DAVAO CITY – A lawmaker said over two million school-age children, or almost 10 percent between the ages of 5 and 15, will not be going to school as the new school year opens on Monday.
“While over 23 million children will be trooping to schools at kindergarten, elementary, and secondary levels tomorrow, around 2.3 million children will be left behind, deprived of their fundamental right to education,” said ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio.
Tinio cited enrolment figures provided by the Department of Education, where “around 570,000 5 year olds would not be able to enroll in kindergarten; over 838 thousand in elementary, and over 1.1 million in high school.”
“These appalling numbers point to the failure of the Aquino administration to fulfill its basic constitutional mandate to provide basic education to all Filipinos,” Tinio said.
Tinio said that the children most likely to be out of school “come from the poorest families in the poorest and most underdeveloped areas in the country.”
“[President Benigno Aquino] and the Department of Education cannot claim success in any so-called education reforms for as long as one child in ten is not able to go to school,” he said.
Tinio reiterated his call for the suspension of the K to 12 program. “How can the Aquino administration claim that it’s ready for K to 12 when it can’t even provide basic access to schools to millions of children?”
