EDUCATION IS KEY TO THE GOOD LIFE--ANGARA

"A competent society is that of a highly educated one," thus believes Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, former president of the University of the Philippines, who stresses the indispensable role of education to nation building and eventually a more powerful workforce and stable economy.

Angara's thrust on the country's education system is aimed at all levels, starting with early child development. He believes that to properly educate the present generation, such will have to start in children's early formative years. The Pre-School Development Act of 2009 (SB 3235), for example, provides for a universal early childhood or pre-school education promoting effective social, intellectual and skills stimulation and value formation for children from 3-5 years old to amply prepare them for formal elementary schooling.

Another key response to the challenges of the education sector is his proposal to provide for more school buildings in the country to reduce classroom-student ratio to an ideal proportion in five years. Likewise, Angara has proposed bills that further motivate educators in continually improving their teaching skills by providing better benefits for them and their dependents.

Angara is also proposing to integrate computer education in as early as elementary level. SB 909 promotes computer literacy by including basic computer applications and programs in primary schools to produce highly-skilled workers in programming, digitally-aided design, hardware, networking and software development.

Beyond basic education, Angara seeks to expand and strengthen student employment programs to hire poor but deserving students for seasonal work. He urged Congress to enact advanced study programs for qualified public and private sector employees to earn the country highly trained leaders for industry, research and academe; a critical mass of elite professionals leading science, technology and related disciplines towards accelerating the domestic workforce.

Angara stressed, "Learning is a life-long process. Education is just the first part; we will have to continually discover and learn in our lives. For us to be ready for such lessons, some of which may be difficult to take, we have to have acquired the basic backbone of values that can only be learned from proper schooling and effective training in our younger years."

Angara has been aggressive in pushing the education system to progress into how he envisions it to be--in part based on his previous experience as UP President, in part based on his deep understanding of the current state of the country's education system, and in part because of his innate desire to see Filipino children grow into seasoned professionals.