Let private schools handle additional 2 years, DepEd urged

MANILA, Philippines - Former education secretary Mona Dumlao Valisno said that letting private higher education institutions (HEIs) and tech-voc training centers to set up the additional two-year senior high school (SHS), will spare DepEd and private high school owners the financial burden of building the additional infrastructure and procuring the necessary resources, such as hiring more teachers, and buying school furniture for the additional Grade 11 and 12.

At the same time, colleges and universities, as well as tech-voc training centers will also be spared from the worry of not having freshmen and sophomores starting 2016 when Grade 11 is put in place, and in 2017 for Grade 12.

Valisno is an old hand at the DepEd. Before serving in 2010 for several months as DepEd secretary immediately preceding incumbent Education Secretary Armin Luistro, she has served in top positions at the DepEd and the Commission on Higher Education during the administrations of former presidents Ferdinand Marcos, Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Before being appointed as Arroyo’s last DepEd chief, Valisno had co-chaired the Presidential Task Force on Education, which had also raised the need to add two years in the basic education curriculum (BEC) which before K + 12 was a 10-year BEC with 10 years of elementary and four years of high school.

“It’s the win-win solution to the problem of colleges and universities, and even technical-vocation training centers losing students for two years when Grade 11 and 12 is put in place in 2016 and 2017,” Valisno said.

The win-win formula, she said, was basically one that follows the Aquino administration’s public-private partnership (PPP) scheme for the implementation of the two-year senior high school or SHS.

Valisno earlier issued an appeal as well as a challenge to all senators and congressmen, whether allies of President Aquino or from the political opposition, to support a move to allot P45 billion to the DepEd budget to start implementation of the next phase of the K+12 BEC program.

“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 earlier.

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.