Education remains a priority even for cash-strapped Filipinos as seen in the growth of PHINMA Education which is focused on serving the underserved youth, its president and CEO Chito Salazar said.

In the past 2 years or during the COVID-19 pandemic, PHINMA said it has grown about 30 percent to 94,000 students from 74,000, Salazar told ANC.

“I think this is a story of how important education is to our families, even in difficult and challenging times, they want to go to school and they do see education as a way to improve their life and way out of poverty,” Salazar said.

Tertiary education operators face the challenge of freshmen coming in with lower reading and math skills, he said.

Producing graduates with the necessary skills for the job market is what makes an educational institution successful, he said.

Although PHINMA managed to help and improve students under its care, which was about 125,000 this year, there are millions of students in the Philippines who need to get out of the country’s learning crisis, Salazar said.

Schools in the Philippines returned to in-person classes on Aug. 22.

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