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EDUCATION Secretary Jesli Lapus reminded public-school
administrators on Sunday of the department’s
no-collection policy from students enrolling in their
schools.
Lapus
issued the reminder in anticipation of the opening of
classes next month.
He told
pubic-school administrators to observe the strict
enforcement of the prohibition of collection of any fees
from school children enrolling in preschool up to Grade
4 during the enrollment period and at anytime during the
school year.
Violation of the policy will subject the erring
personnel to administrative sanction, Lapus warned.
The
no-collection policy was contained in Department of
Education Order 19, series of 2008, which covers the
authorized, but voluntary, contributions to the Boy
Scouts, Girl Scouts, Red Cross, Parents-Teachers
Community Association (PTCA) and the Antituberculosis
Fund.
“This
move is in line with our constitutional mandate to
provide free public education at the elementary and
secondary levels,” Lapus said.
School-day opening is usually marred with confusion
arising from parents’ complaints of collection by some
school authorities. During the 2007 opening of classes,
almost 90 percent of queries in the DepEd hot lines were
about school fees.
Lapus
said there is an urgent need to remove obstacles to the
enrollment of school-age children.
“These
obstacles include the out-of-pocket costs that families
have to bear in the course of sending their children to
school,” Lapus noted.
He added
that for grade and year levels beyond Grade 4, no
collection of any type should be made during the
enrollment period and the first month of classes.
Starting
on the second month, however, contributions for BSP, GSP,
PTCA, Red Cross, Anti-TB Fund, school publication and
subscription in student publications may be collected,
but only on a voluntary basis.
PTCAs
may start collection only after presenting to members
and to the school administration a report on the
utilization of the previous school year’s collections.
The amount of PTCA contribution shall be agreed upon in
a general assembly of the PTCA.
Meanwhile, the school-publication fee shall be set at
the school level, but shall not be more than P60 per
elementary-school pupil and P90 per secondary-school
student. The publication of a school newspaper, while
not mandatory, is strongly encouraged, particularly at
the secondary level, in line with the DepEd’s campus
journalism program.
Relative
to this, the membership fees for student organizations
shall be set by the organization subject to school
policies on student organizations.
Lapus
also stressed that pupils or students who are promoted
to the next grade or year level are considered
automatically enrolled for the coming school year in the
same school.
“Only
pupils entering first grade, students entering
first-year high school and transferees need to enroll
during the enrollment period,” he stressed.
Returning pupils and students shall report only for
sectioning purposes or any other preopening preparations
as determined by the school administrators.
To
ensure that operating funds are available at the start
of the schoolyear, schools-division superintendents were
ordered to release Maintenance and Other Operating
Expenses funds to schools without fiscal autonomy in the
form of cash advances. |
