SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian on Wednesday said the education crisis should be addressed immediately for the sake of students.

He said that the World Bank report that Education Secretary Leonor Briones found insulting contained insights that the country can use to improve the education system.

“While we recognize the apology of the Worldbank because of violations in  protocols, the fact still remains — we are in an education crisis and we need to find solutions immediately,” the chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture said.

Gatchalian said that DepEd may develop solutions to the problems in education based on the World Bank’s “impartial  analysis on which aspect of our education system needs focus.”

“As early as 2020, the Senate Basic Education Committee had  already declared that the country is in an education crisis,” he stressed.

The senator said that the declaration was based on the country’s poor showing in the Programme for International Student Assessment and in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics.

“The declaration was the easy part. What is most important are the solutions to lift us out of the crisis,” the senator said.

The committee came up with proposals to improve the education system, one of which is to reform the teacher education system that will lead to high quality teacher education and eventually high quality teachers.