PBEd Action Plan

PROPOSED ACTION PLAN
Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) is the business community’s response to the need for consensus and sustained advocacy in education reform. The purposes of PBEd will be to nurture consensus on key directions in education reform and to initiate and lead the actions towards those directions.

Objectives

1. To identify best opportunities for pursuing desired strategic actions that can most effectively direct, accelerate, broaden or sustain education reform

2. To inform consideration of such strategic actions with the best available knowledge and information

3. To mobilize commitment in support of consensus on the specific nature of desired strategic actions

To this end, it shall pursue the following:

• 4 annual activities to actively engage partners and supporters in the formulation of PBEd’s reform agenda and in the pursuit on-going projects and programs (annual PBEd Council meeting and three luncheon sessions with partners)
  
• Four (4) research papers for distribution to all members and partners every year to enhance our reform agenda and ensure continuing learning and understanding within the PBEd Network
  
• Advocacy and lobbying efforts on strategic policy directions and urgent key reforms areas or tasks
  
• A website and e-news to ensure regular and timely information among members, partners and supporters

PBEd Convenors waiting for the Organizational Meeting to convene - Atty. Ricardo Romulo, Mr. Jose Pardo, former Finance Secretary, Mr. Rizalino Navarro, and Atty. Monico Jacob

2007 Action Plan

Education Forum 2006: The Next Generation of Education Reform

Rather than the usual “talkfests”, the objective of the launching year for the forum is to identify concrete policy directions and tasks and then move towards the implementation of these reforms. The Philippine Education Forum (PEF06) will be composed of primarily working group meetings. These groups will be tasked to cover specific areas or issues and prepare action plans for these specific areas. The entire forum will be structured like the WTO discussions. The objective is to arrive at agreements.

PEF06 will have three parts:

Part I: Opening Conference:
The State of Philippine Education &
A Review of A Generation of Education Reform

Part II: Working Group Committee Meetings:
The Next Generation of Education Reform

1. Basic education cycle
2. Teacher quality
3. Financing education and the SUCs
4. The medium of instruction
5. Focusing the efforts of business
6. Sectoral programs (e.g., ranking the schools)

Part III: National Conference on Education:
The Reform Agenda This Year and Next

Executive & Legislative Watch: Partners for Education!

As we craft our reform agenda, the wheels of the executive and the legislative continue to grind on matters of education. It will be important therefore to determine critical issues as they develop and pursue constructive intervention. In any case, PBEd must develop early on the foundations of a partnership with government for education reform. Communication lines must be opened, convergence opportunities developed and coordination and cooperation encouraged.

Initial activities include:

• Meeting with Sec Lapuz
• Roundtable with Legislative education committee heads and members
• Inviting DepEd, CHED and Congress leaders to the National Conference
• Positive intervention on the proposed bill on “English as medium of instruction”

Business Community Campaign on Education: Education Is Everyone’s Business!

The business community, with its growing acceptance of corporate social responsibility principles, will benefit from a better understanding of the education situation and strategic options on the role of business. This will require an advocacy campaign targeting business on national, regional and local levels. Such a campaign can help provide a much needed push for community-driven education efforts that can more effectively address the education crisis.

Initial activities include:

• PBEd regional and local road show in partnership with local business clubs and chambers of commerce
• Targetted media campaign (Business World and Business Mirror, business community publications, ANC, kapihans, etc)

Special Projects: Business Action for Education!

While pursuing our longer-term agenda for education reform, it will be essential to pursue projects that may provide effective stop-gap solutions to the continuing decline in quality of education. The business community cannot and should not abandon the students now enrolled in the existing system. It can play a role in a project like the FWWPPI’s Education Revolution project that calls for performance-based support, school-community action and strategic, multi-level resource mobilization to increase the quality of education in selected schools. The key for any PBEd endorsed project shall be strategic resource mobilization.

To push for performance of our schools, business can publish rankings based on NAT, TIMMS and PRC results. This recognition campaign may help inspire communities to act and encourage effective reallocation of funds on local levels.