Equal Access on Education: The Value of Education for All (EFA)

The tenets of Education for All (EFA) mandated countries around the world to provide equal access to Basic Education for all children, youths, and adults. Education empowers an individual to have greater heights in life and secure and better future, hence, providing accessibility for complete education may set the future of one’s country for the more educated the citizenry could become, the more successful the country would become.

The EFA goals had been targeted to end last 2015 since its introduction in 1990, and yet there are countries unable to meet that target, including the Philippines. The six internationally agreed education goals, as presented by the United Nations (UN) to its member countries, are as follows:

Goal 1 is for the expansion and improvement of comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children;

Goal 2 intends ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality;

Goal 3 provides the ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life-skills programs;

Goal 4 is for the achievement of a 50 percent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to basic and continuing education for all adults;

Goal 5 stands for the elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality; and

Goal 6 is for the improvement of all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring the excellence of all, so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

Though certain factors have been identified by the government, such as student factor, teacher factor and the lapses of the educational system itself, as the culprits as to why the country is not able to achieve the EFA goals, further needs assessment, planning, and monitoring procedures should be strictly done in order to assure the said goals. At the end of the day, the achievement of the EFA goals is not only the government’s work but the responsibility of all Filipinos who want to provide brighter future to the next generations of learners. 

There should be no sugarcoating and pinpointing of whose lapses the failure is. Commitment to the EFA goals could be achieved by sincere intentions to improve the educational system itself and to engage the Filipino learners to go to school. The implementation of the universal kindergarten and the K-12 program are milestones to the attainment of such goals. Through such steps are seemingly late, they are still a good start for Philippine education.

As a member state of the United Nations, the Philippine government should prioritize even better the system of education in the country. Even though DepEd is always on top of priorities in the yearly budget, more improvements are still needed in the ground. The non-attainment of the EFA goals are clear indications that there are lacking in the implementation of basic education and there is a need to improve it.