Education Secretary Leonor Briones (INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE)
MANILA — Over 1,000 private elementary and high schools across the country were given the green light to increase tuition rates for the incoming school year, the Department of Education (DepEd) said.
In a press briefing on Thursday, Education Secretary Leonor Briones disclosed that the request of 1,013 private schools to raise their tuition have been approved in accordance with the DepEd guidelines on regulations for private schools in basic education.
The figure represented eight percent of the total number of private schools nationwide or 219 schools less than those that increased their tuition last school year.
Metro Manila accounted for the most number of schools that will increase their tuition for school year 2017-2018 with 183, followed by Davao, 154 schools; Central Luzon, 104 schools; and Bicol Region with 101 private elementary and high schools.
In Caraga, only two schools will raise their fees this year, according to DepEd data.
Briones described most of these private schools as small, faith-based and in need of money to augment teachers’ salaries.
The DepEd chief added that their requests were approved after schools committed to allot 70 percent of the proceeds from the tuition to the salary increase of their faculty and other personnel as specified under the DepEd guidelines on tuition.
“We have this provision that 70 percent of the increase has to go the salary of teachers because the disparity of the income between public and private school teachers is widening,” Briones told reporters.
“Some private schools are even closing because they can’t catch up, they are losing teachers especially the very good ones,” she said, noting that some private school teachers in towns outside Metro Manila receive a meager income of P6,000 or three times less than what public school teachers get.
Some of the private schools that requested for approval to raise their tuitions had also indicated the need to build new buildings and laboratories for the senior high school program, she noted. SFM