EDUCATION Secretary Leonor Magtolis-Briones said the Department of Education (DepEd) is faced with a challenge of additional resources that need to be poured in for the department’s Senior High School (SHS) program.
“We are continuing K to 12 with additional enhancement. The aim is to raise the quality of education,” Briones said at the opening of the two-day Education Summit on November 3 and 4 at the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex in Pasay City.
Briones stressed their firm commitment to raise the equality of education through the major basic education reform of K to 12.
The DepEd is committed to K to 12 because it is a legal mandate, she said.
“When the President asked me, ‘Should we continue or should we abandon the policy of K to 12?’ I said to him, Mr. President, I am not a lawyer. You are a lawyer. The law says we have to implement K to 12 by June 2016. And unless that law is changed, we have to implement that law,” Briones said.
Adding two more years will enable our students “to catch up with everybody else. We are adding two more years in the light of competition right where we are in our own country, because of the open system now where people come and go from various countries. We are exposed to competition right where we are and also in other countries. We are doing this to catch up with ourselves, to catch up with the increasing demands of our society in terms of economic development and also in terms of what we are as a people.”
Among the challenges they are currently dealing with are construction of new classrooms, teacher hiring, and instructional and other learning materials.
She noted the President has given his immediate response by proposing an unprecedented 31-percent increase in the DepEd budget for 2017, from P433.5 billion to P569 billion.
From 2010 to 2016, the DepEd already constructed 118, 686 classrooms. There are ongoing construction of 66,643 and the agency targets to construct an additional 47,492 next year. It also targets to have 66,492 school seats.
There were also 195,302 teachers hired from 2010 to 2016, but with the K to 12, there are still ongoing hiring of 34,436 and targets additional 53,831 next year.
Briones said there are 299.7 million instructional and other learning materials delivered from 2010 to 2016, 179.6 million copies for procurement and for 2017 55.8 million are being targeted to be procured; from 2010 to 2016, there were 21,981 computer packages; 13,841 are being procured currently; and 30,697 are the numbers targeted to be procured next year.
In her 100-day accomplishment report, Briones said basic education through the private sector must not be seen as a hindrance to providing quality basic education for Filipino learners. As of 2015, there were 16,428 private schools out of the 63,167 elementary and secondary schools in the Philippines. For the education chief, these private institutions actually provide options to the needs and career goals of learners and their families.
Through the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) and the Senior High School (SHS) Voucher Program, the government provides financial assistance for learners who wish to pursue high-school education in private schools.
The program also assists in decongesting overcrowded classrooms and strengthens the thrust that education for all is the shared responsibility of all sectors. While the DepEd supports the delivery of basic education through private institutions, it also sets standards governing the establishment of private schools.
Through DepEd Order 88, series of 2010, the DepEd issued a manual of regulations for private schools in basic education that also covers the process of applying to establish a school and the sanctions for those that fail to sustain the appointed guidelines.