The Department of Education (DepEd) has processed a total of P5.23 billion for the Senior High School Voucher Program (SHS VP) while actual payments were P3.95 billion or 75% of billing statements received at the DepEd Central Office.
607,208 Voucher Program Beneficiaries (VPBs) or Grade 11 students enrolled in non-DepEd schools were entitled to receive the benefit through the voucher subsidy.
According to DepEd Order No. 46, series of 2015 and DepEd Order No. 38, series of 2016, the indicated timeline of processing SHS VP payments is two months upon submission of school’s billing statements, with complete and organized documents. The billing process goes through three levels; Private Education Committee (PEAC) Regional Secretariat, PEAC National Secretariat, and DepEd CO.
The Voucher Management System (VMS) allows the schools to check the status of their submissions by just logging in their accounts. The VMS was launched as an online information system for SHS VP participating schools.
Schools were allowed to create billing statements for the first semester as early as July 2016; however, DepEd CO received bulk of the submissions in the fourth quarter due to technical difficulties encountered by some schools in the generation of billing statements.
DepEd still continues to receive billing statements which are processed via first-come, first-serve basis. The agency assures that all documents are processed immediately to ensure timely and efficient payments.
