Completing the story for senior high school
It’s been a while since I last interacted with Congressman Roman Romulo and I was pleased to see him once again explain, almost flawlessly, our current education issues that seem to be quite a topic, especially among parents who have been struggling with what to do about their children in senior high school.
Congressman Romulo is the chairman of the committee on basic education and culture at the House of Representatives and I have always known Congressman Romulo to be a staunch advocate for education, as he always saw it as the surest path to a person’s complete development.
Earlier, the Commission on Higher Education announced that it was discontinuing the senior high school program in state universities and colleges (SUCs) as well as local universities and colleges (LUCs) in the next school year. This news created a bit of a stir amongst students and parents who are concerned about their schooling, considering they are part of the grade levels that will be affected by this decision. In an interview, however, Congressman Romulo explained thoroughly the rationale behind this issue and assured the public that the necessary steps are being carried out to address the problem.
In the very first place, and putting things in its proper context, it is only the agreement between the Department of Education and CHED that is being dissolved, where such an arrangement was instituted between the two agencies in 2015 as DepEd saw that the number of teachers and classrooms was a huge concern in the implementation of the K-12 in 2016. This therefore led to an eventual partnership between the DepEd and CHED as in 2016-2017, the CHED was able to accommodate students, especially since senior high school (SHS) has specialized subjects.
As explained by Congressman Roman, the 2015 agreement was for CHED to “catch” or somewhat “shoulder” students (not his exact words as the interview was in Tagalog) from grades 11-12 upon full implementation of the K-12 as DepEd prepares the number of classrooms and teachers. The students accepted by CHED would be given a voucher, which is a financial assistance program for the schools accepting students. This voucher system is all that has been
