We have seven classrooms sitting complete but empty and we simply do not have enough funds available to launch High School classes immediately. DEPED and other information shows that High School is where the greatest need exists. In the latest releases on DEPED site they show that of 100 children entering the education system at Kindergarten, only 57 will continue to finish High School. The reasons are many but one contributing factor is cost. Even in Government schools, the student has to pay for her uniform, books and miscellaneous items. To get those children back into the education system, and to retain those we have, we need to offer scholarships.
As I am sure we all remember, High School is where the intensity and pace of learning rises dramatically, and requires subject specialised teachers rather than the general educators we recall from our Primary or Elementary years.
To properly launch High School we need to employ at least eight new teachers and pay the cost from school funds until the income from fee paying pupils reaches equilibrium with the salaries and benefits of those teachers. We have estimated a need for $80,000.00 to cover our expectation that diminishing support will have to be provided for five to six years. During that build up time we intend to fill all classes up to ten pupils per class by offering assistance to students who remain with the school from elementary and full scholarships to those identified by the scholarship fund administrators as having dropped out from the main stream education system.
Our policy of maintaining a class size of ten pupils per class will enable enough individual attention to ensure that the whole class are able to reach the standards specified in the curriculum while allowing those more capable academics to continue to stretch themselves.
Once equilibrium of income to salaries is reached, we will continue to offer full scholarship assistance to those in need who would otherwise have to leave the education stream. Further funding will be required to replace the original teaching aids, equipment and materials we have originally provided. Long term, we should obtain further land packages for a full sports facility to replace the facilities we currently rent or share. Current students have expressed a desire for a full-time music teacher and school instruments. We would like to support them in this without raising fees.
All of this demonstrates a need for a stream of external income to augment and eventually replace the support which up till now has come from the main sponsor.
A quote from Senator Chiz Escudero Escudero also lamented that most of the dropouts were among the poorest sectors of the population who do not have the means and could not afford the associated costs of learning even with free basic education provided by the government. “Just like their parents, these dropouts are destined for low-skill jobs and unemployment, thus repeating the cycle of poverty,” he said.
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