Leonor Briones is the new Secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd). She is not new to public service. She has served as a secretary with the Commission on Audit and as National Treasurer from 1998-2001.
Prior to being appointed as DepEd Secretary she is teaching Public Administration at UP, a chairman of the board of trustees at the Siliman University, chairman-designate of the Universidad de Manila and the lead convenor of budget watchdog group, Social Watch Philippines (SWP).
Leanor Briones is a graduate of Silliman University with a degree of Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in Accounting. She has a Masters Degree in Public Administration with a major in Local Government and Fiscal Administration from the University of the Philippines Diliman. She completed further studies with a Post Graduate Diploma in Development Administration from the Harvard Institute for International Development at Harvard University.
Among her priorities as the new DepEd Secretary is to push for higher budget for education. Currently, the government allocated 3% of its GDP to education. Briones finds this as inadequate and aims to meet the international standard of 6%.
Briones said she will also prioritize improving DepEd’s service in far-flung provinces.
Briones will also prioritize President Duterte’s marching order which is to make education accessible to all and to address the problems caused by the implementation of the K-12 program.
