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Filipinos! Here is My Free Education Advocacy that I Want You to Know

In the Philippines, we often hear this statement from the Filipinos about education:


“Hindi hadlang ang kahirapan para makatapos ng pag-aaral.”
Poverty is not a hindrance to finish education.

I completely disagree! Allow me to explain my side.




www.knowriel.com - This will change the way you think about education. This is My Free Education Advocacy - for a positive change in the education system we grown up with here in the Philippines. This is for all learners out there - students, professionals, entrepreneurs, and even the ordinary people who have access to the internet. Education from Knowriel - it's free and it should be!


Millions of Filipinos are unable to step highschool and even college because of the hardships in life we have in our country. Many are poor and therefore cannot afford the cost of education in the Philippines. If paying 5,000 to 20,000 pesos per semester in a Philippine college is already tough, then how about more the daily baon, school projects, transportation allowance, boarding house, and extra expenses?



Wake up! This is the truth. That Filipino statement with all respect, if I were you, forget it. Accept the fact that you cannot just earn your education in the Philippines because you are poor.

This is not an insult to anyone. I am from a poor family but I was able to complete a college degree despite of that. If you really want to find a solution to any problem, you have to cautiously identify and accept that that is really the problem. Poverty is a big hindrance to education. That is the real problem in the Philippines and it is undeniable.


Here’s another unconvincing realm. Whenever we hear news that a student from a poor family was able to complete a college degree with flying colors, then this another familiar statement comes in:


“Isa na namang patunay na hindi hadlang ang kahirapan para makatapos ng pagaaral.”

Another proof that poverty is not a hindrance to finish education.

Again, I disagree.



Poverty will always be a hindrance to education. There have been so much documentaries done by GMA 7’s great documentarists about Filipino children unable to finish elementary because their parents have nothing on their pockets. Enough of it! Here’s what you should believe into. Poverty, as a hindrance to education, can be overcome. Let me state it in another way:

“Makakatapos ka ng pagaaral sa kabila ng kahirapan kung gagawa ka ng paraan.”

You can finish education despite poverty if you will only find ways.

You have two options. One, stay out of poverty. Two, get a free education. My intention in this post is to present that “paraan” or way for anyone to get an education. And I would like to focus on number two. Yes, I really am serious about this for I want to help Filipinos.


To make it simple for you, let us consider at this point that you are already a highschool graduate and you want to get a better job. In the Philippines, believe it or not, that is close from impossible to not. You cannot get a better job if you don’t have a college diploma, period. But if you will only find ways to earn that education even by not enrolling on colleges, universities, or technical vocation schools, you can get a better job.

Sounds intriguing? Impossible? Fake news? Scam? Well, I am encouraging you to read until the end the following statements which I already shared to many readers.

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This year 2018, I am quite excited to get my makeover-ed website to work. I realized that education is at the center of my advocacy of helping others so I re-designed and curated Knowriel.com into something learner's friendly.

Free Quality Education
I know this is quite hard to achieve mainly because education system is a business system itself. Student enrolls and pays for high tuition fees and for a lot of other stuffs during the course period in exchange of valuable knowledge and skills. But the idea that learning can be made from "affordable" to "free" is something possible. This is my own view of how things work today.

Think of YouTube and TED.com, two websites that are full of learning tutorials and informative talks about various subjects. And think of the internet in general. This is where free learning materials are and because we live in a mobile computing world, getting those resources is just seconds away. What if we make use of them to the fullest - but in an organized and systematic fashion. Let me further explain this.

Learning Guide

Say a learner wants to be expert in a certain field, Financial Management for example. The best way to start the learning journey is by finding a course outline or curriculum that will guide the learner. Where to find it? In the Table of Contents (TOC) of a Financial Management book written by a reputable author. You don't have to own the book but just look for the TOC details from Book Stores, online or physical. Also, you can visit a library and browse books there. That would be a practical way!

But another way of doing it is by searching for scholarly papers online, which in the same manner offers information similar to TOC. Then next is to surf YouTube, Wikipedia, Investopedia, and a few other reliable knowledge and information sources online and create a list of links for each topic and sub-topic based on the TOC. You are ready to learn for free at that point - with a learning guide available on hand.

Learn for FREE
Education is taken by us because we have an expectation - mastery of a skill. While diploma and certificate truly matters in the corporate world, that earned skill stored in your brain tops it all if its about producing results in business or personal life. What I am trying to imply here is that you cannot literally solve a business problem with your MBA degree or College Diploma, but mainly your talent and skill you have with you all the time is what can. I am not saying forget about college education. What I am suggesting is to be practical if its about learning.

This is my ideology. Resources, mostly free, is just around us - in the internet. You don't have to pay Investopedia and TED to learn a skill, right? Just watch, practice, watch, practice, until you master it. Or simply read books, whitepapers, and journals. Subscribe to a newsletter that features topics you want to learn and master. Simple concept and is doable. I mean from repairing broken appliances, to solving business owner's problems, to inventing a new product, learning things related to those can be done at your own pace without spending money for tuition fees. And imagine the convenience of sharing information from our peers online. Drop a file in DropBox or share information in a cloud drive. This is the norm in today's digital world.



You, a learning guide, your laptop/computer/smartphone/tablet and internet access will do.

What Knowriel.com provide is guidance to learners - like the TOC or a course outline. My enthusiasm with books help me realize that everything written in it can also be found online. It is just that they are unorganized. So I organized it in this website.


Free Education, think again. Possible in this technological age, isn't it?

Why pay if you can learn for free? So I am encouraging you to rethink your education or learning needs and give Knowriel.com a try. Start here for this is full of knowledge and information guides that could help you become a successful person in your field. The rest is up to you.

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Change the Way You Think About Education

I am doing these because I can see how difficult it is for millions of Filipinos to get a better job in this country just because they don't have college education. In the US and Europe, education in fact don't matter much when it comes to job qualification. I mean, you can be hired even if you have no college degree. Why? Because people from these countries are learned and trained enough to do the decent jobs available for them. Gasoline boy, restaurant crew, office clerk, warehouse man, store keeper – in the Philippines, they will look after your college diploma to be hired in these positions! Not in the US and Europe.


Filipino Job Seekers and Workers Lining Up to Board a Bus


It’s about time to change the way we think about education. Hope that I had helped you realize what I mean with FREE QUALITY EDUCATION. May this post shed light.



Note: Photos of schools, colleges and universities in this post is for illustration of education purposes only. There is no specific mentions of these education institutions that either harm or promote them in any way.


Related Posts
Filipinos Need Free Education: Why Can't it be Given? - (A Project for the Filipinos Update)



About the Author

Noriel Panganiban is a Business Coach with interest and passion in Supply Chain Management, Internet Marketing, Blogging/Writing, and Business Development. He is the founder of Knowriel.com and ProjectPilipinas.com. Noriel's advocacy is to provide affordable to free quality education for all. For more information about Noriel, you can check his LinkedIn and other social media profiles.

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