Since being elected to the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2007, Education Secretary Jesli Lapus continues to strongly call for internal reforms at the UN level to eliminate waste and duplication of functions in operations.
"For the global community to achieve Education for All (EFA) targets, we are supporting the UNESCO focus to channel its resources to field operations where the needs of member-states are greatest," Lapus said.
The United Nations is moving towards a unified and coherent structure under the framework of "Delivering as One." Various UN agencies are working in concert on a country-basis. The objective is to streamline projects for cost-effectiveness and to make sure that national education strategies are robust and in place.
For UNESCO, this means more experts will be assigned away from the headquarters to the regions. Its program and budget is shifting towards allocating more funds for technical assistance.
DepEd and key stakeholders are pursuing the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda (BESRA) that is yielding dramatic results. For the past two years, the education budget for basic education registered unprecedented increase. Last year, private sector corporate social responsibility money enlarged extra budgetary funding for public education by ten-fold. Annual classroom construction rate doubled and new teacher items created tripled.
Secretary Lapus is also pushing for gender equality and parity institution-wide. He noted that out of ten Assistant Director-Generals in UNESCO, only one is a woman. "In the Philippines, a significant number of women head businesses and occupy senior management positions, we are confident that many qualified women can be recruited especially from developing countries," he added.