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The Education Service Contracting (ESC) Program of the Philippines
Michael M. AlbaDe La Salle University Manila
The ESC program in a nutshell
• provides a fixed tuition subsidy to graduates of public elementary schools who opt to enroll in participating private high schools.
• effectively, contracts private schools to provide secondary education to students who otherwise would have
attended public schools.
Program Features
• Beneficiaries– graduates of public elementary schools
• who opt to enroll in participating private high schools– Grantees pay school fees and expenses in excess of
the tuition subsidy.• who are accepted by the participating private high
schools – A school committee processes applications and
screens grant applicants.
Program Features
• Benefits– a fixed annual tuition subsidy through 4 years of
high school• Value of the grant since SY 2008-2009: PhP10,000 per
year in NCR and PhP5,000 elsewhere in the country.
• Requirements – Grantees must pass all academic requirements in
each year level.– Grantees cannot take a leave from schooling except
due to force majeure or illness.
Program Features
• Service Providers– Private high schools
• who apply to DepEd to participate in the program• who pass an annual certification process for quality of
delivery.
How the ESC Program came to be
• Education policy makers (in government and the private sector) wanted to make use of excess resources in private schools to address congestion and poor quality in public schools– Legal bases
• RA 6728 of 1989: Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE)
• RA 8545 of 1998: Expanded GASTPE
Program Objectives
• Make quality secondary education more accessible to poor Filipino students
• Enhance the complementary roles of public and private education sectors
• Maximize the use of existing resources in the private education sector
• Realize savings for the government• Ease the need for constructing new classrooms
and hiring new teachers
What has been achieved? (1)
• National Coverage as of SY 2008-2009– 476,776 grantees
• 9.3 percent of 5.1 million students in public high schools• 35.8 percent of 1.3 million students in private high schools
– 2,033 participating private high schools • 39.8 percent of 5,110 public high schools
– On average, 4 private high schools handle the enrollment spillovers or congestion problems of 10 public high schools
• 46.3 percent of 4,392 private high schools
– 234.5 grantees per school, on average• 58.6 grantees per year level per school, on average
What has been achieved? (2)
• The ESC program provides a lower cost alternative to direct public provision of education – Cost of a public high school student: PhP9,048– Cost of an ESC grantee: PhP5,344
What has been achieved? (3a)
• On average, a participating school receives PhP1.18 million per year from DepEd due to the ESC program
• But, in general, school fees exceed the ESC grant.– The average support value of the ESC program is
0.67– sv = ESC grant ÷ school fees
HOW MUCH DO ESC GRANTEES PAY ON THEIR OWN?
TOTAL = P 4.43 B
PAID BY ESC GRANT, 2,393 ,
54%
PAID BY GRANTEE,
2,040 , 46%
ESC grants generate P4.43 billion in revenues for ESC schools
ESC grantees shoulder P2.0 billion of the P4.43 billion.
What has been achieved? (3b)
• In effect, the ESC program generates resources for participating schools, in excess of government transfers, since grantees make significant co-payments.More resources are thus generated for basic education.
Challenges
• Can the ESC program be expanded without increasing costs and lowering the quality of private school education?– What is the cost structure of the program?– What is the optimal mix of delivery? Will private schools
themselves become congested or suffer in quality?• Can the ESC program be better targeted to improve
the overall accessibility and quality of secondary education?– How can the ESC program be used to improve public high
schools?
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