PHL school mapping starts
THE DEPARTMENT of Education and Second Congressional Commission on Education on Monday said they would start collecting data on 12,212 private schools this month to update the government’s database and aid efforts to decongest overcrowded schools.
“This initiative is meant to inform government policies and programs related to the complementarity of public and private education institutions,” the commission said in a statement.
DepEd and the commission would also work with public and private school stakeholders to determine whether congestion in public schools could be eased through vouchers and state subsidies.
“We need to make sure that resources allocated to government assistance to students and teachers in private education are allocated and spent optimally with the goal of decongesting public schools and helping the poorest learners,” commission co-chairman Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian said in the same statement.
“Mapping where our private schools, congested public schools and poorest learners should help us to be more efficient in the use of resources,” he added.
The government has a program that allows the state to shoulder the private school education of students from overcrowded public schools.
The commission said there are 149 municipalities with very congested public junior high schools, with few schools implementing the state’s school voucher program. — John Victor D. Ordoñez