ANGARA EXPRESSES ALARM OVER NCCE ABOLITION

Senator Edgardo J. Angara today said Malacanang should scrap an executive order that abolished the National Coordinating Council for Education (NCCE) , which he feared would set back efforts to coordinate the work of the Department of Education, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and the Commission on Higher Education .

Executive Order 632 , which abolished the NCCE, named a presidential assistant as a coordinator of the policies and initiatives of the three major education agencies - DepEd, CHED and TESDA.

"This is a step backward for education and it conveys not dynamism but mediocrity," said Angara, author and sponsor of the law that created the CHED and the TESDA.

In a resolution, Angara asked the senate committee on education to look into the abolition of the NCCE.

"It is a blatant disregard of the recognized need to give each education body the ample focus and attention required to address their concerns and enable them to fulfill their roles in the development of the country's human resource," said Angara.

In 1992, the Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM) recommended the three- dimensional focus on the education sector.

Congress responded by creating CHED for tertiary and graduate education and TESDA for technical-vocational and middle level education. The two new agencies were to team up with the scaled-down DepEd to effectively run the important components of the education sector.

The NCCE was created to ensure effective planning and allocation of resources among the 3 bodies.

"Any attempt to pass on the coordinating function of NCCE to just one person or the functions of the 3 education bodies to again just one agency will lead to ominous consequences," Angara said referring to recent initiatives to reconsolidate the three education sectors under one management.

"Prior to trifocalization, the Education department primarily focused on basic education to the detriment of higher education and technical and skills development," Angara noted. "Reverting to the old ways is a hit and miss policy," Angara lamented.