Woeful average class size is 65 pupils per teacher

P185.5 billion of the country's budget for 2010 was allocated for education. This is an almost P20 billion increase from its 2009 budget. Every year, education gets the biggest budget allocation, yet the state of public education in the country remains dismal. Year after year, public schools in the Philippines see these usual scenarios: an average of 1:65 teacher-student ratio, a 3:1 student-book ratio, cramped classrooms, dirty toilets, and underpaid teachers. Because of this, enrolling in a private school is not so much a luxury as it is a necessity to guarantee a quality education. Parents work hard to send their children to private schools, but because of the continuous increase in tuition fees and other expenses, the last three years saw the highest transfer rate of students from private to public schools. Here are figures from the Department of Education's latest Complete Basic Education Indicator Statistics as of 2008. In the last year, the Department of Education has reported some improvements in several schools' facilities and students' performance in achievement tests, but sadly most of the figures have gone from bad to worse, if not remaining the same. This June, a new school year starts just a few weeks ahead of the new administration. Many are hoping that this brings a much needed breath of fresh air into the improvement of the public school system. - JPF, GMANews.TV