DepEd Must Adopt Anti-Fraud Measures Under Expanded Education Voucher Program, Says Senate President Gatchalian
Key Takeaways
- •Congress ratified a measure on Sept. 23 that expands the education voucher system to cover all learners from kindergarten to Grade 12.
- •The ratified bill requires the Department of Education to establish anti-fraud safeguards, including centralized verification of learner eligibility and school compliance, enhanced audit and monitoring protocols, and administrative and legal sanctions.
- •Senate President Sherwin T. Gatchalian said ghost students, unverified beneficiaries, and other forms of exploitation of student financial assistance will no longer be tolerated as the voucher program expands.
- •A Commission on Audit report released Sept. 23 flagged 58 unverifiable beneficiaries under the GASTPE program and identified P938,000 in overpayments tied to unvalidated recipients.
- •Extending coverage to every basic education learner broadens the pool of beneficiaries whose eligibility must be validated under the newly mandated safeguards.
The Department of Education (Dep) will be required to put anti-fraud mechanisms in place once the country's new basic education voucher assistance program rolls out, Senate President Sherwin T. Gatchalian said on Tuesday.
"While we expand the voucher program, we will also no longer tolerate ghost students, unverified beneficiaries, and other forms of exploitation regarding the financial assistance intended for our students," Mr. Gatchalian said in a statement.
Under the measure, ratified by Congress on Sept. 23, the voucher system will cover all learners from kindergarten to Grade 12.
The bill will also require DepEd to implement anti-fraud safeguards, including a centralized verification system for learner eligibility and school compliance, enhanced audit and monitoring protocols, and administrative and legal sanctions.
Mr. Gatchalian's statement followed a Commission on Audit (CoA) report released on Sept. 23, which flagged 58 "unverifiable" beneficiaries under the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education program, which extends financial assistance to senior high school students. The audit body likewise noted overpayments totaling P938,000 tied to the unvalidated recipients — the kind of discrepancies the newly mandated verification and audit safeguards are designed to catch.
The timing of the audit findings and the congressional ratification, both on Sept. 23, underscores the scale of the verification task ahead: existing voucher assistance under GASTPE reaches senior high school students, while the ratified measure extends coverage to every learner from kindergarten to Grade 12, broadening the pool of beneficiaries whose eligibility will need to be validated.
Once the expanded program rolls out, the details to watch will be how DepEd operationalizes the centralized verification system for learner eligibility and school compliance, and how the enhanced audit and monitoring protocols perform in day-to-day operation.
— Francessca S. Abalos
This report was first published by BusinessWorld Online.
