Cost of Quality in Philippine Basic Education

Abstract

This paper attempts to look into the cost of quality in Philippine Basic Education which is measured by the ratio of total budget appropriations and the ratings of the grade six pupils in the National Achievement Test. The data showed that the National Capital Region (NCR) which occupied the second highest budget appropriation in 2009 exhibited the most expensive education which amounted to P208M.  Region 4A which accounted the highest appropriation among the seventeen regions manifested a quality cost of P207M. However, it is evident that least allocated regions such as Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), CARAGA and Region VIIIA showed low costs quality of education which amounted to P48M, P53M, and P94M respectively.  The results suggest that the government’s highly budgeted regions for basic education in 2009 achieved low performances in the national achievement test in grade six pupils which resulted to high cost of education. However, most of the regions with low budget appropriations performed well in the said test and consequently have lower quality cost.