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It’s graduation season! After spending for the tuition and other fees and expenses entailed to give kids the best education possible, here comes one more item to pay for - the graduation.


But the government was quick to give their advice. Here’s an article form Philstar.com:

The Department of Education (DepEd) has reminded school officials to keep graduation ceremonies simple but meaningful. “While graduation rites mark a milestone in the life of the graduates, these should be conducted without excessive spending, extravagant attire or extravagant venues,” Education Secretary Armin Luistro said. “Contribution for the annual yearbook, if any, should be on a voluntary basis,” he added.

As we know, parents pay special attention to the celebration of graduation. It’s a milestone for them and they also treat this moment as their own finish line of one major responsibility. There goes buying new clothes for both the student and the parents. There goes the feast for everyone in the barangay, as we love announcing graduations.

Aside from these, let’s take a look at the regular fees for graduation:

One of our editors took the day off to attend her only daughter’s graduation in a private school. She told me she had to fork out P2,300 for rental of the toga and the venue for the ceremonies as well as payment for the official graduation picture and a yearbook.

The girl is all of five years old, and has just graduated from kindergarten.
Our editor spent more than another of our copy editors, who paid P1,200 for the sixth grade graduation of her daughter recently in a private Catholic school in Bulacan. The amount was for the yearbook, the copy editor was told.

Graduation has become big business, with children graduating every year, from kiddie school to prep school to kindergarten, complete with yearbook. Toga rental alone can be a lucrative business, at P600 per robe for adults.

Graduation fees are also collected in public schools. In one school in Mangaldan, Pangasinan, grade six pupils paid P350 as graduation fee. Another of our editors, who sent the money to his relatives in Mangaldan, is not sure if the Department of Education (DepEd) is aware of such fees.

In many impoverished areas, parents cannot even afford the various miscellaneous fees collected from students in public schools. Some parents have told me they suspected that certain fees are imposed by the teachers on their own, with no clearance from DepEd.

A 22-year-old mother of two from Bicol told me she dropped out in sixth grade because her family could not afford the fees, including an annual P270 collected in her public school. At 16 she got pregnant; after her second child she underwent tubal ligation. Now she thinks she’s too old to start high school.

Before kindergarten became free and universal, a driver from Cavite with four children told me he and his wife wanted to send their kids to kindergarten for better preparedness for grade school, but they could not afford the minimal P100 fee per semester.

Offering free kindergarten to all is a welcome development, but in reality, public education in this country cannot be absolutely free. Sending a child to school requires money for transportation, snacks, and certain supplies that cannot be provided by the state such as pen and paper, uniforms and shoes.

In some areas where water supply is inadequate, children cannot even meet the requirements for cleanliness and neatness in school. Regular bathing and doing the laundry in such areas can eat into the family’s limited funds.
Some teachers can be insensitive to these problems. In one crowded public high school in Metro Manila, a teacher told her pupils that they stank and needed a regular bath. One of the students told me that even if it was true, the remark was no less offensive, but they had no choice but to put up with the rudeness.

The miscellaneous fees pile up throughout the school year. Graduation season – with the attendant fees – is typically when families of limited means decide that they can no longer continue financing their child’s “free” education. –Philstar.com

In public schools, we shall always remember that free education is the basis of everything. Celebrations are important, but simplicity and sincerity should be our top priority.