Open High School System Awaiting Pinoy’s Signature
June 20, 2015
Baguio Representative Nicasio M. Aliping, Jr. announced yesterday 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 the president.
House Bill 4085, to be known as the “Open High School System Act,” establishes an Open High School System (OHSS) as part of the Department of Education’s (DepEd) alternative secondary education program to provide access to secondary education through the open learning modality.
Aliping, Vice Chairman of the Committee on Higher and Technical Education and co-author of the bill said that “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 measure authorizes public secondary educational institutions certified 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 Department in performing its functions.
It 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 LGUs and the non-government organizations concerned.
Aliping has authored and co-authored bills that seek to improve education and help deserving indigent students finish their studies./Carl C. Taawan
