By EUGENE ADIONG
BACOLOD City — Not everything in public education can be provided for free, a Department of Education official clarified.
The Special Education Fund (SEF) in particular cannot be used for just about anything, Negros Occidental Schools Division Superintendent Juliet Jeruta said.
Republic Act (RA) 5447 provides for the items and activities that can be funded using the SEF, the education official said.
Jeruta made the comment in light of the Commission on Audit’s (COA) annual audit report on the Local School Board of this city.
COA suggested for the city’s Local School Board to refrain from using the SEF for payment of organization membership fees, school bags, T-shirts and travels.
It also said the school board, in preparing its budget, should give priority to programs, activities and projects stated in Section 363 of the Local Government Code, and use proceeds of the additional one percent SEF to funding purposes prescribed by law.
Some parents and students may be used to government officials regularly giving out school supplies, Jeruta said.
In fact, she said, the purchase of school supplies is already the “obligation of the parents.”
“School supplies of students are not teaching materials but supplies that are expendable,” stressed Jeruta.
According to RA 5447, among the purposes for which the SEF can be used are:
- purchase of teaching materials such as workbooks, atlases, flip charts, science and mathematics teaching aids, and simple laboratory devices for elementary and secondary classes
- purchase and/or improvement, repair and refurbishing of machinery, laboratory, technical and similar equipment and apparatus, including spare parts needed by the Bureau of Vocational Education and secondary schools offering vocational courses
- payment and adjustment of salaries of public school teachers and all the benefits in favor of public school teachers; and
- preparation, printing and/or purchase of textbooks, teachers’ guides, forms and pamphlets, approved in accordance with existing laws to be used in all public schools.
“Education is complementation; not everything is given for free by the government,” said Jeruta.
The government officials’ distribution of school supplies is only their way of helping their constituents, especially the indigents, and, in some cases, to thank those who supported them, she said.
However, public officials, once sitting in office, are “expected to serve without any publicity,” said Jeruta./PN
