Pulling the plug on voucher program

The frenzy of the holidays may have eclipsed the Dec. 18 memorandum issued by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) which directed all state and local universities and colleges (SUCs and LUCs) to review their acceptance of new senior high school (SHS) enrollees, but its full impact has now started to dawn on affected stakeholders.

CHEd’s memo said the SHS program had lapsed after the transition period for the K-12 system, which was from school year 2016-2017 to school year 2020-2021. With the transition period over, there was “no [more] legal basis” to fund the SHS program in government-run higher education institutions (HEIs), CHEd chair Prospero de Vera III said, adding that the agency has been instructing public state colleges to “wind down” the SHS enrollment since two years back because of this eventuality.

A Department of Education (DepEd) and CHEd agreement had allowed public universities and colleges to offer senior high classes during the K-12 transition period, to use the excess capacity of classrooms and teachers expected from the drop in enrollment because of two more years added to high school. The students’ fees were paid by DepEd through its voucher program. With the free higher education law leading to “a tremendous increase in enrollment, SUCs and LUCs … [now] need to use the classrooms and teachers,” De Vera said.

Congestion in public high schools

According to the memo, Grade 12 students in public universities and colleges for school year 2023-2024 are allowed to finish their studies, but all HEIs should stop offering the program beginning school year 2024-2025. Meanwhile, laboratory schools, or those offering education programs, will still be allowed to accept SHS learners but with limited capacity.

Affected by CHEd’s directive are 114 SUCs and 146 LUCs, and the 17,751 Grade 11 students enrolled in them.

Although the DepEd said it was ready to accommodate the displaced learners, the Alliance of Concerned Teachers last week expressed concern that congestion in public high schools would worsen, given the unaddressed problem of classroom shortage. It might also result in “overworked” public school teachers who now have to handle bigger classes because of student transferees, it added. And without the DepEd’s voucher program, aren’t students at risk of losing access to free education because of financial constraints?, the group asked.

While De Vera has insisted that the CHEd memo has a legal basis and was neither “abrupt nor arbitrary,” its full implementation without safety nets for the affected students and proper coordination with participating schools has left them in a quandary, their fates uncertain. Without the DepEd-issued vouchers, can private schools and LUCs survive with an emaciated student enrollment?

Alternatives to the voucher program

As Bohol Rep. Kristine Alexie Tutor pointed out, based on DepEd Order 20, it is only the voucher program, and not the SHS itself, that is being discontinued. “It is therefore now up to the SUCs and LUCs to decide whether or not they can continue their SHS with … funding from other sources [or] out-of-pocket.”

With most private schools in financial straits post-pandemic, a more workable solution would be for CHEd and DepEd to sit down posthaste with representatives from private schools, teachers’ groups, students, and their parents to thresh out alternatives to the voucher program and similar modes of government support. Assistance, too, must be given teaching and nonteaching personnel who are at risk of losing their jobs with the shutdown of SHS program.

De Vera has also raised a pertinent issue: with vouchers no longer given, would it still be within the SUCs’ and LUCs’ legal mandate to charge tuition for senior high school classes? It’s a question that Congress must address with an appropriate law. As private schools are crucial government partners in expanding public access to education, can lawmakers and budget officials also look into how subsidies for them can be worked into the country’s yearly appropriation for education?

Accessible education

For its part, DepEd must start canvassing the public schools’ capacity to absorb the expected influx of displaced Grade 11 students and its capability to continue its support for private school transferees, given its spokesperson Michael T. Poa’s assurance that affected students can either enroll in public schools, or in private schools using the voucher program.

CHEd, De Vera has said, is already coordinating with some SUCs and LUCs to look into viable options for those impacted by its memo. The agency also “continues to monitor the situation on the ground, and [is] ready to sit down with DepEd and other educational stakeholders … to ensure that no student will be left behind for academic year 2024-2025,” the official added.

As he should, and fast. With the next school year looming in August, CHEd and DepEd have only months to get their act together to salvage the subsidized SHS program and redeem their vision of accessible education for all.