SEVERAL news sites have reported the Commission on Audit’s finding that senior high school students enrolled in expensive private schools with high tuition fees received government vouchers intended to help low-income learners. According to the COA, allowing voucher students to attend prestigious private schools is inconsistent with the voucher program’s core objective of prioritizing financially disadvantaged learners. The COA defined prestigious private schools as those charging annual fees of at least P100,000.
There are two assumptions in the COA’s statement. First, COA assumes that just because voucher recipients attend “prestigious schools,” they are not poor because they can afford the high tuition; and second, COA assumes that the “expensive schools” are charging SHS voucher holders the regular tuition rate.
Both assumptions are grossly misplaced.
Students eligible to use the SHS vouchers can choose any legitimate private senior high school they prefer. This is the program’s strength, as it allows underprivileged families to access schools they might not otherwise be able to afford without government assistance.
In reality, however, access to private schools is still largely limited by the voucher amount, which is only P22,500 in NCR and highly urbanized cities. This means voucher students usually attend private schools that do not charge more than the voucher value or those that require only a small “top-up.” The general sentiment is that if they go to a high-quality or top-tier private senior high school, they are not poor because how else could they have afforded the balance between the voucher amount and the regular tuition of these expensive schools?
This is where these top-quality private schools must be hailed, not maligned, for accepting voucher students into their programs despite the government voucher limit. These private senior high schools provide their own financial and other forms of assistance to complement the government’s voucher program. Ultimately, this gas opened the doors of high-quality private senior high schools for many SHS voucher holders and gave them more opportunities than they would have had relying solely on government support.
DepEd and PEAC policies target the deserving and underprivileged.
Under DepEd Order 20, series of 2023, students who complete Grade 10 in a public school are automatically eligible and qualified to avail themselves of the senior high school voucher upon enrollment in a duly established private senior high school. Similarly, students who finish Grade 10 in a private school under the Education Service Contracting (ESC) subsidy are automatically eligible and qualified to continue their education through the SHS vouchers. Other Grade 10 completers, while not automatically admitted to the SHS voucher program, may apply and are required to undergo a tedious process by the Private Education Assistance Committee (PEAC) that primarily focuses on their financial background to ensure they are deserving of the government support. Imagine if no such prioritization exists, and public-school students and existing subsidy grantees are forced to apply for a voucher with the possibility of losing these slots to other voucher applicants. Clearly, the prioritization under the DepEd guidelines, through the PEAC, aligns not only with the program’s goal but also with the constitutional mandate to prioritize the deserving and underprivileged.
DepEd and PEAC guidelines pursuant to law control the eligibility of students.
It is not true, as the COA report found, that, in practice, private schools and the Private Education Assistance Committee (PEAC) control who gets approved for the voucher program, setting aside DepEd’s prioritization rules. Private senior high schools have no role in determining the eligibility of voucher recipients, as this is the function of the Department of Education through the PEAC. Nevertheless, as private educational institutions, they maintain their authority to establish admission policies, which is part of their academic discretion to admit or deny admission on academic grounds. Implying that private educational institutions lack such academic discretion in student selection crosses constitutional boundaries.
Complementarity goals
The constitutional principle of complementarity, which requires the State to recognize the roles of the public and private sectors in overseeing the delivery of education, is integrated into the Department of Education’s mandate. This includes implementing the SHS voucher program. The voucher program must also support and promote public and private partnerships while prioritizing access for the poor and deserving.
Imputing malice in allowing private senior high schools that accept voucher students despite their high tuition rates does not promote constitutional complementarity. To suggest that low-income students must limit their choice to poor and low-income schools is not only anti-poor, it violates the constitutional mandate on promoting access to education.
The COA report should instead open policymakers’ eyes to the fact that the current SHS voucher amounts are insufficient to effectively subsidize basic education, and that the recent increase in the government’s education budget must eventually reach these voucher amounts to give poor and underprivileged students wider access and a greater choice of good-quality schools.
