Parents opt to send kids to public schools

Sending children to school nowadays requires a fortune, most especially when they are in private schools.

This is the very reason why most parents would opt to send their children to public elementary and secondary schools despite the conviction that children's potentials would best be maximized through the quality of education in private schools.

In public elementary and secondary schools, access to education is up for free though parents still have to pay for some authorized voluntary contributions, most of which are settled upon enrollment or during the school opening, this according to Department of Education regional director Carolino Mordeno.

However, these contributions are not requirements for enrollment. These should not also serve as reasons for children to be prevented from claiming their report cards as stated in the recent department order of the DepEd.

Mordeno added that other than the free enrollment, DepEd is also providing children with free textbooks. Parents will only have to buy the prescribed school uniform and school supplies that the child will be using like notebooks, notepads, pencil, pens, and others.

As for sending children to high school, Mordeno said that parents don't have to pay anything for public secondary schools.

He added that parents will only have to take care of the expenses for school projects and the allowance/"baon" for their children, as well as the school uniform, schoolbags and other school materials.

Based on data presented by the DepEd, the average tuition fee in private elementary schools is pegged at P10,000 to P 12,000 yearly. In high school, Mordeno said that the average tuition fee is at P15,000 or more depending also on which school the child reports to.

This amount excludes textbooks, uniforms, school materials, and allowances.

As soon as the student reaches tertiary level, the expenses are expected to shoot up in private schools.

And that unlike education in public elementary and secondary schools that is given for free, sending children in state colleges and universities will already require payment.

But then parents are also likely to consider public colleges as tuition fees for varied disciplines in private colleges and universities are placed at twice and or thrice as expensive depending on the program.

CHED regional director Enrique Grecia said that the average tuition fee nowadays in private colleges and universities is P12,000 per semester for education courses; P30,000 for medical courses; P25,000 for engineering courses; and P15,000 for maritime students.

Whereas in state colleges and universities, the average amount in any course is placed at P5,000 to P8,000 per semester, including miscellaneous and laboratory fees.

According to the Population Reference Bureau's handbook on population, an average Filipino household is composed of three school children wherein most of them are in the elementary level.

Considering that the latest average family income posted by the National Statistics Office is barely P150,000 per annum, parents appropriate at least 30 to 40 percent for the children's education-related expenses.

Single parent Imelda Balde, a public high school teacher at the Talisay City Central School, said that with her monthly income of P11,000, at least P2,000 is allocated for each of her two children - one in Kinder II and the other in Grade 2 - for their school supplies, food allowances, and transportation costs.

She said she paid around P300 upon enrollment of her child in Kinder II for the Parents Teachers Community Organization and other miscellaneous expenses.

A monthly payment of P150 is also required from Kinder II parents, P100 for teacher's salary and P50 for classroom and schools maintenance fees to cover honorarium for cleaners and barangay tanods.

For books, a Kinder II pupil is given a maximum of one month to acquire the learning materials amounting to P700.

On the other hand, "sari-sari" (variety) store owner Haidee Pinili said she would have spent more than the P10,000 she used for enrollment fees, school supplies and books she purchased the past few days had her two elementary schoolchildren were enrolled in a private school.

The two girls in Grades 4 and 6 study at the Mojon Elementary School where she spent only P120 for their enrollment fees. School supplies also reached a maximum of P1,000 for both of them. Her other child, a high school student, attends a religious sectarian school with a monthly tuition fee of P550.

Upon enrollment, P2,000 went to school payments and another P2,000 for books.

Her two other children who are engineering students at the Cebu Institute of Technology, are said to have now eaten up what she would have saved from her two girls in the elementary.

Upon enrollment, an entrance fee of P800 is to be paid for each, and that a total of P28,000 is to be paid for one whole semester for both children.

She said her children in college were already enrolled at the CIT prior to her knowledge of the Talisay City College where a student is required to pay only P75 for every unit or roughly less than P3,000 for an entire semester of a four-year-course and other vocational/technical courses.

Despite the sky-high difference between sending a child to a private school instead of a public school, Pinili said she would make both ends meet by what profit from sales her variety store would render at the end of the day.

"Whatever payment would be required would be settled by whatever is gained at the end of the day," Pinili said.

Central Visayas has over 3.7 million people with ages six to 24 wherein 65 percent of these are attending schools.