I thought I had two conversation partners, but there was a misunderstanding with one of them, so as I continue my search I will introduce you to my other new friend. My conversation partner is Elizabeth Santos. She is from the Philippines. She is a current student and classmate of ours here at Walden University. Elizabeth has really enlightened me about a few issues including poverty about her country.
First she informed me about the population of her country. In her country there are 94.6 million people. That is as of 2010. When it comes to the issue of poverty there is about 5 million families that is what you would considered poor. The minimum wage of her country is 222 Philippine pesos which is equivalent to 5 dollars American money. The government has been asked for help, but their help seems like a long shot.
As far as education, Elizabeth said there an ECCD or Early Childhood Care and Development Act (Republic Act 8980) has help with the growing value of early childhood education. This act will provide a holistic development to children and families. The act requires that every “baranggay” (meaning village) must have at least 1 daycare center care center for children till 6 years of age. Another program that began in her country is Universal Kinder which provides free kinder program in all public school systems. Although this has been a huge help there are still some problems that have came up. These problems are the lack of classrooms, teachers are not being trained to teach very young children and lack of materials.
I am extremely excited to learn more about Elizabeth’s country and their progress. It sounds like they are already on their way to creating a better education system.
E. Santos (personal communication, January 18, 2012)
Keisha,
ReplyDeleteI find it amazing how povery affects countries that are considered industrialized. I learned that India has a high rate of poverty and malnutrition. This has affected the enrollment of children in school and almost 20% do not attend school.