NOT all Filipino children born nowadays will be able to be as productive as they could be when they grow up, according to the latest report released by the World Bank (WB).
Based on the World Bank’s Human Capital Index (HCI), if Filipino children will be able to enjoy complete education and full health support, they will only be 55 percent as productive when they grow up.
The World Bank explained that the HCI measures the amount of human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by age 18, given the risks of poor health and education that prevail in the country where he or she lives.
“In terms of the overall index, the Philippines performed better than the average for its income group but below the average for the East Asia and Pacific region. The index finds that children born in the Philippines will be only 55 percent as productive when they grow up as they could be if they enjoyed complete education and full health,” the World Bank said in a news statement.
Marker
The index takes into consideration survival, which measures whether children born today will survive to school age; school, which measures how much schooling children will complete and how much will they learn; and health, which measures if children will leave school in good health and would be ready for further learning and/or work as adults.
Data for the Philippines showed 97 out of 100 children born in the Philippines will survive to age 5. Of these children, those who will be able to start school at 4 years old will be able to complete 12.8 years of school by their 18th birthday.
The World Bank said students in the Philippines scored 409 on a scale where 625 represents advanced attainment and 300 represents minimum attainment.
However, when years of schooling are adjusted for quality of learning, Filipino children only complete 8.4 years of schooling. This means, the World Bank said, a learning gap of 4.4 years.
Data showed that in terms of adult survival rate, around 80 percent of 15 year olds nationwide will survive until age 60. “This statistic is a proxy for the range of fatal and nonfatal health outcomes that a child born today would experience as an adult under current conditions,” the report stated.
The World Bank said, however, that 33 out of 100 children are stunted and are at risk of cognitive and physical limitations that can last a lifetime. This means 1 in 3 Filipino children under age 5 is stunted, a key marker for malnutrition, which limits brain development.
Reforms
Data showed that children who are malnourished at a young age will face challenges in learning, are more likely to drop out of school early and are less likely to hold good jobs as adults.
“The government of the Philippines recognizes these challenges and has initiated critical reforms to improve human capital in the country,” said Mara K. Warwick, World Bank country director for Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
“Policy-makers have introduced universal kindergarten, created senior high school, provided greater funding for basic education, and expanded the Pantawid Pamilya Program, which has boosted school attendance among the poor. Going forward, key policy priorities in the Philippines are reducing stunting and improving the effectiveness of teachers to boost learning,” she added.
Globally, the HCI showed 56 percent of children born today across the world will lose more than half their potential lifetime earnings because governments are not currently making effective investments in their people to ensure a healthy, educated and resilient population ready for the workplace of the future.
Poland, for instance, enacted education reforms between 1990 and 2015, and experienced one of the fastest improvements in Program for International Student Assessment scores in OECD countries. Vietnam recently topped the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development average Pisa score. Malawi succeeded in reducing its rate of stunting by nearly 20 percentage points in under two decades. However, the index shows much more needs to be done.
Inclusive growth driver
The index is part of the World Bank Group’s Human Capital Project, which recognizes human capital as driver of inclusive growth. In addition to the index, the Human Capital Project includes a program to strengthen research and measurement on human capital, as well as support to countries to accelerate progress in human capital outcomes.
The Philippines is one of 28 countries across the globe that have expressed advance interest in participating in the project and have nominated focal points within their governments to work with the World Bank Group.
The 28 early-adopter countries are Armenia, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Egypt, Ethiopia, Georgia, Indonesia, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lesotho, Lebanon, Malawi, Morocco, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.
These countries have begun work on elevating human capital policy dialogue across their government line ministries and identifying national priorities for accelerating progress on human capital, based on each country’s own development plans.
Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia of the National Economic and Development Authority is the Philippines’s official focal point for this global initiative.
The index is included in the forthcoming World Development Report 2019 on the Changing Nature of Work, which addresses the importance of investing in human capital to prepare for the future of work.
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