Based on the five pillars of the ADB EdTech Readiness Framework, this report describes the current situation of education in Philippines in general, with a specific focus on how EdTech in being implemented to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The five pillars include infrastructure, government, schools/teachers, parents/students, and EdTech providers. By identifying the existing status of EdTech readiness, the report seeks to provide evidence against which decision-makers can identify initiatives likely to make a positive contribution to the quality of the education ecosystem and opportunities for public-private partnerships. The TIESEA team, as part of the study in the Philippines, also undertook a gender analysis and the report is presented in full in Annex 3. Historically, the education system in the Philippines favored males over the females, but from the 1970s onwards the number of college-educated women began to surpass that of men. It is reported that, currently, the number of girls completing secondary education surpasses that of boys by 12%. The Philippines is the only country in Asia to be in the top twenty for gender parity, though there is an underrepresentation of girls and women in the technology sectors, mostly due to cultural traditions and family preferences. Nonetheless, there are proportionally more women in the service sectors of the economy where there is often a high reliance on ICT skills. In contrast to international averages where, typically women’s aggregate wages are 20% lower than men’s, in Philippines women’s earnings are, when taken as a whole, are 10% higher. Although a great majority of female entrepreneurs operate in the small to medium enterprise (SME) sectors only a small proportion of them have had any training about harnessing technology as part of entrepreneurship training. This is despite man campaigns to promote women’s expertise in ICT. Nonetheless, recent government policy moves have resulted in increasing numbers of women enrolling in STEM-related disciplines at university level.

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TIESEA Country Report Philippines