Surprising results from a statistical analysis on PH education data

Photo by Dean Lozarie of Tinig ng Plaridel (UPD-CMC)

Yesterday, University of the Philippines (UP) students protested against the P1.39 billion budget cut for 2011. That there is an actual budget cut is contested, but we must know that this is not happening in a vacuum. Worldwide, students are protesting budget cuts on education as austerity measure for governments to survive the global economic crisis. Italian students did the same recently.

For this purpose, I am posting with permission from my co-author, Ivan Eugenio, a non-parametric statistical study we made on Philippine education data submitted as a requirement for Statistics 130. It uses data culled and prepared by Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) on education, gathered from Commission on Higher Education, Department of Education, and other government agencies.

The study yielded suprising results. First is that there is no change in ratio of enrollees to graduates, and it remains significantly low by inspection. Second is that government appropriation of funds to secondary and tertiary schools are equal. And third, the laborer-job ratio is still close to ideal. But there are implications on these data, given the socio-economic conditions our education system is in.
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Excerpts from Chalk Dust: A Discourse on the Status of the Philippine Education System

A Non-Parametric Statistical Study by Ivan Eugenio and James Miraflor

In any developing nation, one of the biggest components of the enabling environment for industrial growth and capital expansion is the general educational state of the people. The concept is not alien at all to the civilized world. In fact, most liberal democracies often allocate a huge amount of its budget for the education and training of its citizens.

Pilipinas Kay Ganda and the Culture of Plagiarism: An Acceptable National Instinct?

The photo was taken here. Created by Spanky Hizon.

The headline story today of Inquirer is clear, President Aquino wants the Department of Tourism to get another logo and branding for its promotion project. The criticism over the "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" seems to be too hot for them to handle, after taking flak from solons, including Sen. Miriam Santiago who was not amused.

Frankly, I can't see how WOW Philippines cannot sell. It already did, albeit not as effective as the tourism strategy of our neighbors Indonesia (beach-wise Boracay is so much better than Bali) and Malaysia, which tourism industry are reaping billions. But that is a topic for another day.

And there is another thing, the more fundamental question of whether we should really be promoting tourism industry this much if it is actually found to be ecologically-destructive (even Ecotourism is not immune to this) and damaging and/or demeaning of our indigenous cultures and national identity. This, when we should really be focusing on more sustainable and robust sources of economic development, like industrialization. But again, that is another topic for another day.

But I want to focus on one issue, and it is the claim that Pilipinas Kay Ganda logo is a product of plagiarism. Blogger Spanky Hizon revealed what is to be a lethal monkey-wrench to the DOT's project - by putting it side-by-side with Poland's "Polska" tourism logo and saying that the similarities are simply, too hard to ignore. Someone in the DOT (or whoever they commissioned) must have been a great Google fan.

But is it just a mere slip-up on the part of DOT? I say, that it is more than that. It is, in fact, related to recent controversy hounding the Philippine Supreme Court  and the claims that the Supreme Court, by protecting itself from accusations that it plagiarized a legal text and censoring the UP College of Law who fought against it, may have just legalized plagiarism "without malicious intent".

For that matter, the question then becomes: is the culture of plagiarism really, morally detestable? What are the conditions with which it becomes permissible and even necessary?

MMDA's odd-even scheme, biased against the poor

MMDA's odd-even scheme as implemented only to public utility buses shows MMDA's bias for owners of privately-owned vehicles - bias for the well-off as against the poor who can't afford their own vehicle. Politicians are going for the kill as they pith the transport workers and the commuters. This is very saddening.

Commuters wait for buses during rush hour on Monday after bus operators went on a flash strike to protest a number coding scheme being implemented by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority with a view to reducing traffic congestion. Image Credit: AP (caption and pic lifted here)

If anything, we should be regulating private cars first, with private cars' "road-space-taken" per "person-transported" ratio being way more than that of buses. To prove this, we only need to see that even as the odd-even scheme was applied (setting off a bus strike), traffic was not substantially reduced (see lead paragraph).

Call for a Fixed Currency Peg for the Philippines

Image via Wikipedia

Countries that were most affected by the 1987 Financial Crisis

Let me quote from Cesar Purisima: "I will not recommend competitive revaluation. We should allow the market to determine the exchange rate. Our role is to smoothen these adjustments."

Now is a very good opportunity to challenge G20's effort to preserve the failed global financial system by preserving the floating exchange rate regime (putting US in a very good export position at the expense of our OFWs and exporters). We must call on the Aquino administration for the return of a fixed exchange rate, probably pegged at P50=US$1 in order to protect our migrant workers and what little is left of our export industries, including the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry.

The G20 does not want this (maybe some members, but not the US-allied countries). The Aquino government, despite its token protestations, does not want this because it puts us in a good position for "debt prepayment". But OFWs will be with us on this. Well-meaning economists, even those in the neoclassical frame (but they may remain silent so as not to alienate the mainstream), will accede and even support us on this matter. By fixing the exchange rate, we also permanently remove a strong excuse for debt prepayment and force the government to use it reserves for capital build-up and technology transfer.

It is time to fight fire with fire. If the US will continue with its "quantitative easing (QE)" (the Federal Reserve already printed, out of nowhere, $600 billion to buy securities from the the US Treasury) and unilaterally decide on the foreign exchange markets, then we should protect our currency from the market. This is what China and Malaysia did during the 1997 Asian Financial crisis and had been a factor for its survival and development.

The time is ripe for this call.

Below is an article on the impact of QE on the Philippines and government response:

Why Indonesia outperforms RP - Prof. Ed Tadem

Inquirer Opinion / Talk Of The Town
Why Indonesia outperforms RP
By Eduardo Climaco Tadem
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Posted date: October 30, 2010

NOT TOO LONG ago, Indonesia was Southeast Asia’s basket case. Within the region, it was the hardest hit by the 1997-1998 financial crisis and subsequently plunged into a cycle of political and social unrest and economic decline. Today, however, under its current political and economic setup, Indonesia has attained levels of stability and prosperity few would have imagined possible just a decade ago.

This was the conclusion reached by scholars of Indonesian studies at a recent First Indonesia Forum held at the Kyoto University Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

Political recovery

Historian Takashi Shiraishi, Japan’s most distinguished Indonesianist, attributes the country’s remarkable recovery to three factors: (1) a successful decentralization program (2) the containment of religious and ethnic conflicts at the local level and (3) a strong nationalist imprint traceable throughout the country’s history.

Economist Kosuke Mizuno, on the other hand, notes the ability of the Indonesian economy to weather the worst effects of the 2008-2009 global economic meltdown by keeping a balanced financial and current accounts while increasing employment.

The devolution of political power saw the channeling of 60 percent of public works funds to local governments. This has resulted in the proliferation of local governments through the creation of new districts and an increase in the number of local political parties.