For many years the national government has been focusing on the improvement of the education system in the country. Under the Philippine constitution, education should have the highest budgetary priority of the government. In a speech by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Education Congress 2001 she stressed that the best means for reducing poverty and providing safety nets for sectors affected by globalization is through investment in education and training. .
The bigger the bulk of education still goes to basic education. But even if government accounts a big part, the rapid increase of enrollment always makes the allocation deficient. The budget for education is not enough to provide textbooks, classrooms and desks. The increasing sharing of students of such materials is an indication of shortages. In an interview with Mr. Gilbert Trinidad, executive assistant of DECS Physical Facilities Office, he stated that the standard student-classroom proportion is 1:45. The current ratio in the country reaches 1:55, he added. The proportion of students per classroom also indicates shortages in teachers. A teacher is only to handle 45 students. However, in most cases it is much higher than 55. In order to decrease the ratio of school materials sharing, the government monitored and decreased the number of students in the classroom. This was done by student shifts. According to Mr. Trinidad, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) required public schools to make student shifts. The regular school day that is an average of 8 hours will be distributed as 3-setsof school hours. This government program was to resolve to over-populated schools. The first batch of students is the 6am-10pm classes. Then, 10am-1pm and 1pm-4pm classes succeed to it. The shift of students is an indication of a backlog in the system. The shifting would result to a decrease of school hours per student. Thus the opportunity of a student to learn more is decreased.