BAGUIO CITY, June 20 (PNA) — Baguio Representative Nicasio M. Aliping, Jr. on Friday said the House of Representatives and the Senate ratified in a bicameral conference the establishment of an open high school system in the country and now awaits the signature of President Benigno Aquino III.
House Bill (HB) 4085, or the “Open High School System Act,” will establish an Open High School System (OHSS) under the Department of Education (DepEd) as an alternative secondary education program.
Aliping, Committee Vice-Chairman on Higher and Technical Education and co-author of the bill, said, “The measure will provide equal opportunity for adults and children of high school age who are out of school to avail of free open high school education through the distance learning modality”.
The HB4085 authorize public secondary educational institutions to practice open learning through self-instructional materials, multi-channel learning and school-family-community partnership as qualified OHSS implementers.
Under the measure, the OHSS shall be open to all youth and adults who have finished elementary education, as well as high school qualifiers of the Philippine Educational Placement Test (PEPT) and the Alternative learning System (ALS) Accreditation and Equivalency (A&E) Test.
The OHSS will adopt the K to 12 Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum using the standards and learning competencies of different subject areas of the program.
The DepEd is tasked to administer the OHSS and create an OHSS Unit to assist the agency in performing its functions.
DepEd, according to the bill, will be responsible for the training of the open high school teachers, teacher advisers, and community advisers, which will be done in coordination with the local government units (LGUs) and the non-government organizations (NGOs) concerned.