Abellanosa to DepEd: Do away with giving projects, assignments to avoid ‘financial burden’
Cebu City Councilor Jose Lorenzo Abellanosa. | File photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines – A Cebu City Councilor has asked the Department of Education (DepEd) to refrain from giving high school students projects and assignments that would only cause them “financial burden.”
“If they incur these expenses, it would add to their burden instead of their money being spent on food and other essentials,” Councilor Jose Lorenzo Abellanosa said in a resolution which he authored and which the City Council passed during their regular session on Wednesday, October 18.
With his resolution, Abellanosa hopes to reduce the “financial burden” that students and their parents now experience and instead allow them to focus on how else they can perform better in school.
“We must never fail to remember that our high school students, most especially those in public schools, come from low-income families or those families which are barely able to make both ends meet,” Abellanosa said in an interview with CDN Digital.
Abellanosa said that most of the public school students belong to families with income that are below the average monthly poverty threshold.
This means that “underprivileged” families who earn the minimum wage are “barely surviving.”
“I want our students to be inspired and always looking forward to going to school and not discourage them in any manner because of additional requirements making them spend more in the process,” Abellanosa said.
However, Dr. Salustiano Jimenez, director of DepEd Central Visayas Office (DepEd-7) said that having projects and assignments was part of the learning process. This was also a means to development the abilities of the learners.
“I don’t know what kind of school projects our honorable Councilor means” Jimenez said.
According to Jimenez, DepEd already found a way to reduce spending by public school students by making all forms of school contributions voluntary.
Jimenez that the city government can also help address the needs of these students.
“If the [students] are not allowed to buy some materials for the project. The City government should have some way or another find way to address that,” Jimenez added.
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