DepEd needs P45 B more to subsidize Grade 11

MANILA, Philippines -  The Department of Education (DepEd) is estimated to need as much as P45 billion in additional funds if it will fully subsidize Grade 11 or Year 1 of the two-year senior high school to be set up under the ambitious K (Kindergarten) +12 Basic Education Curriculum (BEC) plan.

Mona Valisno, former education secretary, yesterday said DepEd should get support from Congress for an additional P45-billion funding for the government-subsidized Grade 11 either in the 2012 or 2013 budget for some 1.5 million high school graduates in 2016 that will be the first batch to enter the first year of senior high school.

Valisno issued an appeal as well as a challenge to all senators and congressmen in the two houses of Congress, whether allies of President Aquino or from the political opposition, to support the government’s move.

The program would add another two years to the current 10-year BEC which has only six years of elementary and four years of high school, aside from the mandatory kindergarten or pre-school.

“We need to start K+12 as early as possible so we can produce high school graduates that are more employable by the local and foreign industry,” Valisno said.

To ease the burden on the parents of the 1.5 million public school graduates that will be made to go on to Grade 11, either in 2016 or earlier, Valisno said that the government should subsidize the two-year senior high school, as well as encourage private colleges and universities and state universities and colleges to convert their college classrooms to accommodate the two-year senior high school students.

“Instead of DepEd providing facilities and other resources to Grades 11 and 12 students in public schools including hiring new teachers, it is my humble viewpoint that existing facilities in public and private colleges and universities as well as technical vocational institutions be utilized with DepEd underwriting the cost under a full scholarship arrangement,” Valisno said.

Valisno said that the huge funding requirement would be recouped by the government when the 1.5 million students graduate and are added to what would become a huge pool of highly skilled and well-educated graduates that are ready to join the workforce either for jobs in local industries or overseas.