ShareThisPASAY CITY – Senator Manuel Villar has filed a proposed resolution urging the Senate Committee on Education, Arts and Culture to conduct inquiry into the alarming number of out-of-school youths (OSYs) in the country.
Villar explained in Senate Resolution 640 that the probe aims to enact a law that will address the problem and in order to accommodate more students and make education accessible to all Filipino youths.
”Section 1, Article XIV of the Constitution, declares that the state shall protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels and shall take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all,” Villar said in his resolution.
According to the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey of the National Statistics Office (NSO), the number of Filipino out-of-school youths increased in 2010.
The report stated that 16 percent or 6.24 million of the estimated 39 million Filipinos whose ages range from six to 24 years were considered OSY in 2010, increasing from 14.7 percent or 4.84 million recorded in 2002.
The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) continued to have the highest number of OSY at 23.6 percent or almost 404,000 of the region’s population despite having a budget of billions of pesos coming from the national government.
The same report revealed that 28.9 percent of the youths were out of school due to the high cost of education while 27.5 percent lacked interest.