ILOILO City – As students struggle with their education due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, nine private higher education institutions (HEIs) in Western Visayas are seeking to increase their tuition and other school fees for academic year 2021-2022.
They filed applications for such, confirmed Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Region 6 director Dr. Maura Consolacion Cristobal, and these were forwarded to the commission’s central office.
Pending the CHED’s action to their applications – whether to approve or disapprove these – Cristobal decline to identify these tertiary schools.
What the director could confirm, however, is that majority of these schools operate in either Iloilo city or province.
Here’s the breakdown of the HEIs seeking tuition ad other school fee increases by area:
* Iloilo City – three
* Iloilo province – two
* Bacolod City – one
* Negros Occidental – one
* Roxas City – one
* Capiz – one
These HEIs are all private schools. They submitted their applications to CHED on Aug. 2.
There are a total of 153 HEIs in Western Visayas.
Cristobal said no state universities and colleges sought to increase their tuition and other fees for academic year 2021-2022.
So far, too, the CHED regional office has no exact data yet as to the total number of enrollees; figures are set to be consolidated by October to November this year.
Some HEIs already started classes for this school year.
On the other hand, a joint memorandum between CHED and the Department of Health issued on February would allow face-to-face classes in selected programs in areas under the general community quarantine (GCQ) and modified GCQ.
The conduct of limited face-to-face classes would be prioritized for select health-related degree programs such as Medicine, Nursing, Medical Technology/Medical Laboratory Science, Physical Therapy, Midwifery, and Public Health./PN
