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News & Updates
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NSO Report on Out-of-School Youth
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Out of School Youth
Out-of-school youth (OSY) expands
by 1.6 percentage points
The proportion of youth population 7-24 years old who were out of school and those who were unemployed and not have graduated from college increased by 852 thousand, from 3.0 million i 1989 to 3.8 million in 1994. See Tables D1 and D2. Like the data on youth enrollment, the outcome of OSYs could have been affected by the differences in the months the two surveys were conducted. Another possible factor was the onset of the harvest season.
OSY highest in Western Mindanao, less in CAR
In 1994, the highest proportion of OSY was observed in Western Mindanao (18.7 percent), followed by ARMM (17.5 percent) and Central Visayas (17.4 percent) Except for CAR's impressive record of 7.3 percent, the rest of the regions reported OSY proportions ranging from 11.6 percent (Ilocos) to 16.3 percent (Nothern Mindanao).
Female OSY out of proportion males
In 1994, about 17.6 percent of the 7-24 year old females were out of school. This figure was 6.7 percentage points higher than the 10.9 percent registered by their male counterparts. A 2.1 and 1.2 percentage point increase was observed in the male and the female proportions, respectively from their 1989 levels. Refer Table D1.
More OSY in the rural areas noted
In 1998, OSY in rural areas (12.9 percent) edged up their urban counterparts (11.8 percent) by 1.1 percentage points. This gap went down to 0.6 percentage point in 1994 after their proportion in urban areas rose by 2.0 percentage points to 12.8 percentage while the rural incremented by 1.5 percentage points to 14.4 percent.
Source: 1994. Functional Literacy and Mass Media Survey
National Statistics Office
The Reason Behind the Increase of 'Out of School' Youth in the Philippines
Poverty is stated as the primary contributor to the high growth of OSY but given that low education as the precarious employment contribute to poverty the OSY phenomenon largely occurs amongst the poor which is difficult trend to escape.
Population growth is another important trend that increases the number of OSY. High population growth causes increasing stress to the other educational system. It is estimated that one of the four barangays (neighborhood) in the Philippines have no elementary schools, depriving 1.6 million children even of the basic education and a third of the barangays do not have complete elementary schools. While virtually every child in the Philippines enrolls grade 1, only seven out of 10 children enrolled in grade seven graduates from high school.
The national unemployment rate and slow absorption of the labour force contribute to the vulnerability of the Philippines and its youth. The unemployment rate was 8.7% in 1997 before increasing to 10.1% in 1998. Specifically, the number of unemployed youth doubled from 613, 548 in 1994 to 1.332 million in 1999 partly due to El Nino and the Asian Economic Crisis.
Overall, the number of OSY has increased from 2.963 million to 3.837 million in 1994 and jumped to 9.26 million in 1999. In other words, the OSY population tripled in the 10-year period from 1989 to 1999. Moreover, in the 5-year period 1994-1999, the OSY population grew at 8.14% per year, while the total youth grew at only 2% per annum.
Therefore, the OSY situation is a social and economic issue that must be addressed if the Philippines want its human resources to be tapped for development. The National Youth Development Plan for the Philippines (1994-1999) identified inaccessibility of education and poor quality of education as the number one and two points for the intervention in the OSY sub sector. Further, the Medium-Plan Development Plan (1994-2004) for the Philippines cites the shortfall in domestic job creation and migration to urban areas as problems particularly as youth make up a substantial portion of the Philippines targeting improved economic outcomes for this group has the ability to have widespread impact. This is a group that can benefit most in terms of learning ability and the potential of future productivity.
The complex problem of the vulnerability of Filipino OSY has attracted attention from many other organizations. In a study performed by the World Bank (WB), focus groups and questionnaires created a profile for an average Filipino OSY, which helps to understand their vulnerability.
The WB study indicated that the majority of the OSY live in environment with few livelihood options where asset attainment is difficult. Economic conditions, social conditions of the family, and personal qualities all contribute to the high prevalence of OSY in the Philippines. As expected the study showed that OSYs are typically born to large impoverished families whose household heads also lack basic education skills. The families' lack of financial resources was ultimately responsible for forcing youth out of school.
Often children are required to work to support parents and younger siblings. This is particularly true for the 15-24 age groups who often have to quit school to help their parents earn money an income or do the chores at home while their parents sought employment. About 1/5 of the WB focus groups' participants came from single-parent families, or the family's sole wage earner was either ill or ailing. Often in these cases, the youth take responsibility of finding a source of income to provide for the family. Most OSY generally have parents who work in unskilled jobs resulting from a low level of education. Typically in two-parent households, the father's job was often low-paying and self or seasonally employed.
Other reason that youth are not attending school are very similar to the reasons faced in Canada and include unstable home environment, poor parenting or parental role models, and lack of supervision or guidance at home. Naturally other negative influences like family conflict, disability, lack of interest, and peer pressure also contribute to drop-out rates.
The study also found out that the livelihood capabilities of an OSY were greatly affected their propensity toward relatively lower intellectual capacity and low-self-esteem. The average OSY was found to be hesitant of social interaction and/or integration and displayed poor stress-coping abilities and poor control of emotions.
Finally despite the adversity these youths face the study also revealed that the participants largely hoped for an opportunity to return to school.
Source: National Statistics Office |
09 Nov 2004 by admin
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4 comments
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| by katherine @ 18 Dec 2004 07:06 pm |
i cant understand its to brode   |
| by milcah @ 09 Mar 2005 04:21 pm |
| m not satisfied...dnt get what I wanted from this page... |
| by SMan @ 19 Mar 2005 08:23 am |
Simple and concise presentation. Interesting to note that population growth is one of top two reasons. Looks like DOH needs to get more serious in promoting family planning 
It was a good read. 
As for the above comments, I feel sorry they were not able to comprehend the siginificance of this article... 
Good day! |
| by alex @ 13 May 2005 03:21 pm |
| i found what my boss was asking me to find! |
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