Senator to govt: Monitor CCT effects on schooling

The Aquino administration should closely monitor the effects of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) program on keeping students in school to determine if the program should push through, a senator said Monday. At the Senate hearing on the proposed 2012 budget of the Department of Education, Senator Edgardo Angara said the government should redirect the P39-billion allocation for the CCT if it is found to be of minimum impact on reducing dropout rates. Under the CCT program, the poorest of the poor families identified by the government would receive monthly stipends on condition that they would send their children to school while pregnant mothers would undergo regular checkups. Education Secretary Armin Luistro said the CCT program addresses a number of problems that contribute to high dropout rates, chief of which is the students’ lack of transportation allowances. "The P300 [from the CCT] is an incentive for parents to keep on sending their children to school," Luistro said. But Senator Franklin Drilon pointed out that students do not have control over how the P300-incentive is spent, and parents could choose to spend this money for other needs. Drilon then called for a longer-term study on the program. Meanwhile, Luistro reported an improvement in the enrollment of students in kindergarten, with a participation or school attendance rate of 98 percent. He said this is correlated to grade-one enrollment. "It’s almost like everyone who goes to kinder goes to grade one. The correlation is almost one is to one," Luistro said. The budget hearing was ongoing as of posting time. — Paterno Esmaquel II/RSJ, GMA News