The latest data on Philippine education is more than just a statistic—it is a call to action. We are witnessing an alarming trend where student proficiency plummets from approximately 30% in Grade 3 to less than 1% by Grade 12. By the time our students graduate senior high school, almost none meet the expected standards for proficiency.

At UpskillNowPH, we believe it is time for an uncomfortable but necessary truth: blaming teachers or the curriculum alone will not fix this. The issue is deeply systemic. To build a better future, we must address the major factors currently breaking down our education system and transform them into opportunities for growth.

The Challenges We Face—And How We’re Solving Them

1.Elevating Teacher Education Quality

With over a thousand institutions offering teacher education, quality has become diluted across uneven standards. At UpskillNowPH, we believe educator development must continue long after graduation. We provide an online platform that empowers our partner educators to upskill their colleagues by equipping them with:

-Specialized micro-courses designed for professional growth.

-Instructional Design & Course Creation: Moving beyond content mastery to include digital competence and engagement skills.

-Data Literacy: Using analytics and performance tracking to improve teaching outcomes.

2.Redefining Teaching as a Premier Career

Many high-performing students bypass education degrees for paths with higher perceived economic returns. We at UpskillNowPH are working to make education professionally and financially attractive again by creating alternative pathways for passionate educators to monetize their expertise and elevate their professional value.

3.Transitioning to Outcome-Based Training

In-service training without measurable outcomes is simply an expensive activity. In UpskillNowPH we integrate LMS analytics with post-assessment programs into our platform to ensure every training session has a measurable impact on the learner.

4.Rewarding Excellence

Innovation dies when excellence isn’t rewarded. To incentivize passionate educators who pour their hearts into high-impact teaching, UpskillNowPH operates on a revenue-sharing model, ensuring our educators have a financial upside to their impact.

Bridging the Infrastructure Gap

The reality of the Philippine landscape includes physical and environmental barriers that we cannot ignore:

A Mobile-First Approach: In areas lacking classrooms and books, our cloud-based, mobile-friendly platform removes infrastructure dependency.

Academic Recovery: When disasters or events disrupt school hours, our self-paced digital learning ensures that education doesn’t have to stop.

Flexible Pacing: For students facing health barriers or physical struggles, digital access allows for the flexible pacing they need to succeed.

While technology alone cannot solve poverty or malnutrition, we believe that digital access combined with corporate-sponsored scholarships can expand opportunities at a scale never seen before.

The UpskillNowPH Mission: Building the Future Today

The formal system cannot scale quality fast enough to meet the current crisis. We need a parallel infrastructure that is flexible, measurable, and skill-based to complement traditional education.

UpskillNowPH is built to be that solution through:

Equitability: We believe that education should be accessible and affordable. We offer free courses and our paid courses are priced between ₱249 to ₱449.

Empowerment: Revenue-sharing for educators and providing access to our ready-to-use, cost-efficient online training platform for forward-thinking companies or training centers that invest in their employees’ peak potential.

Employability: Content focused on the industry-relevant skills Filipinos need to thrive in a competitive job market.

Systemic reform will take years, but our learners cannot wait. It is time to stop the blame and  let’s start building the future of Philippine education.

Source:
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2026/02/14/2507848/our-failing-high-school-education