Youth leader urges Duterte admin to aid students who opted out of senior HS 

The incoming Duterte admin should urgently address issues that forced an estimated 400,000 students not to step up to senior high school under the new K-to-12 program rolled out this school year, a lawmaker said.

Kabataan party-list's outgoing representative Terry Ridon on Saturday challenged incoming Education Secretary Leonor Briones to address the problem of an estimated 400,000 Grade 10 finishers who have dropped out from school as they could not afford to proceed to senior high school. 

"Ano ang plano para sa 400,000? Sa totoo lang, ang gusto natin ay mabigyan ng pagkakataon itong 400,000 na makapagtapos o makapag-aral," Ridon said on the sidelines of a weekly media forum in Quezon City. 

"Kung anuman ang pwedeng gawin either i-suspend yung K-to-12 or papasukin sila dun sa Alternative Learning System. 'Yan po ang dapat pag-aralan ng susunod na administrasyon," he added. 

Ridon echoed the concern of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, an opponent of the K-12, about the future of high school dropouts who have been rendered less competitive. 

"We want to know kung anong plano niyo para doon sa 400,000 na hindi po nag-proceed sa Grade 11. Papatenggahin na lang ba natin sila sa daan?" Ridon asked.

"Because you proceeded with K-to-12 this year, their status is not a high school graduate. Their status is a high school dropout. And that's the situation I don't think any of the parents of Grade 11 students or any of the students for Grade 11 would want to find themselves in." 

As of Friday, of the estimated 1.5 million Grade 10 finishers in the country, only a million students have enrolled in Grade 11, the first of the two-year senior high school offering under the K-12 curriculum. 

DepEd, however, is expecting numbers to increase further since, as of June 17, records show that over 1,600 schools have yet to submit and report their senior high school enrolment data. — APG, GMA News