Mayors and top-level local government officials, school administrators, and other education advocates who attended Synergeia Foundation’s 8th National Education Summit have committed to hammer down to zero the dropout rates in public schools in their localities.

Synergeia Trustee Washington Sycip encouraged the participants to focus on the reduction of dropout rates and not just improving public schoolchildren’s performance. He said good education would lift families across the country from poverty, as well as ensure that democracy would work.

“When people are hungry, they sell their votes. Only when poverty is reduced will democracy really work in this country,” Sycip said.

Almost 350 top-level representatives (Mayors, Vice-Mayors and other top-level LGU officials) from almost 50 municipalities all the way from Cagayan Province to the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao attended the Summit. One provincial governor, Saranggani Gov. Rene Miguel Dominguez, headed the province’s contingent.

There were also 114 educators from the Department of Education like teachers, principals, supervisors, and superintendents who supported the new target, as well as education advocates from the corporate sector like Metrobank Foundation and Team Energy.

Synergeia President & CEO Milwida Guevara said efforts to reduce dropout rates would complement measures to improve students’ achievement tests through trainings for teachers, administrators, and parents as well as getting community support.

During the workshop sessions, participants agreed that supporting the DepEd’s Alternative Learning System (ALS) that target out-of-school youth is the country’s hope for bringing children back to school. In ARMM where the USAID-funded Education Quality and Access to Learning and Livelihood Skills Project invested heavily on hiring instructors specifically for out-of-school youth, the ALS program has started to bring children back to school.

Guevara said the country’s national dropout rate among elementary school children stands at 30% and the figure shoots up to 70% in depressed areas like the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). This is because of extreme poverty, child labor, and families’ lack of appreciation for education.

Guevara acknowledged the contributions of Synergeia’s allies – from donors to volunteers, students, principals, supervisors, superintendents, parents, local government officials and education advocates – for their continuous support for education reform.

The 8th National Education Summit was organized with the assistance of the Department of Education, the Department of Interior and Local Government, USAID, World Bank, Ford Foundation and Ateneo de Manila University. It was held last February 18-19, 2011 at the Ateneo Professional Schools in Makati City.