Senate Committee on Basic Education Chairperson Sherwin Gatchalian on Thursday called on the Department of Education (DepEd) to ensure a more balanced representation of rural schools in the pilot run of the reformed Senior High School (SHS) program.

During a Senate hearing, DepEd OIC-Undersecretary for Operations Malcolm Garma revealed that out of the 727 schools selected to pilot the revised SHS program, only 20 are classified as rural.

“We’ll check the locations of those we identified as rural, but so far, based on the presentation, we’ve identified only 20 schools as rural and 707 as urban, Mr. Chair. We’ll try to provide a more detailed breakdown of the 20 rural schools,” Garma said.

Gatchalian highlighted that urban and rural schools face very different challenges, especially when it comes to implementing specialized electives and technical-vocational courses. He emphasized that recruiting skilled specialists is far more feasible in urban areas due to the concentration of available talent.

“In urban settings, maybe it's easier, maybe. It's a challenge, but it's easier because you have abundance of talent in the area. But in rural setting it's really different,” Gatchalian said. “Hopefully, at least 50-50.”

He stressed that rural schools are often less prepared in terms of resources and manpower, and that their inclusion in the pilot run is essential to gather data that will help DepEd properly implement the program across diverse learning environments.

Including more rural schools, Gatchalian said, would also allow DepEd to identify and address potential issues that may arise when the full-scale rollout begins.