SENATE President Vicente Sotto III yesterday called on private schools to allow the staggered payment of tuition under longer terms to give parents more time and opportunity to save money to pay for the cost of sending their children to school.
Sotto also called on education officials to formulate a tuition payment scheme that will help parents whose sources of income were affected due to business closures during the enhanced community quarantine to contain the spread of COVID-19.
“The DepEd should come out with more flexible payment terms so students can continue to enroll for this school year. Some families have experienced losses because of the lockdown.
Private schools should be more accepting of proposed different payment schemes which are more affordable to parents who lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 lockdown,” Sotto said.
The Department of Labor has said that millions of workers have been displaced in recent months after business owners were forced to either close shop or reduce their workforce due to the strict quarantine regulations imposed in various provinces and cities in the country.
Last month, the DOLE estimated that 10 million workers could lose jobs this year due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
Enrolment for basic and secondary education in public schools is now ongoing. The DepEd has announced that the Academic Year 2020-2021 will open on August 24 and close in April 2021.
Public and private schools and learning institutes nationwide have been encouraged to use available distance learning, e-learning, and other alternative modes of delivery instead of face-to-face classes so as not to risk the health of students.
The DepED earlier said that an estimated two million students from private schools are expected to transfer to public schools or stop studying this year due to the effects of COVID-19 on the income of their parents.
The DepEd has issued a memorandum containing a recommendation of gadgets that could be purchase by Local Government Units (LGUs) and other donors for online education.
DepEd Undersecretary Alain Pascua said the memo was in response to queries from LGUs about the gadgets that can be procure and used for the online education platform in the coming school year.
“Smarthphones and tablets are similar, expect that tablets have bigger screen. They may be used by lower grade levels. For high school, tablets PC (not tablet) is more appropriate because it can be used with productivity tools,” he said.
He said the DepEd recommends minimum specifications for laptops, desktops, tablet PCs, tablets, smartphones and internet services that will be donated to public schools, teachers and students.
He added the minimum specifications for Information and Communications Technology (ICTS) and internet service will be appropriate to digital contents and software applications that will be installed by DepEd. — With Noel Talacay
