Photo by DepEd.
Education Secretary Sonny Angara warned that schools and its officials that are proven to have anomalies in the Senior High School Voucher Program (SHS-VP) will face sanctions.
“Kung ayaw pang magbayad iyong eskwelahan, pwedeng kasuhan po ‘yan. Pati iyong mga opisyal ng eskwelahan, pwedeng kasuhan dito [If the school still refuses to pay, it can be sued. Even the school officials can be sued for this],” Angara warned during an ambush interview at the Barihan Elementary School in Malolos, Bulacan ahead of the nationwide kick-off of the Brigada Eskwela.
The warning follows the termination of 54 schools from the SHS-VP Program over irregularities in implementation during SY 2021-2022 and SY 2022-2023.
Fraudulent schemes involve “ghost enrollees” where schools make it appear students were attending in order to receive government subsidies.
For SY 2023-2024, 12 are under investigation for said scheme.
For this, Angara said stricter control over information is needed as some schools seemed to have insiders within the Department of Education (DepEd). These schools allegedly use certain data from students on record to create profiles of non-existent enrollees.
Under policy changes, private schools can only be reimbursed after confirming the actual enrollment of voucher recipients.
This is contrary to the previous prepaid system where DepEd pays schools despite non-enrollment of students.
