PASIG CITY, November 10, 2016 – Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones recently emphasized the need to enable and empower the Filipinos, particularly the youth, to become citizens of the world through quality, accessible, relevant, and liberating basic education for all.

During the plenary panel on the Vision and Agenda of the Trifocal Education Agencies at the Education Summit 2016 on November 3, 2016, the Education chief highlighted that despite the country’s efforts to develop the competencies of teachers and learners through hard skills in technology, science, and math, Filipinos must be similarly capacitated in the values of history and culture.

“We want to make education relevant to the urgent needs of the country. During the APEC conference when we approved a resolution. . . I made a comment that we in the Philippines, even as we catch up with technology, we cannot leave behind our history, our culture, even as we feel the competition from other countries. This is where the soft side of education must go even as we deal with the hard aspects of education,” Briones pointed out.

She further noted that for Filipinos to become true members of a global community, a foremost necessity is the development of critical thinking through enriched appreciation of humanities and human rights.

“Education is not only about the basics, it has to have a strong moral ethical foundation, that’s why everybody wants to have arts and culture, literature, ethics. Human rights is the framework of our curricular system,” Briones remarked.