The Role of Private Schools in Addressing the Challenges of K-12 Reform in the Philippines

By Michael Manansala
Ford School of Public Policy

The 2016-2017 academic year marks the first time mandatory K-12 education is rolled out in the Philippines. The country previously functioned on a K-10 system with few K-12 schools available for wealthier families, and prior to this rollout, the Philippines was one of only three countries along with Angola and Djibouti that ended secondary school at grade 10. Implementation is supposed to occur in two stages: this year, Filipinos will enter the 11^th grade for the first time, and then graduate its first 12^th grade class in AY 2017-2018.

However, implementation is already plagued with problems stemming from poor anticipation, the transition into a new administration, and lack of resources for schools and families. Since there are not enough public schools that can accommodate the additional 1.5 million students who would have graduated from secondary school, DepEd made vouchers available to encourage families to enroll in private institutions that offer grades 11 and 12. One of these schools is the Affordable Private Education Centers (APEC Schools), a joint venture between Pearson, the largest learning company in the world, and Ayala, one of the Philippines’ largest conglomerates. However, due to the lack of information on the voucher program, families and schools alike did not know how to access and redeem these vouchers from DepEd. As the academic year for public schools was loomed, the DepEd noted only about 340,000 of the 1.5 million students anticipated to enter 11^th grade had actually enrolled.

To respond to the alarmingly low levels of enrollment, the Ayala Group, APEC’s parent company lent one of its call centers to DepED and established the Senior High School Help Desk on May 23^rd, three weeks before the the first day of the academic year. Most of the questions asked by families were about the SHS voucher program as well as indirect costs of attending senior high school. In addition, APEC and other private schools delayed their start dates to July in order to accommodate families redeeming the vouchers after the first day of classes, June 13^th. As a result of the Help Desk, the delayed start date, and other initiatives, DepEd anticipates that about 90% of the 1.5 million students will actually enroll in SHS this academic year, with about .4 million students anticipated to drop out and not enroll.

Beyond enrollment, many challenges remain for the Philippines’ K-12 reform. Despite the voucher program, many families will not be able to support their students through SHS due to the indirect costs of education, and this will cause further drop in enrollment throughout the academic year. Furthermore, tertiary institutions will inevitably experience a drop in revenue in the next two years due to the delayed enrollment of students who are currently in 11^th grade, but would have been first years in college under the old system. Already, some universities are looking to recruit students from other parts of Asia to offset the revenue loss. All of these problems are expected to occur during landmark reforms, and the best policy response is to anticipate as many of these problems as possible before they manifest and be ahead of the curve. Otherwise, the country will be stuck patching expensive holes in the policy that could negatively impact financial resources and learning outcomes for millions of Filipinos.

Michael Manansala is a graduate student at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. As a WDI Fellow, Michael is working with Pearson Plc’s Affordable Learning Fund (PALF), where he is embedded with the Affordable Private Education Centers, the PALF’s largest portfolio company and the largest chain of low-cost private schools in the Philippines. At APEC, Michael leads two work streams: designing APEC’s annual testing plan and managing the head of academic office.