Senate panel flags ESC ‘non-poor’ slots

Senate panel flags ESC ‘non-poor’ slots | Daily Tribune

The Senate Committee on Basic Education flagged the allocation of Educational Service Contracting slots for non-poor beneficiaries and according to panel chairperson Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, 68 percent of the ESC recipients belong to households or with total incomes are above or equal to the per capita threshold.

This was from the data cited in the Annual Poverty Indicators Survey 2020 and 2022 for School Year 2020-2021.

He explained that for School Year 2019-2020, the data also revealed that 59 percent of beneficiaries were members of non-poor households. These figures reflect the findings of the Commission on Audit in 2018.

In a Performance Audit Report, state auditors recommended that the Department of Education should ensure that the Expanded Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education or E-GASTPE prioritizes underprivileged learners.

E-GASTPE is the DepEd’s largest private school scholarship program, especially on the expansion of the existing Educational Service Contracting or ESC scheme.

Under the program, the government shoulders the tuition and other fees of excess students in public schools who enter private schools contracted by the DepEd.

“To me this is the height of injustice. We asked for funds to give to our poor fellow citizens. And as taxpayers, we’re subsidizing the non-poor,” Gatchalian said.

In a recent panel inquiry this week, DepEd reported a 97 percent utilization rate of its 2024 budget amounting to around P40 billion for E-GASTPE.

DepEd Government Assistance and Subsidies Office director Atty. Tara Rama, meantime, said their office is yet to receive the billing statements of other schools to declare full utilization of the fund.

“We’re already at 97 percent of our utilization because some of the schools — we are just waiting for them,” Rama said.

Last year, the DepEd created Rama’s office in response to complaints about the alleged increasing “ghost students” benefiting the program.

The DepEd’s creation of GASO resulted from CoA’s recommendation “to focus on administering” the E-GASTPE program.

Rama said DepEd is implementing a more meticulous verification process of program beneficiaries, which reportedly caused delays in payment to private schools as she confirmed that the 2017 ESC guidelines do not strictly mandate prioritizing the poor.