Philippines are experiencing poverty thus, preventing them to experience decent living conditions. The journey to a world where poverty will cease to exist will take time but the road has already started. Foreign aid can be defined as the international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or international organization for the benefit of the recipient country or its population. One of the leading international development arm of the U.S. government is USAID and it works with the poorest of the poor countries to play a critical role in the nation’s effort lessen poverty. Thus, explains the downward arrow used by the researchers connecting USAID to good quality education and poverty reduction. The researchers assume that the increase in the access to good quality education leads to reduced poverty levels. Reading, writing and numeracy that are considered as basic skills, have a record of positive effect on peripheral population's income and this claim is supported by the published paper by UNESCOPRESS 2014 which highlighted what the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Kimoon said, that “Education is a fundamental right and the basis for progress in every country. Parents need information about health and nutrition if they are to give their children the start in life they deserve. Prosperous countries depend on skilled and educated workers. The challenges of conquering poverty, combating climate change and achieving truly sustainable development in the coming decades compel us to work together. With partnership, leadership and wise investments in education, we can transform individual lives, national economies and our world.” In addition to that, the same article states that education also enables those in paid formal employment to earn higher wages: One year of education is associated with a 10% increase in wages. Education also changes structures in food security. A study from 1980 that still is influential analysed the effects of primary education on agricultural production in 13 countries. It found that the average annual gain in production associated with four years of schooling was 8.7% (Lockheed, Jamison and Lau, 1980). However, the researchers assume that there are factors that serve as a hindrance in achieving development, specifically social development. Corruption, unequal allocation of assistance coming from USAID or other foreign aid organizations and bad or ineffective governance are the factors that the researchers consider as obstacles in attaining development. These 3 factors are in between of USAID and educational development in view of the fact that in order for USAID to attain one of its goal which is to help the Philippines attain educational development, hindrances that are narrowed down into these 3 factors needs to be withstand first. As claimed by Alesina and Dollar (2000), almost two-thirds of all the assistance coming 31 from foreign countries goes to government consumption. These assistances apportioned by international sources end up in the hands of government bureaucrats to be distributed in some form to the public. For that reason, some would claim that foreign aid is “ripe territory for corruption” (Tavares 2003, p. 100). Although the Philippines received $33 billion between 1966 and 1986 as foreign aid, a great proportion of assistance was simply transferred by President Marcos and his family to their private foreign bank accounts (Congressional Budget Office, 1997). Consequently, poor people in this country did not receive enough benefits from the inflow of foreign aid. Corruption and bad governance then leads to the inability of the government to properly allocate the assistance coming from foreign aid organizations which hinders the flow of the assistance from the provider to its intended beneficiaries. Instead, it goes to the pockets of the public administrators. According to USAID Philippines' Deputy Director of the Office of Education, USAID Philippines has a number of programs that are implemented only in a specific area and is not nationwide in definition. The nature of the USAID’s programs is only targeted for specific regions and for that reason; it limits the access of the organization to spread their projects for basic education in the Philippines. In addition to that, the researchers believe that the United States should also be considered as one of the factors that hinders Philippines in attaining social development which explains the lines gearing towards the USAID box coming from the 3 factors considered as hindrances by the researchers. Andrew Moravcsik on Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics wrote the following: Societal pressures transmitted by representative institutions and practices alter ‘‘state preferences.’’ This term designates an ordering among underlying substantive outcomes that may result from international political interaction. This statement supports the idea that foreign aid is driven by individual interests for wealth and survival projected to the international system as state interest. Foreign aid may seem to be a charitable act but it all boils down to states self-interests. United States postulates their interest by providing foreign assistance to developing countries such as the Philippines through their agencies like USAID. This self-interest may lead to a positive result since it is projected through their states willingness to be a part of those countries that provide foreign aid. Nevertheless, the researchers still believe that USAID also serve as a hindrance in achieving social development due to conflict of interest which is to create strong ties and good connection with different countries and widen their influence based on the study made by Albert Hirschman and Richard Bird. According to Hirschman and Bird, Foreign Aid is an 32 instrument of national policy which can be used by the rich to acquire influence and to increase their power. In addition to that, Bandyopadhyay and Vermann claimed that while aid in the 1960s’ focused more on development, the recent aid, however, has increasingly reflected strategic considerations over time. The evolution on the motives of donor nations’ behaviour has directed different interactions and strategies in terms of foreign aid. Jean-Claude Berthelemy indicated that the evolution on the motives of foreign aid can be distinguish into two categories. The first category is based on how donor nations provide aid to the poorer countries to alleviate poverty and the second category is based on how aid should be provided on recipients where it can have an impact on poverty, which may depend on the governance and economic policies of those countries. Berthelemy argues that a proper definition of foreign aid allocation behaviour requires “combining both self-interest of donor variables that take into account the recipient needs and merits”. He tackled that the self-interest donor argument may be connected to few objectives pursued by the donor nations. One of the objectives is “geopolitical”. The argument on this motive focuses on how the given aid to the recipient may affect or sway the recipient’s attitude in the authority of the donor. Through this context, it is normally assumed that the donor will give foreign aid only to their recipients who are their political allies. Another motive of donor nations, is that foreign assistance can be applied to promote trade with their recipient country. Bandyopadhyay and Vermann argues that “if aid to a recipient nation is used by a developing nation to buy donor nation exports, it can act as an export promotion strategy for the developed nation”. This would result for a potential benefit to developed donor nations’ trade motives. Given that these countries are the major exporters and producers of capital goods, which would also result for factors on larger incomes used in the trading system. Research Location The researchers have chosen the Philippines as the location for the research study. The areas within the Philippines which was utilized by the USAID for their provided projects and programs, will be the scope of the research study. The researchers will also conduct interviews in the main office of the USAID at U.S Embassy in Roxas Blvd., Ermita, Manila and Department of Education at DepEd Complex, Meralco Ave., Pasig City. 33 Interview The researchers conducted a series of semi-structured interviews. The researchers chose to interview 1 (one) from USAID Philippines and 1 (one) from the Department of Education in view of the fact that they are knowledgeable in this field of study. The researchers addressed the participants the confidentiality of the interview and indicated how long the interview will be. The researchers arranged an appointment that is flexible and comfortable to the participants. The researchers introduced themselves to their interviewees and explained the aim of the interview, after that, the researchers asked them the interview questions. The researchers got the participants’ insights and views on the assistance of the USAID to the Philippines that are not available to the researchers. The researchers also asked necessary follow up questions. The researchers properly cited the information obtained through the interview in the research study. After the interview, the researchers went over their notes to make sure they did not miss any detail in the conducted interview. Ethical Considerations The researchers are concern to protect the dignity, rights, safety and well-being of all participants involved in this research study. The interviewers will ensure that procedures are fair and unbiased to all involved before engaging interview with participants. To assure that the study will conduct as thoroughly and ethically as possible, great care will be taken to secure that if these participants want to keep completely anonymous in the research, their identities and answers will remain confidential. Participants will also be given the option of sending the transcription of their interview and sending a summary of the results of this research study. Indeed a number of ethical considerations will be taken into account throughout this study. A letter of consent will be sent through email to the said interviewee to request for their participation in the research. Before conducting the interview, the interviewers will explain the purpose of the study to the research subjects as well as assuring their privacy and while at the same time soliciting their consent after their agreement. The research study is purely for academic purposes and that confidentiality of the participants will be guarantee. The benefits of assuring the participants of anonymity are that they will be more willing to consent to an interview and that they will be more likely to reveal more and higher quality information, including personal opinions and insights that they will not otherwise want to be 34 quoted as saying. However, making the participants anonymous means that this study cannot reveal who said what statements or who had what opinions. Therefore, this research will try as much as possible to respect persons that provided information and on whom information are collected. The researchers will respect the knowledge gain and indeed respect for social work research. 35 Chapter IV Data Analysis and Findings 4.1 Introduction The aim of this research is to collect valid and reliable information regarding the importance of assistances coming from USAID in lowering poverty levels through good quality education in the Philippines. The research is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with a range of participants: 1 (one) from USAID Philippines and 1 (one) from the Department of Education. In this chapter the responses of the interviewee to the semi-structured questions asked in the interviews are recorded. The researcher will present the findings in the interview in a systematic way by first presenting the interview questions followed by a discussion of the responses from the interviewee. The discussion of the individual responses includes quotations from the interview data and limited references to the literature review in order to substantiate the points being made. It is followed by specific findings that emanate from the responses to the interviews. In the final discussion of this section the researcher attempts to summarise the overall findings from these interviews. 4.2 Presentation of the Semi-structured interview data The researchers had an interview with different persons from different organizations related to education and foreign assistance in the Philippines, being the case, the researchers formulated different sets of interview questions based on the interviewee’s knowledge about the said topic. Most of the interview questions were not answered directly by the interviewee; instead, the interviewee gave the researchers materials that will help answer the questions ergo, the following data presented herein is also based on the materials given to the researchers by the DepEd and USAID during their scheduled interview. 36 A. Interview with Mrs. Miriam N. Coprado (OIC-Chief of DepEd office Project Development Division) Question 1: What is the role of DepEd in ensuring the good quality basic education in the Philippines? Response: The Department of Education (DepEd) formulates, implements, and coordinates policies, plans, programs and projects in the areas of formal and non-formal basic education. It supervises all elementary and secondary education institutions, including alternative learning systems, both public and private; and provides for the establishment and maintenance of a complete, adequate, and integrated system of basic education relevant to the goals of national development. Interpretation: The first question explores the actual role of DepEd in order to determine the importance of the said organization in this research. Based from this response, DepEd plays a major role in the formulation, implementation, and coordination of the plans and programs with respect to the Philippines basic education. DepEd supervises all elementary and secondary education institutions, including alternative learning systems, both public and private and mere supervision is different from control. DepEd oversee all elementary and secondary education institutions and ensures that the implementation of the policies, plans, programs and projects are followed but these institutions can still exercise their own discretion on matters which they think best fit their institution. All of these are relevant in achieving overall development but most notably, social development. 37 Question 2: How vital is the assistance of USAID to your organization in ensuring good quality education? Figure 1: Percentage of the total amount of resource accessed by the DepEd from different sources (as of June 30, 2016) Total Amount: 6,441,214,347 56%- World Bank Php 5,100,000,000 32%- AusAid Php 2,890,000,000 7%- USAID Php 591,100,000 4%- KOICA Php 368, 747, 730 1%- ADB-JFPR Php 69,000,000 0%- UNICEF Php 23,366,617 Response: The evidence from this pie chart shows that most of the assistances accessed by the government of the Philippines through DepEd came from World Bank with the total amount of Php 5,100,000,000 which equates to 56% of the total amount of resource accessed by our government appropriated to the DepEd. The second one is the AusAid with the total amount of Php 2,890,000,000 which equates to 32%, and the USAID comes third with the amount of Php 591,100,000 which equates to 7%, 4% from KOICA, 1% from ADB-JFPR and 0% from UNICEF. Sources can be multilateral or bilateral. Multilateral are funds from international funding agencies like World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Asian 38 Development Bank, Bilateral sources are funds from governments, of which the Philippine government has diplomatic and trade relations with like Japan through JICA/JBIC, USA, Germany and others. Interpretation: The data shows how vital are the assistances coming from these different sources. USAID is one of the top benefactors in the educational sector of the Philippines. With a total amount of Php 591,100,000, USAID donated a huge amount of money for the educational sector of the Philippines. This assistance given by USAID is used in observance of the bilateral agreement on basic education of USAID and the Philippines. The bilateral agreement serves as the main implementing mechanism for ongoing and planned basic education activities namely “BasaPilipinas” which provides activities such as the reinforcement of Grade 1-3 teacher skills for early grade reading and to provide more reading materials in classrooms and libraries. Moreover, projects like the “Activities for the Youth of Mindanao” encourages youth in Mindanao by giving them the chance to pursue basic education, vocational skills, life skills, and civic engagement. All of these programs that are funded by the USAID plays a crucial role in the nation’s effort in ensuring good quality education and therefore serves as an evidence of the vital importance of USAID assistance to DepEd. Question 3: What do you think are the effects of DepEd's partnership with USAID, compared to before when it was not part of the nation's effort in ensuring good quality education here in the Philippines? What do you think is the difference that stands out between the before and after? Response: Ever since 1961 the Philippine government was already a partner of USAID, so when you talk about partnership it is effective but it is different with the interventions provided by the USAID. When talking about the partnership, it entails the effectivity not only with the Department of Education but also with other agencies, because it is covered under the five-year Bilateral Assistance Agreement. Now when it comes to ensuring quality education, all development partners are contributing not only to improve the quality of education but even the delivery of basic education. -Mrs. Miriam N. Coprado (OIC-Chief of DepEd office Project Development Division) Interpretation: To improve the quality of basic education, one of USAID’s objectives for its Bilateral Agreement on Basic Education includes establishing the relationship between USAID and the Department of Education. The current agreement timeframe started from November 2014 and until September 2019. USAID’s education strategy consists of three 39 main points which is in line with USAID’s programs in the Philippines. First is to improve the reading skills of students in the primary grades to increase school success and completion. To achieve this, USAID’s ongoing program “BasaPilipinas”, provides activities such the reinforcement of Grades 1-3 teachers’ skills for Early Grade Reading and to provide more reading materials in classrooms and libraries. Second is to increase employment opportunities for youth, and to strengthen higher education systems, so youth can find good jobs and contribute to the economic growth of the country. At this point, USAID mainly encourage the youth in Mindanao through its project “Activities for the Youth of Mindanao”, with programs areas consisting of Life Skills; Basic Education; Vocational Skills; Civic Engagement and Out-of-School Youth Development Alliance. The last and third point is to increase equitable access to education in crisis and conflict environments. Upon knowing these projects, it can be clearly interpreted that USAID has been of great help to the Department of Education in ensuring good quality education in the Philippines even before. Question 4: Can you specify the goals of DepEd in relation to the education in the Philippines? Do you think USAID's objectives are complimenting with DepEd's own objectives? Response: One of the current goals of the Department is the 2015 Philippine “Education for All” Plan of Action which emphasizes the overarching framework for basic education in the Philippines and the need to provide basic education for all and add a dimension to what has been almost exclusively school-based education. This strategic goal of the DepEd mainly consists of three outcomes. First, every Filipino has access to complete basic education. Second, every graduate is prepared for further education and in the world of work. Lastly, effective, transparent and engaging Governance of Basic Education. These goals are in line with the achievement of DepEd’s mission to protect and promote the right of every Filipino to quality, equitable, culture-based and complete basic education. Yes, the objectives are always aligned with the development partners’ objectives, on which they call Country Strategy. .-Mrs. Miriam N. Coprado (OIC-Chief of DepEd office Project Development Division) Interpretation: The strategic goals of both the Department of Education and USAID mainly focus on giving equal opportunities for children to pursue basic education. The goals as stated herewith, to some degree, are coordinate. Coordinate in a sense that both strategic goals reinforce the ability of one another to provide equal basic education for all. Moreover, these 40 goals also give emphasis on the learner’s capability to be well-rounded, to actively participate, and to create a learner-friendly environment so they can attain the learning standards and complete their education. Question 5: What are the long-term strategies of the department in order to achieve those goals? Is there a five or ten-years plan? Response: It is always for five years and in line with the Philippine Development Plan. Although in every change of administration, the directions also changes, but the strategic goals are continuously maintained. Also based on DepEd’s mandate, which formulates, implements and coordinates policies and programs for basic education, we are currently promoting the full implementation of the K to 12 curriculum which main goal is for all Filipinos to be able to read and to develop Filipinos with 21st century skills ready for higher education, entrepreneurship, and work. -Mrs. Miriam N. Coprado (OIC-Chief ofDepEd office Project Development Division) Interpretation:The Department of Education’s five-year strategic directions from 2017 up until 2022, promotes the team vision of having “a nation-loving and competent lifelong learners able to respond to challenges and opportunities through quality, accessible, relevant and liberating K to 12 Program delivered by a modern, professional, pro-active, nimble, trusted and nurturing DepEd.” The strategic directions of DepEd is composed of three main categories which are, first, “Expand Access to Basic Education”, next is to “Improve Quality and Relevance”, and lastly is to “Modernize Education Management & Governance.” Under the category of the “Improve Quality and Relevance” is the full implementation of the K to 12 curriculum that is found by DepEd to be the best curriculum for learning under basic education which is also the recognized standard for students and professionals internationally. Question 6: May you enumerate some of the projects DepEd have done in partnership with USAID? Response: Some of these projects are “BasaPilipinas” which is USAID/Philippines’ flagship basic education project in support of the Philippine Government’s early grade reading program. It is implemented in close collaboration with the Department of Education. The second project is” Education Governance Effectiveness (EdGE)” which is USAID/Philippines’ Education Governance Effectiveness (EdGE) is a five-year -) project which seeks to transform local communities as education champions, with the end goal of improving the reading skills for at least one million early grade students. The third project, “Mindanao Youth for Development (MYDev)”, The Out-of-School Youth 41 Development Alliances (OSYDA) is the key local group that helps shape MYDev programming. It provides critical training and post-training support to OSYs such as civic engagement activities, entrepreneurship, and job placements. Lastly, “Padayon Mindanao” which is a USAID-funded, US Peace Corps-managed education project aimed at improving literacy and life skills of in-school and out-of-school youth. Interpretation: This question opens the opportunity for the interviewee to introduce the projects that DepEd have implemented in partnership with USAID. Based from this response, both the DepEd and USAID are committed to these partnerships and are successful when it comes to carrying out the projects mentioned. Question 7: In the projects you enumerated, what are DepEd's most promising or auspicious programs? Why do you say so? Response: BasaPilipinas is the most promising program of DepEd because to date, this program has achieved and trained 12,854 Grades 1 to 3 teachers on effective reading instruction and 3,465 Department of Education supervisors and school heads on Learning Action Cells facilitation and teacher training support for reading. USAID Basa has also distributed over four million teaching and learning materials, including teacher’s guides, read aloud, and levelled readers, and supplementary English books and reading materials for use in USAID-assisted schools. Interpretation: Based on this response, the partnership is successful because looking at the results of BasaPilipinas it achieved in reforming reading instruction, improving reading delivery systems and increased access to qualityreading materials throughout the country and realized the goals of the program to improve the overall literacy of the students concerned. Question 8: Are there follow-up programs and plans in place to ensure the work is sustainable? Or are transitions built in for short-term projects? Response: The programs are implemented throughout the year to achieve maximum efficiency and realize the end goals of the program. Interpretation: Based on this response, DepEd is determined that the programs and projects are managed properly to reach the target goals of such programs in order to guarantee the smooth flow of implementation of programs concerned. 42 Question 9: How can we find out more about the programs as it progresses? Response: USAID writes an annual progress report that records all the information in the given period time frame. It provides the overview of the main accomplishments, challenges, analysis and assessment of activities that was completed in the accomplished year. Interpretation: Based on this response, USAID and DepEd makes sure transparency is achieved in order to let everyone know what the programs effectively fulfilled in the period of its implementation. Question 10: How well have you utilized your funding? Describe how efficiently you have fulfilled your goals of recent years in relation to the amount of funds allotted to you by the government. Figure: DepEd Budget Allocation in Billions,- - 207.2 238.8 293.4 336.9 - 2012 2013 2014 Response: The evidence from this column chart shows that from 207.2 billion pesos in 2011, the funds allotment of the Department of education rise by 2014 into 336.9 billion pesos. Yet, there prevailed financial deficiency as the total funds allotment decreased of the suggested apportion of GDP. In 2011, only 2.6 percent of GDP was the public expenditure in education. The data shows that in terms of allotting enough funds to meet the present data gaps was improved the DepEd funds allotment and to change the renovation of education into definite actions. Since 2010, the present government has been allotting greater amount of education funds every year to compact the data gaps in education. It has been reported that gaps in terms of furnishing of school materials, classrooms and chairs in public schools have been closed. Another problem is to predict the quantity of students to perform based on population size. 43 2.05 percent is the average ascending population size rate. Through the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs which necessitate the children’s school attendance, the interagency partnership in delivering the essentials of the poorest people is one of the major progress. However, even the data shows positive result, there are many Filipinos who still continue educationally outreached because of enormous geographical hindrances to access the schools, addressing climate change and disaster issues, combating security threats, and isolation of native people and those who are handicap. Question 11: What are the top three districts does DepEd allot its funds to? Follow up: Why do these districts receive most of the DepEd's funds? Response: The Department of Education distribute its funds particularly in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago which involve around 33% of the Philippines' region and one-fourth of the nation's aggregate population. Regardless of its notable potential for economic sustainability, dispute and uncertainty discourages investment, drains government assets and disrupt development. Mindanao has the highest degree of poverty within the Philippines, susceptible rule of regulation and poor liability, deficient social services, and restricted economic possibility. It seeks to strengthen peace and balance in focus regions in Central Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. A number of activities are performed to reinforce local government capacity to give enhanced services and provide the involvement of civil society groups in progress planning. Activities are centered in six conflict-affected areas and their surrounding areas: Cotabato, Marawi, Zamboanga, Southern Basilan, Isabela City in Northern Basilan, and the island of Sulu. Out-of-school youth (OSY) is the main target of DepEd’s Alternative Learning System, teacherscapability to train them in the conflicted areas in Mindanao. To achieve this, it develops local governance and service supplier to boost access to learning and practice opportunities. Practicing and internship projects are managed to train youth to occupied in business, task development, direct the information gaps generated by unfinished schooling, establish social connections and expand life capabilities. Furthermore, USAID promotes peace-building in Mindanao through schooling camps and youth interactions. 44 B. Interview with USAID Philippines’ Deputy Director of Office of Education Question 1: May you enumerate some of the current projects headed by USAID in relation to Education or flagship projects? USAID Representative: The current projects are BASA Pilipinas, Education Government Effectiveness (EdGE), Mindanao Youth for Development (MyDev), Padayon which is implemented with Peace Corps and STRIDE which is for the higher education project. BasaPilipinas (Read, Philippines) The principal goal of BasaPilipinas is to strengthen the reading skills of early-grade learners by providing reading materials and developing new reading instruction strategies for teachers. To formally and effectively accomplish this project, USAID cooperates with the Department of Education which carry out the directions for new curriculum reforms in terms of the development for literacy and language skills. Education Governance Effectiveness (EdGE) The Education Governance Effectiveness project mainly addresses the constraints on the effective delivery of basic education system services. EdGE productively addresses this by structuring the capacity of stakeholders to support the local level policy reforms for basic education. More than 6,000 school executives and local government officials throughout the country have been taught and trained with fiscal management skills and with the operation and distribution of local education funds. Mindanao Youth for Development (MYDev) Through the Mindanao Youth for Development program, quality for basic education system, livelihood and workforce skills will be improved and strengthened particularly in conflict-affected areas in Mindanao. MYDev addresses main constraints to peace and stability and provides life skills training programs for the out-of-school youth and to encourage them to actively participate in community service projects to improve their employment opportunities. 45 Follow-up question: In those projects you have enumerated, what is the most promising or auspicious programs? USAID Representative: I think all of the projects I have mentioned are auspicious. We don’t have a specific project and it’s not possible to choose one project over another because they are very different. Follow-up question: Are there any follow up programs and plans in place to ensure that the work is sustainable? Or are there transitions built in for short term projects? USAID Representative: Each of our programs have a sustainable building plans that’s built in to the programs from the very beginning and so depending on the project, they design those to be sustainable so different components will be taken on either by the government or the schools or the private sector but in terms on a follow on, the projects haven’t ended yet so we haven’t really talked yet about a follow on operation point because it’s not the follow on operations that we should be talking on right now. Question 2: May you explain how your programmes fit in to the goals you set? CDCS STRATEGY 2013 – 2019 USAID Philippines More stable, prosperous, and wellgoverned nation Broad-based and inclusive growth accelerated and sustained Peace and stability in conflict-affected areas in Mindanaoimproved Environmental resilience improved Response: Through the Partnership for Growth bilateral program of USAID by the U.S. Government in cooperation with the Philippine Government, accelerated education growth is one of its main purposes. By means of strengthening the education, the nation 46 can elevate a competitive literate labor force and can sustain the potential of the nation to participate in the international community. The diagram shows the strategy of USAID that aims to unlock growth potential in the country. One of the main programs of the USAID is the “Bilateral Assistance Agreement for Basic Education”. It was signed with the U.S Government in partnership with the Philippine Government on January 30, 2015. This is a five-year agreement project of USAID for all the basic education program of U.S assistance to the Philippines. Moreover, this agreement guarantees a total of $12.9 million (₱580 million) for all the basic education program of USAID. Interpretation: The bilateral agreement plans to enhance the reading skills of one million Filipino children together with the support of Department of Education in the Philippines and other association in the education sector. Its other goal and purpose is to improve the access to quality education for children with disabilities, out-of-school youth and preprimary students in conflicted and poverty-stricken areas. Question 3: May you briefly explain the reasons behind the work USAID is doing? USAID Representative: The USAID is the arm of the US government that provides humanitarian assistance, development assistance to different countries and our mission is to partner with organizations to end extreme poverty and to promote resilient democratic society so that’s our general mission as a whole throughout all of USAID programs and why we work on education is because it is one of our focus areas and we believe that working on education is the foundation of the goals of a country, we help them achieve their goals for what they want to do and in each country we move in we don’t automatically put up what we want to do, we consult first with our partners at government level to work with and to gather idea, so it's just not the USAID or US gov't defining what the preference needs of the country. Questions 4: Do you work with Non-Government Organizations? Follow up question:How are you collaborating with those NGOs? USAID Representative: Absolutely yes. A lot of NGOs are implementing our programs, they are our grantees or our contractors and they also do the fieldwork with us and for us. 47 Follow up question: What are the things you consider in looking for non-governmental organizations to work with? USAID Representative: We put local non-government organizations and we work also with international non-governmental organizations like the UN or save the children or RIC. So there are specific rules governing whether we work with local NGOs, Philippine based NGOs or international NGOs. But in general, we put up whether or not the organizations are capable, whether or not their NGOs or full-profit company or university partners same, we put up partners that are capable of giving the work that we are asking to do. We look at their experience, whether or not they have the capacity to do what we’re asking them to do, whether they have their resources on the ground, or they can marshal those resources in some way. And at times we put work with completely new NGOs that don’t exist through our programs, so some of our programs help in the creation of local NGOs. Follow up question: Here in the Philippines, what are the NGOs that you work with? USAID Representative: Currently, we work with Synergeia Foundation on our education programming, we are also working with PhilDev or Philippine Development Science and Technology Foundation, and those are the big NGOs that we work with currently. Interpretation: The USAID is a willing global partner as it continues to build and make strong relations with non-governmental organizations all over the world. USAID envisions NGO's as critical change agents in promoting various sectors that needs to be strengthened and developed for the meantime. Question 5: How well have you utilized your funding? Describe how efficiently you have fulfilled your goals of recent years in relations to the amount of funds you have raised. Response: USAID allocates and distributes the funding in specific programs and projects of the Partnership for Growth programs primarily concerned with Education in the Philippines which is a major priority of the organization to achieve. 48 Throughout the years the partnership between USAID and the Philippines started, the funding for the Educational Programs and Projects have been increasing because the organization saw the need to prioritize these programs for the improvement of Education in the Philippines. It was observed that the funding of the Philippine Government for education was not sufficient for the implementation of good quality of education and now the funds for the Educational Programs and Projects decreased because the USAID evaluated the effectiveness of the programs implemented and saw a massive improvement on Education in the Philippines. For example, BasaPilipinas which is the flagship project of USAID for basic education achieved a drastic improvement of Grade 1-3 students reading abilities’. The organization believes that through the partnership between Philippines and USAID it has accomplished one of its goals and are satisfied where the program is going to and highly anticipating what it will achieve in the next years. Interpretation: USAID highly prioritizes the programs under Education and effectively uses funds so that the goals of the projects and programs is achieved realistically through the well organized and good management of the implementation of the programs developed by the organization. Question 6: What are the main obstacles or hindrances that USAID considers to inhibit the fulfilment of your mission with regards to the educational sector? USAID Representative: Well, perhaps the hindrances that affect our sector, I think there is a lot of things that would hinder development programming that have to do with the partnerships with our government partners on the ground that would have to do with enabling the environment in the Philippines. The Philippines is very, very large and decentralized so work is everywhere and the projects are not nationwide in definition. That part is the biggest challenge we have a number of programs functioning achieving great results but the results are limited only to the places where we’re at. We don’t have the type of funding or to take the ability this time to be able to do something that’s more widespread. We can only do a little bit to do such actions. Interpretation: The USAID mentioned that the hindrances to their mission are the partnership with the government and the geographical dimension of the Philippines. First, they consider the partnership with the government as one of the hindrances in view of the fact that there is a grave abuse of power amounting to corruption which is a huge stumbling block to USAID since there is mishandling of funds transpiring in the 49 Philippine government. Lastly, is the geographical dimension of the Philippines that makes it difficult to deliver the educational programs and projects in the different regions in the Philippines. The nature of the USAID’s programs is only targeted for specific regions which limits the access of the organization to spread their projects for basic education in the Philippines. Question 7: How are you planning to overcome those hindrances? USAID Representative: Usually, part of our projects is that there is sustainable aspect of the actual programming is and that means the private sector or public sector or the schools and organizations that we are working with will be taking on the activities later on. In some cases, that means that the curriculum we’re designing that is adopted by DepEd and being pushed out by the Department. In other cases, when we put trainings that are planned are going to be replicated by local government units themselves at their own costs so it’s not just about USAID putting in a project for 3 to 5 years and the projects ends so is the intent that is how we can overcome our limited resources and our inability to work everywhere is that we have partners that are willing to do things that we do and replicate them. Interpretation: Despite the geographical obstacle experienced by USAID, the projects that they are implementing are feasible and sustainable which results to positive outcomes that can be adopted by the local government units themselves and is responsive enough to the growing needs of students in the Philippines. Even though their projects are only limited in specific areas, the original intention of their projects are shared upon other areas in the Philippines since some local governments are adopting their projects even at their own cost. Question 8: Why did the USAID decided to help the Philippines ensure good quality education? USAID Representative: Education is a part of our agency policy, I don’t know if you have seen USAID’s Education Strategy, but USAID has been in the Philippines for a number of decades, and US and the Philippine government have worked very closely together, so the education portfolio and programming has been here for a number of decades already, so the decision to work here and to help here is by the request of the Philippine government, and in partnership with Philippine government and also because USAID is a development agency and is one of the sectors that we work in. 50 Follow up question: Do you think education in the Philippines needs improvement? In what areas does the education here in the Philippines need to improve on? USAID Representative: I think education in every country needs improvement. I think the Philippines have done a very good job of giving access to all of their children and so it’s not a matter of whether or not education is available but it’s a matter of whether the education fits the need of the future and fits the workforce needs. So are you educating children with the right skills, are those children able to be functional and contribute in the fields and is what are they learning appropriate. So those are questions that are still to be answered but I guess in every single country, even in the US, there are lots of things that we can do to improve in education I don’t think there is ever going to be a time when you wouldn’t want your education to be improved. I know that one of the biggest issue that we are tackling and that the government of the Philippines is tackling is about tenets, procurement, timelines and finance in the entire government of the Philippines not just in education It’s not something that we USAID is working on but it is something that we are thinking on what we can do. 51 Chapter V Summary The principal purpose of the study is to know whether or not the assistances given by USAID did truly help the Philippines achieve social development through good quality education. To accomplish that goal, it became necessary to reach some prerequisite goals. Determining the factors that contribute to their decision as to the educational assistance they provide to developing countries specifically to the country Philippines and the factors that serve as a hindrance to the objectives of foreign assistance which is to improve lives in the developing countries are the goals of this research. In relation to that effort, it became imperative to reach an in-depth understanding about the nature of foreign assistance. Once the fundamental data were gathered in order to provide answers to the research questions, the research was able to go forward. This chapter reports the conclusions and recommendations that resulted from this study. The research and the collection of the data and information took place in four phases. The first phase was the gathering of reports of the Official Development Assistance (ODA) given by different international organizations to the Philippines. The second phase is based on the collected data from the USAID and its assistance which provides programs that would stimulate social development, especially in the Educational sector in the Philippines. In the third phase, the factors that serve as key constraints to the objectives of USAID’s strategy as stated in the second phase will be tackled. The fourth phase were structured interviews with the concerned respondents, which are United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Education (DepEd),non-governmental organization partner of USAID, and the top district beneficiary of the programs implemented by DepEd in partnership with USAID. A set of questions was emailed to United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that would help the researchers in collection of data not available online while a personal interview was accomplished with the Department of Education. The top nongovernmental organizational partner of USAID and the top beneficiary of the programs implemented by the USAID were also emailed a set of questions that the researchers accomplished .The questions were primarily about the agency and its partnership with the Philippines, the impact of the programs implemented by the USAID. Each respondent were asked to answer 10 questions to be able to have an efficient gathering of data that is vital to 52 this study. Through the use of the interview method, the researchers were able to effectively collect data for the accomplishment of this study. Conclusion The researchers discovered that the assistances given by USAID were used to fund programs and projects such as developing new reading instruction strategies for teacher and conducting trainings and seminars to teachers to enhance their ability to adopt in new curriculum reforms and their ability to educate children with the right skills. To improve the quality of basic education in the Philippines, the Department of Education with the Partnership for Growth bilateral program of USAID aims to enhance the reading skills of Filipino children together with the support of other association in the education sector. Its other goal and purpose is to strengthen the access to learning for children with disabilities, out-of-school youth and pre-primary students in conflicted and poverty-stricken areas. However, the researchers discovered that there are also factors that serves as hindrances that inhibits the fulfillment of their mission and these includes partnership with the government due to corruption, geographical dimensions which leads to unequal distribution of assistance. In addition, the researchers learned that most of the assistances accessed by the government of the Philippines through DepEd came from World Bank with the total amount of Php 5,100,000,000 which equates to 56% of the total amount of resource accessed by our government appropriated to DepEd and USAID only comes third when it comes to giving assistance in the educational sector of the Philippines. Based from this evidence, the researchers inferred that it is possible to achieve good quality education even with only a little amount of help coming from the USAID in view of the fact that there are numerous benefactors in the educational sector of the Philippines aside from USAID. But it is also important to take note of the projects started and implemented by the USAID which will leave a huge mark in the educational sector of the Philippines due to its high level of responsiveness to the growing needs of the Filipino students and that Philippines needs all the help that it can get in order to ensure that the Filipino students could get the good quality education they deserve. Indeed, the Philippines as of this moment has made huge strides in order to provide free education for the poor but there should be more room for improvement as to the quality of 53 education will be put into question as well as the capabilities of school instructors, teachers, and professors. The upcoming years would be very crucial for the current and next administration to develop a wide array of policies in order to ensure that the Philippines’ educational sector would get a good quality education. Looking at what the researchers have uncovered, it could be beneficial for the Philippines to start giving emphasis on good quality education, especially for the state-runned colleges and universities in order for aspiring professionals to prosper and to compete all over the world. The education and training for future teachers and professors should be the first step in order to build a strong foundation for the country to provide good quality education. Recommendations The research that has been undertaken for this paper has highlighted a number of topics on which further research would be beneficial. The following recommendations are offered as possible ways to improve this study. The researchers have provided the basic facts that cover the role of the Department of Education, USAID, educational institutions, and non-governmental organizations. The researchers would highly recommend the continuance of the study to potential researchers that would like to go deeper between what the researchers of this paper have accomplished. The researchers would be more than willing to recommend this paper to Filipino nongovernmental organizations to help for its future plans and vision to reach out to more beneficiaries, educational institutions to add to its knowledge for future planning, policy makers from the executive and legislative sectors regarding education for future developments in the Philippines, and to other researchers that are conducting a study on the effectivity of USAID and its influence to the educational arena in the Philippines. 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Coprado (OIC-Chief of DepEd office Project Development Division) 1. What is the role of DepEd in ensuring the good quality basic education in the Philippines? 2. How vital is the assistance of USAID to your organization in ensuring good quality education? 3. What do you think are the effects of DepEd's partnership with USAID, compared to before when it was not part of the nation's effort in ensuring good quality education here in the Philippines? What do you think is the difference that stands out between the before and after? 4. Can you specify the goals of DepEd in relation to the education in the Philippines? Do you think USAID's objectives are complimenting with DepEd's own objectives? 5. What are the long-term strategies of the department in order to achieve those goals? Is there a five or ten-years plan? 6. May you enumerate some of the projects DepEd have done in partnership with USAID? 7. In the projects you enumerated, what are DepEd's most promising or auspicious programs? Why do you say so? 8. Are there follow-up programs and plans in place to ensure the work is sustainable? Or are transitions built in for short-term projects? 9. How can we find out more about the programs as it progresses? 10. How well have you utilized your funding? Describe how efficiently you have fulfilled your goals of recent years in relation to the amount of funds allotted to you by the government. 11. What are the top three districts does DepEd allot its funds to? Follow up: Why do these districts receive most of the DepEd's funds? II. Interview with USAID Philippines’ Deputy Director of Office of Education 1. May you enumerate some of the current projects headed by USAID in relation to Education or flagship projects? 63 a) Follow-up question: In those projects you have enumerated, what is the most promising or auspicious programs? b) Follow-up question: Are there any follow up programs and plans in place to ensure that the work is sustainable? Or are there transitions built in for short term projects? 2. May you explain how your programmes fit in to the goals you set? 3. May you briefly explain the reasons behind the work USAID is doing? 4. Do you work with Non-Government Organizations? a) Follow up question: How are you collaborating with those NGOs? b) Follow up question: What are the things you consider in looking for nongovernmental organizations to work with? c) Follow up question: Here in the Philippines, what are the NGOs that you work with? 5. How well have you utilized your funding? Describe how efficiently you have fulfilled your goals of recent years in relations to the amount of funds you have raised. 6. What are the main obstacles or hindrances that USAID considers to inhibit the fulfilment of your mission with regards to the educational sector? 7. How are you planning to overcome those hindrances? 8. Why did the USAID decided to help the Philippines ensure good quality education? a) Follow up question: Do you think education in the Philippines needs improvement? In what areas does the education here in the Philippines need to improve on? 64