Angara: Ratified voucher bill boosts private school subsidy reforms

MANILA, Philippines — Education Secretary Sonny Angara commended Congress on Wednesday for ratifying the Basic Education Voucher Assistance Act, as it would strengthen the Department of Education’s private school assistance framework.

“This legislation provides a pragmatic solution to public school constraints while giving families more equitable access to quality schooling,” Angara said in a DepEd statement.

“By expanding the voucher framework, we are building more sustainable partnerships with private educational institutions, which have always been integral to our national strategy for human capital development,” he added.

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READ: Bicam-approved voucher bill to ease classroom crowding

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Easing classroom congestion

The proposed legislation, which consolidates Senate Bill No. 1981 and House Bill No. 4744 based on DepEd’s priority legislative proposal, will institutionalize voucher subsidies from kindergarten to grade 12 and will extend financial aid beyond low-income brackets to include qualified students from middle-middle-income families.

It aims to ease public school congestion by enabling qualified students from overcrowded public campuses or areas lacking nearby public facilities to enroll in participating private schools.

According to Angara, the measure aligns with DepEd’s internal policy overhauls under DepEd Order No. 11, series of 2026, which updated the Enhanced Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (E-GASTPE) framework.

Emphasizing President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s push to ease financial burdens on Filipino families, Angara said: “It’s the priority of President Bongbong Marcos to lighten the burden of school expenses of Filipino families. Aid must reach families who most need it. These subsidies are meant to keep children in school.”

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Building on the existing efforts of DepEd in managing private school assistance and quality assurance, the measure will create a Bureau of Private Education under DepEd to provide oversight.

The bill will also institute strict anti-fraud measures that penalize false claims as estafa under the Revised Penal Code, with fines up to P500,000 and mandatory restitution of funds.

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Unifying all programs

Under the bill, government tuition assistance under the E-GASTPE, which is currently restricted to junior and senior high school students, will unify all existing programs, including Educational Service Contracting (ESC), Senior High School Voucher Program (SHS-VP), and the Teachers’ Salary Subsidy (TSS), under a single mechanism.

Under the policy, TSS support for qualified private school teachers will be raised from P18,000 to P24,000 annually to sustain instructional quality and support educators in participating schools.

The revised framework also introduces enhanced beneficiary targeting that prioritizes low-income families, Indigenous Peoples’ communities, and learners in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas.

To complement the strict anti-fraud provisions of the bill, DepEd will enforce a five-layer billing validation system to eliminate ghost beneficiaries and ensure responsible spending of public funds.

READ: Approved voucher program bill to expand access to education

The initial implementation of the expanded kindergarten to grade 6 voucher program targets over 292,000 elementary students and nearly 18,000 private school teachers.

To support this rollout, DepEd has outlined a P4.34 billion total budget proposal across 2,632 participating private schools nationwide for school year 2027–2028.

Under the fiscal year 2027 proposal, kindergarten will cover 41,717 pupils with a proposed budget of P559 million, while grades 1 through 6 will each cover 41,769 students with an allocation of P559.69 million per grade level.

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Meanwhile, a total of P427.8 million is earmarked for TSS to benefit 17,825 eligible private school teachers nationwide. /atm