Free Public Secondary Education in the Philippines

Parents from depressed areas welcomed this act when it was implemented. It’s a big help because students can enroll without cash involved. Before the late Education Secretary Roco mandated all public schools not to compel parents to pay any fee during enrollment, the school used to ask for certain amount upon enrollment. These are voluntary contributions. Although it says “free,” students are asked to give voluntary contributions for boy scouts, girl scouts, PTCA, Red Cross, school paper, etc. However, if a parent cannot give a single centavo, the school cannot deny enrollment nor withhold the report card at the end of the school year.

Free public secondary education in the Philippines is mandated by the Constitution. Any person who violates this law will be prosecuted to the highest extent will be given a punishment that is commensurate with the grievous violations he/she had committed. For the information of everybody, said free public education is in line with governance of the four-year high school education that categorizes under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Secondary Education of DepEd. Although secondary education is provided free in public schools, participation rate has been inferior in comparison to primary education. Based on statistical data by DepEd, in 1965-1966, there were 1,173,000 students in Secondary Education, a majority of which came from the private schools (731,000 or 62.3 percent). In 1987-1988, there were 3,494,460 students with 1,404,387 or 40.8 percent in private schools. In 1992-1993, participation rate was 56.76 percent, with 5,757 total schools (2,285 private) and the total enrollment was 4,450,000 students (1,520,000 in private schools). There were 125,142 teachers (39,822 private). The gross teacher-student ratio was 1:36. The dropout rate was 7 percent. In 1993-1994, 75 municipalities had no high school facilities available. By 1999-2000, there were 5,160,000 students with 1,240,000 being in private schools. The teacher-student ratio was 1:35. Only five municipalities had no high school facilities. The National Secondary Aptitude test was first implemented in 1994-1995, where the passing rate was 77.32 percent. By 1998-1999, a total of 94.76 percent passed.

On the other hand, the school where I am presently stationed is a public secondary school. Although we have funds for school supplies and equipment (from the MOEE), budget for services are not included. We need to hire guards to secure the school, and utility workers to maintain the cleanliness of the school. The PTCA shoulders the salaries of these employees. The budget for this is taken from the PTCA fund. There is also a budget for the school paper collected from the students. Around 300 pesos plus is collected from each student (except athletes) payable within the year. This is being contested by some parents who argued that they should not pay because public school is free. We tried to explain that it is still free because they are not paying any tuition and miscellaneous fees, unlike in private schools. Some smart parents insist that since it is voluntary, they may or may not give. We have to explain again that if they do not contribute to the prescribed amount, we cannot pay for the services of the guards and the utility workers. Who else will do these jobs?

I wish the proponents of this act added the portion legalizing collection of voluntary contributions for the upkeep of the school because the DepEd does not have budget for these. Otherwise, if they really do not want to burden the parents, they should have allocated funds for these services in all public schools nationwide. It’s ironical to hear that the superintendent had returned the excess funds for the year to the DBM because these were unused. These excess funds could have been used for these utility services. Then there would be no collections in the schools anymore.

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Note: Letter from HS Teacher