Vocational and technical education is what the country needs to find its rightful place in the modern world.

In a speech delivered before students and faculty of Don Honorio Lopez Institute of Technical Institute (formerly Sentro ng Karunungan Vocational Institute) in Tayuman, Tondo, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said skills training is an indispensable tool to guide the country to the future.

“This school, by helping young and not-so-young students acquire vocational training, prepares them for the challenges,” the President said of the institute.

The President earlier toured the institute’s new three-story annex, where classes in fashion jewelry making, cosmetology, hair science, reflexology, hotel and restaurant management, food trade, baking, cell phone repair and maintenance, and computer repair were held.

“It is my honor to tell you that 1,000 of the students here are scholars of PGS (President Gloria Scholarships) in food and beverage, barista, hair cutting, massage, motorcycle repair, carpentry, plumbing masonry, welding, and coming soon culinary arts,” she said.

Since the President assumed office in 2001, the national budget for education has doubled, to almost P200 billion. Investments in technical and skills training during the last nine years have approximated the combined spending of the three previous administrations.

“We did not just improve the public school system, we have also increased the number of poor but deserving students in the private school system through the government scholarship programs,” the President said. “In science and engineering, we have provided college and post graduate education to over 600,000 scholars.”

As a result of these investments, the national achievement test scores went up from 44 percent to 55 percent in elementary schools and 36 percent to 47 percent in high schools in the last four years.