By Sammy F. Martin
MANILA, Aug. 6 (PNA) — Valenzuela City Rep. Win Gatchalian has proposed the creation of a national database of public school records to make the enrollment process easier and to back up current files.
Gatchalian has filed House Bill 5974, to be known as the “Public School Database Act of 2015,” that will establish a database including students’ grades, personal data, good moral record, and improvement tracking.
“The primary purpose of this act is to promote easier access to education for the public by streamlining the enrollment process,” said Gatchalian, a majority member of the House committees on basic education and culture and on higher and technical education.
“The National Public School Database will therefore make the administrative tasks of the teachers more efficient,” he added.
The veteran solon said that such database would give a layer of protection for the safekeeping of student records since this would “provide a storage mechanism for the school records of the students.”
“Documents are prone to getting lost and deterioration due to human error, flood, fire, and other natural disasters. Storing student records in a database ensures that there is another source of information in case the documents get lost or destroyed,” Gatchalian said in his explanatory note.
The database shall be developed, operated, and maintained by a National Public School Information Office to be created under the Department of Education.
Any person illegally altering or falsifying student information in the database shall face jail time of six months to a year and a fine of Php10,000 to Php50,000.
Last February, three buildings of the Gregorio del Pilar Elementary School in Manila were razed, with student records possibly destroyed in the fire, according to news reports. (PNA)