THE Department of Education’s (DepEd) Memorandum (DM) 23, Series of 2026, was clearly issued with a humane and practical objective: to ensure that learners are not excluded from end-of-school-year rites simply because of unpaid financial obligations to their previous schools. At a time when graduation and moving-up ceremonies mark important milestones in a child’s life, this policy sends a strong message that no learner should be publicly deprived of recognition for academic work completed.
At first glance, that principle is difficult to oppose. Schools should be places of learning, dignity and opportunity, not arenas where children bear the visible consequences of disputes between institutions and parents. DepEd’s clarification responds to reports that some transferees from private schools were being prevented from joining graduation or moving-up ceremonies in public schools because they had transferred without submitting official credentials. In that respect, the memorandum is an attempt to balance compassion with administrative order.
But while DM 23 protects learners from exclusion, it does so in a way that leaves private schools carrying the burden of an unresolved policy contradiction.
Under the memorandum, learners who are “temporarily enrolled” in public schools may participate in end-of-school-year rites as long as they satisfy minimum academic and attendance requirements. Yet this participation is ceremonial only. It does not amount to official graduation or promotion within the DepEd system. Learners remain unable to secure formal recognition until they submit complete transfer credentials and settle their obligations with their previous private school, either through full payment or a formal settlement agreement.
This is the heart of DM 23’s compromise: children may walk on stage, but their records remain incomplete.
DepEd believes that this arrangement preserves fairness on both sides. Learners are allowed to participate in important school rites, while private schools retain their right to withhold transfer credentials until outstanding obligations are paid and school property is returned. On paper, the policy respects both educational access and contractual accountability.
In practice, however, the arrangement is far less balanced than it appears.
The central difficulty lies in the concept of the “temporarily enrolled” learner. Under DepEd’s Revised Basic Education Enrollment Policy, a learner from a private school may be accommodated in a public school even without official transfer credentials, provided that the parent or guardian executes an affidavit of undertaking. This affidavit is intended to acknowledge the learner’s temporary status and bind the parent to an undertaking to settle financial liabilities.
Yet this mechanism sits uneasily beside the long-standing Manual of Regulations for Private Schools in Basic Education. That manual provides that a student is entitled to transfer only if obligations to the previous school have been settled. In other words, the older rule treats payment and credential release as conditions for transfer; the new framework allows enrollment first and documentation later.
That inconsistency is not merely technical. It creates an interpretive and operational gap, placing private schools in a weak and uncertain position. The DepEd may insist that private schools still have the right to withhold credentials, but what practical leverage remains once the learner has already been accommodated elsewhere and has even participated in end-of-school-year ceremonies?
The answer, unfortunately, is very little.
DM 23 recognizes the right of private schools, but it offers almost no meaningful enforcement mechanism to make that right effective. Apart from delaying official graduation or promotion, the memorandum imposes no concrete consequences on nonpaying parents. It provides no strict timeline for settlement. It does not establish a system to compel compliance. Nor does it set out sanctions for receiving schools that may fail to follow through on the temporary nature of the enrollment.
In effect, the memorandum reassures private schools in principle while weakening them in practice.
This matters because private schools are not mere passive participants in the education system. They are institutions that depend on tuition payments, contractual compliance and administrative discipline in order to operate. When balances remain unpaid, the issue is not simply one of accounting. It affects school sustainability, teacher salaries, facilities and the overall capacity of institutions to continue delivering quality education.
The DepEd is correct to say that participation in graduation or moving-up rites does not cancel or waive outstanding obligations. But a declaration alone is not a remedy. Rights without enforceable mechanisms are, in many cases, rights only in name.
If the government truly intends to maintain the private schools’ right to collect unpaid obligations, it must go further than symbolic recognition. It must provide a clearer and more coherent framework, one that harmonizes DM 23 with the Manual of Regulations for Private Schools, sets enforceable timelines for compliance and establishes consequences for failure to settle obligations after temporary enrollment is granted.
The DepEd deserves credit for attempting to shield learners from public embarrassment and exclusion. That is a legitimate and even commendable policy goal. But education policy must also be operationally sound. Compassion for students should not come at the expense of legal clarity, institutional fairness and the legitimate rights of schools.
DM 23 may have resolved the question of whether temporarily enrolled learners may join end-of-school-year rites. It has not resolved the deeper question of how private schools are supposed to enforce obligations once transfer has effectively taken place.
That unresolved tension reflects a long-standing policy weakness that should concern educators, school administrators and regulators alike.
A fair education system must protect learners, yes — but it must also ensure that the rules governing schools are coherent, enforceable and just for everyone concerned.
