DISPENSING with the school uniform is optional and not mandatory.
Department of Education Secretary Jesli Lapus clarified this over the speculation that the new DepEd’s directive on uniforms for public elementary and high schools is in fact adding more burden to parent’s expense for education.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has directed DepEd through Lapus to make a directive to forego the uniforms to spare the parents of additional load of buying a new set of uniforms especially for those stepping into the first level of formal school and those enrolling into a new school.
Lapus however stressed that the overall goal of the directive, is to offer public school students an opportunity to avail themselves of a truly free education as envisioned by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
On this, he added students who already have school uniforms are free to wear them, but those who cannot afford uniforms are not compelled to buy them.
According to DepEd’s office in charge of the assistant Bohol superintendent, Maria Linda Namocatcat, the Divison has yet to get a copy of the directive. Nevertheless, she said if they implement, it has to be for new pupils and students.
Old students may still wear their uniforms, she said.
Some parents, upon learning of the new directive however said that the move may even be more expensive for them.
Moreover, Namocatcat agreed that a uniform helps identify a student as such, and it keeps parents from buying more costly clothes, which kids may ask to be ‘in’.
As this developed, DepED reiterated that the education battlecry of “public education at no cost” to public school students, is part of the administration’s “comprehensive strategy” to increase enrollment in the country’s public schools.
The end goal after all is to eliminate dropouts among the youth, he bared.
The strategy includes conditional cash transfers and no collection of fees upon enrollment, agrees Bohol Division Office’s Maria Linda Namocatcat in a phone interview recently.
“The government is trying to eliminate all obstacles to achieving quality education,” Lapus said.
The government’s conditional cash transfer program gives a “very poor student P300 a month, provided he attends classes regularly”, sources at the DepEd said.
The no collection upon enrollment is also closely monitored, says Namocatcat citing that nobody is to be refused admittance because parents could not afford to pay. (rachiu/PIA)
