EDUCATION Secretary Sonny Angara yesterday warned heads will roll in the department if the investigation he ordered shows there are officials involved in the alleged “ghost” students-beneficiaries under the Senior High School Voucher Program.
“We will make an example of those who, in our view, did not commit an accidental error. We can accept if there are one or two clerical errors, but if there is a pattern of taking advantage, then we will really make an example,” Angara told reporters in a chance interview at the sideline of the DepEd Human Re-sources and Organizational Development Convention in Pasay City.
He said the probe is ongoing and that they will leave no stone unturned.
“We are looking if there is collusion here in DepEd since only a few are in charge of the records here,” he said.
Angara earlier said the DepEd Central Office has initiated an investigation regarding the alleged “ghost” senior high school students under the Senior High School Voucher Program in 12 private schools across nine divisions.
The Senior High School Voucher and Educational Service Con-tracting Programs are the two major assistance and subsidy pro-grams of the DepEd for public school students who want to transfer to private schools due to overcrowding in the former.
“The DepEd is conducting a thorough investigation into per-sonnel and officials who may be involved in this fraudulent ac-tivity, which could result in the termination of a school’s partic-ipation in the Senior High School Voucher Program,” Angara said.
Angara did not provide additional details, including the name of the schools, but said the department is taking action to preserve the integrity of its funds and program implementation.
Angara said private schools and their officials should also be held accountable if the probe shows they colluded to defraud the government.
“There should also be a penalty for schools so that this incident will not be repeated as well as their officials who can be charged with perjury,” he said.
Angara said his office is already looking at measures and safe-guards to prevent a repeat of the incident.
He earlier said the department has initiated actions such as preparation for the termination of the school’s accreditation and collating evidence against those behind the alleged irregularity.
In a Senate hearing last year, the Commission on Audit said “ghost” students refer to those who were named twice or more in billing statements made by private schools.
In that inquiry, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian specifically cited a re-port from the Private Education Assistance Committee that in-dicated huge amounts of refunds in the SHS-Voucher Program.
Gatchalian questioned how schools could rack up refunds as high as P80 million, P68 million, and P14 million.
The lawmaker said there could be around 19,000 “ghost” students of the government’s voucher program.
