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[av_heading heading=’‘Junk tuition hike petitions’’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=’30’ subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’18’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=” av-medium-font-size-title=” av-small-font-size-title=” av-mini-font-size-title=” av-medium-font-size=” av-small-font-size=” av-mini-font-size=” admin_preview_bg=”]
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
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Sunday, March 4, 2018
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THE National Union of Students of the Philippines, the broadest alliance of around 650 student councils all over the country, calls on the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to junk all petitions of private schools to hike their tuition and other school fees (TOSF) for the next academic year.
CHED promised that it will follow strict guidelines in assessing the applications of private higher education institutions (HEIs) to increase fees. However, this is not the first time that CHED pledged to carefully evaluate such applications. Its “fair ruling” on petitions for TOSF hikes has resulted in hundreds of private HEIs increasing their fees annually in order to rake in millions in superprofits from their customers, the students.
For so many years, the “Commission on Highly Expensive Education” turns a blind eye on the fake consultations held in schools to justify the fee increases. Students are invited to “consultations” where their sentiments on the planned increases will be heard. In reality, consultations have become venues to merely inform students of fee hike proposals.
Worse, student attendance in fake consultations is submitted to CHED as student consent or support to the proposals – for the sake of complying with CHED requirements. Worst, CHED accepts those submissions.
This year, around 400 schools are expected to hike fees and amass more profits. To oppose the planned increase in TOSF in their schools, students in the University of the East (UE) and Adamson University held protest actions in February. Student council officers of UE also boycotted the consultations on the fee hike proposal of their school.
CHED has always been catering to the desires of private HEIs for bigger annual revenues. Data reveal that the profits of private HEIs soar as they increase the fees they charge students.
Among the schools with millions in revenues from TOSF collection in 2016, the Lyceum of the Philippines University (LPU), Far Eastern University (FEU) and UE topped the list with at least 600 million pesos each in gross revenue from collecting fees.
In approving the petitions for TOSF increases, Duterte and CHED expose themselves as insincere in making education more available to the Filipino people. They further reveal their allegiance to capitalist educators by upholding the commercialized nature of education so that private school owners may continue massive profiteering in education.
With the dire impact of the tax reform law on the prices of goods and services, we cannot allow education to come with a hefty price tag farther beyond the reach of the Filipino masses. – RAOUL MANUEL, deputy secretary general, National Union of Students of the Philippines
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