Abby Binay bats for continuing education for teachers, skillset upgrade

Makati Mayor and senatorial candidate Abby Binay.

MANILA, Philippines — Teachers should have access to continuing education to ensure that their skillset is up to par with the modern era, Makati Mayor Abby Binay said on Wednesday.

That way, teachers can maximize the technological upgrades within schools, according to Binay who is running for senator this elections.

Binay, in a statement, explained that like lawyers, teachers should get continuing education so that their knowledge and skills would be honed.

If teachers do not get continuing education, Binay believes modernizing school facilities would have no impact as faculty staffers might not be able to use them properly — which may eventually lead to students not getting the adequate learnings.

READ: PISA shows PH students 5 to 6 years behind

“Let us ensure that our teachers can instruct our students very well, and that they can cope with the fast changes brought by technology.  They cannot be left behind, because their students would also lag behind,” Binay, a lawyer by profession, said in Filipino.

“Ultimately, the quality of education rests on the effectiveness and competence of our teachers. They should be empowered to be excellent educators capable of adapting to technological advancements that are rapidly transforming traditional ways of teaching,” she added.

Financial problems

To ensure, however, that teachers would not encounter financial problems, Binay suggested that the government should also subsidize part of the costs for continuing education.

According to Binay, she wants to implement the programs in Makati City on a national level, as the local government unit (LGU) has allocated part of its funds to giving teachers the training they need.

This was done under Project TEACH or Teacher Effectiveness and Competence Honing, with Makati’s LGU subsidizing executive courses for public school teachers.

Allocations per year range from P7 million to P15 million.

“We should invest in the professional development of teachers, and give them enough opportunities to be excellent educators,” Binay said.

Executive Class Diploma

For 2025, Binay said that the city is implementing an Executive Class Diploma program in partnership with St. Paul College of Makati.  Aside from that, public school teachers in Makati also get free access to health services under the Yellow Card program — including medical checkups, laboratory services, hospitalization, and maintenance medicine.

While the lack of continuing education has not been blamed for learning deficiencies faced by students, the education sector has faced several problems with regards to the provision of quality education.

In December 2023, the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) said that Filipino students who took part in their assessment were five to six years behind in mathematics, science, and reading compared to their 15-year-old counterparts from most of the participating countries.

READ: Makati’s Benigno Aquino HS lone public school to make PISA 2022 cut

Then just this June, Pisa said that Filipino students logged a mean score of 14 on the creative thinking performance of 15-year-old students — the second-lowest among 64 ranked countries.

Despite the trend among public school students, Makati has obtained favorable scores regarding the quality of education.  In February 2024, it was reported that the Benigno S. Aquino High School in Makati was the only public school in Metro Manila that scored above the minimum proficiency level for the 2022 Pisa.

DepEd confirmed this during a Senate hearing on the 2022 PISA results.

Mean Percentage Scores

Then, a report from the Department of Education (DepEd) Schools Division Office in Makati showed that the city’s Mean Percentage Scores (MPS) in the 21st Century Skills and five learning areas consistently outperformed both the scores of the National Capital Region (NCR) and the nationwide average.

DepEd’s report showed that Makati had an MPS of 69.82 in Problem Solving, higher than NCR’s 63.69 and the national average of 60.76.  This also occurred in Information Literacy (Makati, 70.59; NCR, 61.56; national, 58.20), Critical Thinking (Makati, 65.13; NCR, 57.74; national, 54.80).

READ: Makati tops NCR, national average scores in Nat’l Achievement Test – Abby Binay

Binay previously said that the reason students from public schools in Makati City get good scores in is because the LGU has a good daycare system for young children.

READ: Binay: Secret to Makati students’ good scores is good daycare system

According to her, this first step of education is so important as it lays the foundation for the development of children.