Team Pnoy senatorial candidate Rep. Edgardo “Sonny” Angara today expressed disappointment over reports that some schools continue to charge fees for graduation despite complaints from several parents and students.
Angara reminded public schools’ officials that charging graduation fees violate the ban imposed by the Department of Education.
“I think it would do well for our public schools to avoid creating further burden to students as most of them come from poor families. What we should do is help them to graduate,” Angara said here.
The Department of Education, through its DeTXT Action Center, has received at least 180 complaints against schools that continue to collect graduation fees and defy the DepEd’s order.
“Graduations are special occasions and should be celebrated, most definitely. But their significance should not be seen as diminished if they are ‘spartan’ as what [DepEd Secretary] Bro. Armin Luistro urged schools to do,” Angara said.
As chair of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Higher and Technical Education during the 15th Congress, the lawmaker from Aurora conducted inquiries into reports of some nursing hospitals charging miscellaneous and “association” fees without the prior knowledge of their students.
Angara lobbied for the passage of House Bill 3546 which protects the right of students enrolled in courses requiring professional licensing examinations to enroll in review centers of their choice, amid reports that some schools were going as far as dictating their students’ airfare and lodging during review classes.
“Our educational system should be structured such that the only thing keeping students from graduating are their grades and proven academic competence, and not whether they have the capacity to pay,” Angara said.
In his speech during the launching of his “Angara ng Estudyanteng Pinoy Movement” at the National College of Science and Techonolgy (NCST) here, Angara promised to take steps to treat most problems besetting public schools.
Among these problems are the lack of funds for students’ scholarships, school infrastructure and higher salaries of teacher, low quality of education and limited access to quality education, and higher rate of violence and student dropout.
He said he would strive to address these problems if elected to the Senate even as he asked the government to tap other sources to generate much-needed investments to sustain and fund educational programs.
Angara also praised the NCST students for their achievements despite their limitations. The NCST emerged as overall champion in the 3rd Battle of Wits held in Adamson University-Manila recently.
The NCST also recorded a 100 percent passing rate in the recent Licensure Examination for Teachers, with all of them immediately landing a job after graduation.
He also thanked the NCST officials for making him an honorary professor in the university. Angara is a former lecturer at the New Era University and Centro Escolar University.
Angara sponsored numerous bills on education and social reforms, including the Bill of Rights for New Graduates,” which seeks to provide incentives and other forms of assistance to new college graduates. He is also responsible for the approval of Joint Resolution 4 which called for the implementation of the Salary Standardization Law III that raised the salary of state workers, including public school teachers.
He promised to push for a free college education to at least one child of every poor family beneficiary under the Conditional Cash Transfer, or the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) , being implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
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