MORE BILLS FILED ON EDUCATION IN THE 16TH CONGRESS (PHILIPPINE STAR, July 7, 2013) MANILA, Philippines - Education has emerged as a key sector in the legislative priorities of senators at the start of the 16th Congress, based on the initial bills that were filed earlier this week. Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara filed what he called the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Higher and Technical Education (UNIFAST) Act which seeks to strengthen, harmonize and refocus the existing student financial assistance programs to make them more targeted to the poor, giving priority to students whose families are beneficiaries of the government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program. “Despite the government’s mandate to make education accessible to all Filipinos, the reality is that many impoverished Filipino families remain unable to send their children to school and afford them a proper college education,” said Angara, whose father, former senator Edgardo Angara, was recognized as champion of the education sector in Congress. “Hence, the thrust now of the government is to not only improve the capacity of the government to assist students from low-income families in the completion of their education, but more importantly, to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and to ensure its equitable distribution and sustainability,” he said. Sen. Loren Legarda filed a similar bill called the Government Scholarship to Students for University and Technical Vocational Education Act, which will provide college scholarships to students who are members of households that benefit from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4Ps. A campaign promise of Legarda, the objective of the bill is to provide at least one college graduate for each family under the 4Ps program. Headlines ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Legarda said that she expects at least 2.3 million children from indigent families to be able to pursue tertiary education through her proposed bill, which she also called the “Pantawid Tuition Program.” In the case of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, a similar bill he filed would focus on high school students who belong to the top 10 in their class, who would be granted scholarships by the government to state universities or colleges. Cayetano expressed his disappointment over the number of out-of-school youth in the country, which now stands at 16 percent of the estimated 39 million young Filipinos, based on the latest Annual Poverty Indicators Survey. “Clearly, the government must now act to provide opportunities for these millions of young Filipinos who are out of school, not because they choose to be but because they cannot afford it due to the high cost of education,” he said. Cayetano has also filed a bill that calls for the provision of additional support for educators in basic education in response to the clamor of public school teachers. He said that the present compensation package of public school teachers places them just within the poverty threshold. “This bill seeks to provide additional support and compensation for educators in basic education. First it shall provide for an across-the-board additional compensation for educators,” Cayetano said. “It will also afford the teachers a compensation package of additional benefits, which includes a medical allowance of at least P1,000 that will be given for check-ups and other medical expenses, and an annual Magna Carta bonus to answer for the unpaid benefits due to the teachers under Republic Act No. 4670 or the Magna Carta for Public School Teachers Act,” he added. Angara also saw the need to upgrade the salaries of the teachers from the present minimum salary grade level of 11 to grade 19. “Public school teachers are among the most underpaid workers, given their workload and role in the society. Despite the fact that they are heralded as molders of our children’s future, public school teachers receive a basic salary that is not commensurate to their contribution,” Angara said. With this increase in salaries, more qualified and competent educators will be attracted to teach in public schools. “Definitely, this will greatly help motivate our teachers to strive for excellence in their field and thus, improve the quality of education in the public school system,” he said. Senator Grace Poe, for her part, pushed for the institutionalization of a free nutri-meals program for school children in all public elementary and high schools, to be called the “Sustansiya sa Batang Pilipino” program. “Hunger and malnutrition must be addressed, especially among children now,” Poe said, while noting that hunger and malnutrition have been identified by the World Health Organization as the world’s greatest threats to public health. The proposed program would initially give free nutri-meals to pupils in the kindergarten and grades 1-6 levels, following the K to 12 program. Students up to junior high school level of the K to 12 program would be included in the coverage of the free nutri-meals program in its third year of implementation. By its fifth year, all elementary and high school levels in the K-12 public education sector would be covered.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Jul 2013 05:47:44 +0000
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