MANILA, Philippines — Education groups have expressed worries over the impending displacement and limited options faced by students and teachers affected by the discontinuation of the senior high school (SHS) program in state universities and colleges (SUC).
The Commission on Higher Education last month directed all SUCs to cease accepting new enrollees in senior high school next school year, citing the end of the K to 12 transition period in 2021 and the lack of a legal basis to continue funding senior high school students in SUCs.
The CHED directive also reiterated that there will no longer be any SHS voucher recipients in SUCs, which the Department of Education (DepEd) announced in July, months before the start of the school year (2023-2024), with the only exemption being Grade 12 students for that year.
Public universities and colleges were only allowed to offer Grades 11 and 12 during the K to 12 transition period (school years 2016-2017 to 2020-2021) to mitigate the drop in enrollment that would result from adding two more years of high school.
Since then, however, public universities have become full once again, said CHED Chairperson Popoy De Vera, with SUCs now needing to use their facilities and teachers.
RELATED: CHED: SUCs told to 'wind down' senior high program years ago
But the CHED directive was akin to a “(haphazard) discontinuation” of the SHS program in SUCs, said teacher group Teachers Dignity Coalition (TDC) and student group Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (SPARK), who stressed the need to first guarantee “improved access and quality of our education system.”
Both student and teacher groups said in a joint statement that the end of the SHS programs in SUCs “will lead to economic displacement for our teachers and threaten our learners’ right to accessible and quality education.”
“While we understand that SUCs and LUCs are mandated to offer the SHS program only during the K-12 transition period, we fear that mechanically following suit without serious consideration of the drawbacks on education stakeholders will lead to another learning crisis,” the joint statement read.
The two groups also expressed concerns over the 17,700 current Grade 11 students who will be “affected by dislocation” and the impact this will have on public school congestion.
Another teachers' group, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), said that the directive may lead to more “overworked” public school teachers as a result of having to accommodate larger class sizes from the acceptance of student transferees.
“Closing down SHS programs in the LUCs and SUCs will not solve the cases of students dropping out of schools but will just exacerbate it,” the group added.
The joint statement by TDC and SPARK urged the government to ensure that existing public schools will have enough teachers and facilities to accommodate transferees and that the “quality of education learners received from SUCs and LUCs does not decline.”
Public schools should also be able to employ the SHS teachers working in SUCs, otherwise they “risk economic displacement,” the groups added.
Voucher as solution?
ACT also said that the directive may threaten the education of those “at risk of losing access to free education due to financial constraints.”
“This circumstance may compel students to pursue education in private schools, imposing an undue financial burden on them and their families,” the group said.
Along with its assurance that public schools were prepared to absorb the thousands of Grade 11 students that will have to transfer schools next year, DepEd has also floated the option for students to enroll in private schools instead and avail of the SHS voucher program.
A 2018 performance report by the Commission on Audit (COA) found that the government’s Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) program — which the SHS vouchers are under — was benefiting “non-poor” students due to DepEd’s inability to ensure its efficient implementation.
Under GASTPE, voucher subsidies or financial assistance is also given to private junior high school students.
The COA report said that DepEd “does not check whether or not the students are actually underprivileged" and that, in "promoting greater choice," it had also extended financial assistance to students coming from non-poor families.