SENATOR Sherwin Gatchalian sought to fill the shortfall in the budget for the Senior High School Voucher Program to prevent the increase of government debt to private schools.

The SHS VP is a financial assistance program given to SHS learners enrolled in private senior high schools.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Basic Education, Arts and Culture was alarmed by the insufficient funds on the SHS VP saying that the Department of Education’s debt to private schools will continue to increase if the budget deficit will not be addressed.

“I am just concerned with the Senior High School Voucher Program next year because if we cannot fund the P9 billion and the amount being approved under the unprogrammed funds, the debt or what we owe to the private schools will always increase every year and this will never end,” Gatchalian said.

The DepEd proposed a P25 billion budget for the SHS VP for 2022 but the National Expenditure Program only allotted P16.5 billion for it, leaving a shortfall of almost P9 billion.

Under the Senate committee report on the proposed 2022 national budget, P5 billion in unprogrammed appropriations was added to the P16.5 billion budget for SHS VP.

In 2021, the SHS VP was allotted P25.2 billion, P11.5 billion of which were under unprogrammed appropriations.

Out of the P11.5 billion unprogrammed appropriations, P3.7 billion was funded.

The government currently owes private schools P35 billion.

“If we continue to have a shortfall, this will increase over time and we will never be able to catch up at one point,” Gatchalian said.

“The voucher program is a good mechanism to revive ailing private schools because a lot of the private schools have been devastated by the pandemic. A shortfall in the SHS financial assistance program will also mean a lesser number of beneficiaries can avail of the program,” the senator added.

To address the shortfall in the SHS VP’s funding requirements, Gatchalian proposed to realign part of the P15 billion allotted to Flexible Learning Options, the bulk of which will go to the printing of self-learning modules.

Gatchalian explained that he is eyeing less dependence on self-learning modules in anticipation of the resumption of face-to-face classes.