MANILA — The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) announced on Thursday that graduates of the Alternative Learning System (ALS) can now proceed to higher education in colleges and universities of their choice nationwide.
“I have signed yesterday a memorandum to instruct all higher education institutions to accept all ALS graduates. This will facilitate their enrollment, they are open to apply to the universities but they have to compete with everyone else because admission to public universities is now very competitive,” CHED Officer-in-Charge Prospero de Vera III said in a press briefing.
ALS graduates are completers of a parallel learning system set by the Department of Education (DepEd) in order to provide a practical option to the existing formal instruction.
CHED Memorandum Order No. 2 series of 2018 states that all public and private higher education institutions (HEIs) shall accept passers of previous Accreditation and Equivalency (A&E) Test high school level in November 2017 and March 2018. This shall be observed for upcoming passers of A&E Test high school level in 2019.
De Vera explained that there had been a problem with previous ALS graduates who wanted to pursue higher education but were not accepted by some universities because they lack the appropriate certification from the DepEd.
“The certification DepEd issued stated that if they have completed their ALS, they can go to senior high school and this caused a great deal of confusion among ALS students because they wanted to proceed to higher education. I was told some universities accepted students even if their certification said they’re good for senior high, while some universities did not,” he said.
The memorandum also states that HEIs are encouraged to allow ALS completers, who were not able to acquire their DepEd certification on time, to enroll as first year college students for Academic Year 2018-2019. (Ma. Teresa Montemayor/PNA)
