About PEAC

The Private Education Assistance Committee (PEAC) is a five (5)-member committee constituted to serve as trustee of the Fund for Assistance to Private Education (FAPE), a permanent and irrevocable trust fund. The committee possesses powers and authorities enumerated under Executive Order (E.O.) No. 156, series of 1968, as amended. It is composed of the following:

• Secretary of Education as Chairperson;
• A representative from NEDA as a member;
• A representative of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP) as a member;
• A representative of the Association of Christian Schools, Colleges and Universities (ACSCU) as a member; and
• A representative of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities (PACU) as a member.

Pursuant to E.O. No. 156, series of 1968, as amended, the PEAC is allowed to hire administrative staff to assist it in running its programs and activities. In this regard, it has created the PEAC National Secretariat (PEAC NS) that is headed by PEAC’s Secretary who also acts as Executive Director who is appointed by the PEAC for a fixed term.

Under E.O. No. 150, series of 1994, amending Section 2 of E.O. No. 156, series of 1968, the PEAC was granted the express authority to manage and administer contributions, donations, grants, bequests, gifts and/or loans from the Government of the Republic of the Philippines for programs of assistance to private education.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) in two opinions issued on January 14 and 16, 1969 clarified the nature of the PEAC as a private entity. Bonifacio Salamanca in “FAPE: The First Decade” (1981) wrote, “The Secretary of Justice opined that the PEAC ‘may not be considered an agency or instrumentality of the Philippine Government.’” This view would be consistently held by DOJ Opinion No. 56, s. 1999 and DOJ Opinion No. 43, s. 2024.

In 1982, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports or DECS, through the assistance of the PEAC, successfully piloted a scheme which served as a precursor to the Education Service Contracting (ESC) and provided a cost-effective alternative to public school expansion by entering into service contracts with private schools that would accommodate overflow students from the public schools as well as students in communities where there were no public schools, thus enabling the government to realize substantial savings.

In recognition of the favorable outcome of and feedback on the ESC program during its pilot phase for the period 1982-1986 and its national implementation handled by the PEAC from 1986-1991, DECS (now the Department of Education or DepEd) since 1996 up to the present has engaged the PEAC as co-implementer to assist it in the management and implementation of the ESC, Teachers’ Salary Subsidy (TSS), Senior High School Voucher Program (SHS VP), as well as In-Service Training (INSET) of the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (GASTPE) program established under R.A. No. 6728, as amended by R.A. No. 8545 for private school programs.

The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) and the UniFAST Board also engaged the PEAC to co-implement the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) Program provided for under R.A. No. 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act in academic year 2019-2020.

The Regional Secretariats headed by the Regional Program Directors who are Presidents of private educational institutions in the 16 regions are part of the PEAC infrastructure for program implementation.

In school year 2023-2024, PEAC processed the billing statements of 3,657 participating junior high schools that accommodated 897,518 grantees with total subsidies amounting to Php8.63 billion under ESC. For the SHS Voucher Program, PEAC processed the billing statements of 4,552 schools where 1,352,502 beneficiaries were enrolled for a total voucher amount of Php23.61 billion. A total of 55,792 qualified JHS teachers from ESC schools received TSS subsidies that amounted to Php990.85 million.

In 2004, PEAC developed a quality assurance mechanism for ESC schools to ensure compliance with the DepEd standards and minimum requirements for the junior high school program. The JHS Certification Assessment Instrument (JHS CAI) was first updated in 2018 to reflect the K-12 standards and new regulations and is now being reviewed to articulate new standards to align with learning continuity, learning recovery, and learning delivery modalities. Every year, more than a thousand private junior high schools undergo the PEAC Certification prior to participation in the ESC.

In 2020, the PEAC developed an assessment instrument for private senior high schools and has pushed for a policy of certifying senior high schools participating in the SHS Voucher Program. With quality as one of its main thrusts, the PEAC has initiated the pioneering SHS Voluntary Certification (SHS VC) in 2022-2023 where more than 100 private senior high schools have participated to date. The PEAC also developed the Standards-based Quality Assurance Instrument for Elementary Schools in 2022.

Through the In-Service Training (INSET) Program that is designed and implemented by the PEAC, a total of 14,927 JHS teachers and 11,507 SHS teachers were trained. The PEAC is an accredited CPD provider of the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to enable participants to earn credit units for the renewal of their professional licenses.

It is noteworthy to mention that because of its nature, PEAC is able to tap the vast talent in the private education sector. At present, the PEAC has developed and deployed 308 JHS ESC Certifiers from 150 FAAP-accredited and PEAC-certified schools, 236 monitors from 175 GASTPE participating schools, 180 JHS trainers from 60 private educational institutions, and 150 SHS trainers from 39 private educational institutions.

As a staunch champion of public-private complementarity in Philippine education, the PEAC has supported research that further the understanding of the private education contexts and models as well as advocated for increased support for private education. Notable reports that have been disseminated towards these two ends are the “Policy Brief on Extending GASTPE to K-6” and the “Absorptive Capacity Study of Basic Education in the Philippines.”

In sum, the work of the PEAC for the private education sector also contributes to the improvement of the Philippine education system as the PEAC efficiently co-implements national subsidy programs of the education agencies and serves as an effective instrument to operationalize the complementarity between private and public schools in the country.