CEAPand Catholic schools ‘ready’ for K to 12

MANILA --The country’s Catholic schools are all ready and excited” to implement the highly contested K to 12 educational reform program, said a Catholic institution’s official.Anthony Coloma, information officer of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines, said they are prepared for the program, which adds 2 more years to the basic 10-year education cycle of students. Our classrooms are ready. A number of our schools have invested in infrastructure and teacher training,” explained Coloma.This summer alone, he said, CEAP has rolled out the Senior High School (SHS) Teacher Training Program that benefited almost 7, 000 Grade 11 teachers from its 2,400 member-schools nationwide.The training, he said, was conducted together with the Private Education Assistance Committee – Fund for Assistance to Private Education (PEAC-FAPE).According to him, CEAP has also engaged the government in ensuring wider participation in the SHS Voucher Program. Although the voucher amount is fairly reasonable, we are grateful to PEAC-FAPE for ensuring greater financial support to the students in private education,” Coloma said.He added that the private education sector is also grateful to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) for extending financial support to faculty and staff affected by the educational reform. They are financing quite a number in the private sector for them to pursue and to finish their masters and doctoral programs,” he said.The K to 12 also institutionalized the kindergarten program, thus covering a total of 13 years of basic education.The first batch of Grade 11 students, which is estimated at around 1.5 million from about 10, 000 public and private schools nationwide, will start this school year 2016-2017.(R. Lagarde/CBCPNews)