Quezon City holds first K+12 school fair

• Source: http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/231445567823/quezon-city-holds-first-k-12-school-fair
• Friday, October 23, 2015

(PAISO QC/RJB/SDL/PIA-NCR)

QUEZON CITY, Oct. 23 (PIA)--The Quezon City Government, together with the city’s public and private high schools, recently held the first ever school fair that provides information on K+12 program for the city’s senior high school students.

The school fair for District 5 was held on October 9 and 10, at SM City in Novaliches while Districts 1, 2, 3 and 4 held their school fair at the Liwasang Aurora in Quezon Memorial Circle (QMC). Public schools in District 6 held their fairs in their respective school campuses.

Some 48 public high schools and eight (8) private high schools participated in the QMC fair, where thousands of parents and students also came to learn about the different K+12 tracks offered by different schools.

Dr. Cecille Carandang, Assistant QC Schools Division Superintendent, said the fair aims to provide parents and students with information about the K+12 tracks offered by QC schools and which school offers a particular track and strand. She said the fair would also enable a student to pick which track is suited to his skill and career goal, in case the student pursues a college course as well as basic orientation on SHS program, and information of tuition and miscellaneous fees, among others.

The fair is also part of private school participation in the city’s effort to implement the K+12 program.

Quezon City had earlier expressed readiness to carry out the implementation of the K+12 program next year, allocating PhP 478 million for its senior high school (SHS) program, with PhP 330 million set aside for school construction and PhP 40 million for land acquisition.

The city government has also allocated funds for the procurement of IT equipment and software as well as scientific and technical equipment for the various tracks and the training of teachers.Six properties - located in Barangay Kaligayahan, Nagkakaisang Nayon, Gulod, Pasong Tamo, and Tandang Sora - have already been identified by the City Task Force on Land Acquisition as proposed sites for senior high schools in the city.

A report by the Division of City Schools showed that Quezon City needs 811 additional classrooms to accommodate the 36,732 expected enrollees for Grade 11 next year.

However, only 45,660 or 62 percent of the 73,592 total senior high school enrollees will be accommodated by the city schools while 29 percent or may be absorbed by non-DepEd schools.

The remaining 9 percent or 6, 895 will be accommodated by partner schools like the city-owned QC Polytechnic University, and other private or non-DepEd schools.

The Department of Education will be implementing the voucher system to enable Grade 10 students from both public and private junior high schools to enroll in private high school, college or university that offers the Senior High School program. Under the voucher program, DepEd will pay a certain amount to subsidize the student’s tuition fee.

Under the Senior High School program, students can choose from the following tracks:

The Academic track has four strands: accountancy, business and management (ABM),humanities and social sciences (HUMSS), science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and general academic strand (GAS)

The Technical/Vocational/Livelihood track has four strands: home economics, information and communications technology (ICT), industrial arts, and agri-fishery arts

Sports track – career in sports, health, recreation and fitness management

Arts and Design has 5 strands: music, theater, visual arts, media arts and dance.