By Jovee Marie N. dela Cruz
A LAWMAKER on Monday said that over 2 million children aged between 5 and 15 will not be going to school as the new school year began on Monday.
ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio said that based on enrollment figures provided by the Department of Education (DepEd), around 570,000 5 year olds would not be able to enroll in kindergarten; over 838,000 in elementary; and over 1.1 million in high school.
“While over 23 million children will be trooping to schools at kindergarten, elementary and secondary levels…around 2.3 million children will be left behind, deprived of their fundamental right to education,” Tinio said.
“These appalling numbers point to the failure of the administration to fulfill its basic constitutional mandate to provide basic education to all Filipinos…[showing] that the vaunted interventions in so-called poverty alleviation, such as the multibillion-peso Conditional-Cash Transfer Program have not been effective in enabling the poorest families to send their children to school,” Tinio added.
The children most likely to be out of school, Tinio said, come from the poorest families in the poorest and most underdeveloped areas in the country.
“President Aquino and the Department of Education cannot claim success in any so-called education reforms for as long as one child in 10 is not able to go to school,” he said.
Tinio also reiterated his call for the suspension of the K to 12 Program.
Protest
MEANWHILE, youth groups led by Anakbayan, League of Filipino Students (LFS) and National Union of Students of the Philippines, and organizations under the STOP K to 12 Alliance met the opening of classes with protests against the K to 12 Program and tuition and other school fees increases.
The organizations held protest actions and signature campaigns in Batasan National High School, Ramon Magsaysay High School-España and Manila Science High School.
The groups, quoting the DepEd figures, said that only 3,839 of the 7,976, or only 48 percent, of public high schools have been submitted for K to 12 funding and construction.
Vencer Crisostomo, Anakbayan national chairman, said, “While the DepEd is ensuring the profits of private schools, there are a million students that will either be forced to enroll in private schools and be made to pay higher tuition rates or drop out.”
The groups also protested the approval of tuition increases in more than 300 schools in the country, hiking the country’s tertiary tuition rate to as much as P80,000 to P100,000 per year.
The LFS, for its part, reiterated its calls to junk the K to 12 Program and stop tuition and other fees increases.
The LFS also challenged President Aquino to a public debate on K to 12 implementation.
The student group earlier posed the challenge in May, saying President Aquino and DepEd Secretary Bro. Armin A. Luistro, FSC, had been peddling “a lot of lies” regarding K to 12.
“Aquino and Luistro have been telling one lie after another regarding K to12. These two have also been taking a swipe against groups opposing the program. But when faced with valid arguments and compelling data against K to12, they resort to nothing but sweet talk and using God’s name in vain,” LFS National Spokesman Charisse Bañez said.
“Even without K to 12, the government’s budget allocation for education could not even address the severe lack of classrooms, teachers, textbooks and other basic needs. Government budget for education is not ‘world class or globally competitive,’” the youth leader added.
The current education budget stands at 2.8 percent of our gross domestic product, while United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recommends 6 percent of GDP.
The LFS also insisted that the DepEd has not addressed shortages and is only grappling to address 2010 backlogs, saying classroom shortages remain at 209,539, 60 million for textbooks, and 2.5 million for sanitation and water facilities. “We also lack 114,304 teachers, using a teacher-student ratio of 1:30,” she said.
“Aquino and Luistro do not have the right to speak of being ‘world class or globally competitive.’ They have been concealing their failure to address shortages using a classroom/teacher-student ratio of 1:45, which is not at par with ‘global standards,’” Bañez added.
He added that the implementation of K to 12 is only a burden to Filipino families.
“Based on our own study, a student in a public senior high school will need P100,000 to cover expenses for the additional two years under K to 12. Meanwhile, a student in a private senior high school will need P200,000,” the youth leader said.
“Additional expenses under K to 12 will eat up most of the annual income of Filipino families, which averages at P235,000. And it will be a hell lot worse for the poorest families in the country living on P69,000 a year,” Bañez added.
Image credits: PNA