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EDITORIAL
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Saturday, March 3, 2018
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IS THE free tuition program already in full implementation across the country?
According to the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), around 900,000 students did not pay tuition for the first semester of Academic Year 2017-2018. Unfortunately, with around 1.2 million undergraduate enrollees in state universities and colleges (SUCs) as of June 2017, it indirectly admits that as much as 300,000 students still paid tuition despite the availability of enough funds to cover the tuition of all undergraduate students.
Furthermore, CHED failed to block the attempts of several SUCs to still collect tuition and other school fees as a result of the late disbursement of funds to SUCs, according to the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), the country’s broadest alliance of student councils. One of those schools is the Polytechnic University of the Philippines where, according to the group, miscellaneous fees amounting P2,000 to P4,000 are still collected from students. In addition, first year students were still charged tuition fees despite the existing free tuition program, according to NUSP. It also gathered reports that some students in University of the Philippines – Diliman were forced to opt out of the policy and had to pay tuition even though they were qualified for free tuition.
These unfortunate incidents are results of CHED’s lapses. It announced it already disbursed to almost all of the SUCs their share of the free tuition funds as of February 2018. The agency seems to be proud of this. As a matter of fact, CHED released the funds several months late! As stated in the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) for the free tuition policy, CHED must have disbursed the funds in July 2017 for schools that held their first semester enrollment period in June.
The provision of free education in SUCs is long overdue, thanks to CHED for the delays in coming up with the IRR of Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act. And it willingly creates another wave of headaches. The planned voucher system for college students and the student loan program will simply ensure the private sector’s share of students’ and public funds.
Is CHED spoiling the intended objectives of free education?
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