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Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Sison: Bill on open high school system okayed
By Mark Allen Sison
Congress: Past & Present
THE problem of increasing dropout rate will hopefully be resolved with the recent passage by the House committee on basic education and culture of a proposed legislation institutionalizing the open high school system. Authored by Representative Edcel Lagman (First District, Albay), House Bill 12 institutionalizes the current open high school system being implemented by the Department of Education-Curriculum Development Division (DepEd-CDD).
The open high school system already covers 34 schools in various parts of the country, Corazon Echano, assistant chief of the CDD told the committee chaired by Representative Jose Carlos Lacson (Third District, Negros Occidental). Echano said the open high school system has reduced the dropout rate. She cited the results of their research and survey monitoring showing there are more or less 5,000 enrollees in open high schools to date.
The students of these open high schools, according to Echano, are chosen based on their geographic location and social status. They included those who are working, married or those who got pregnant early and those who live in areas experiencing armed conflict.
Mariano Piamonte, executive director of the Catholic Education Association of the Philippines (Ceap) - Coordinating Council of Private Education Association (Cocopea), said the DepEd should ensure that the quality of education acquired through the open high school system does not log behind the quality of education acquired in regular schools.
Piamonte suggested conducting a study showing the achievements of the students enrolled in the open high school are not far behind the achievements of students studying in regular schools. He said it is not fair that the government provide poor students who are mostly the clientele of this system of education, poor quality education.
Lagman pushed for his bill as he noted that Philippine high school students rank 41st out of 45 countries in Math, and 42nd out of 45 countries in Science. Out of 25 countries, the country ranks 23rd both in Math and Science for grade school. He said at current achievement rating, it would take 28 years for the Philippines to catch up with Singapore in Math and 25 years in Science.
Lagman was confident that through open high school system, which is an alternative learning system, the underprivileged out-of-school youth and adults who have finished elementary education but are unable to proceed to the secondary level because of geographic and/or socio-economic constraints would be able to earn their high school diploma.
Lagman said many youths are forced to stay at home to take care of younger siblings while their parents earn a living, while others are hampered from continuing their education because they reside in areas undergoing armed conflict, as what besets students in some areas in Mindanao.
He added that since the government cannot afford to solve the shortages of teachers and classrooms within a short period, innovative and alternative means of delivering education to the more marginalized sectors have to be carried out. Lagman also said the open high school system is "a system of delivering educational services to high school students utilizing print, radio, television and computer-based communications, satellite broadcasting, teleconferencing, and other multi-media learning and teaching technologies that allow students to study on their own without having to regularly attend classes in conventional classrooms."
(March 8, 2006 issue)
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