Rising tuition

EDITORIAL

It is understandable if youth groups and students all over the country are protesting rise in tuition and other fees imposed by colleges and universities as approved by the Commission on Higher Education. They are pressing their rights to “accessible education” and want moratorium on tuition among other fees.

In Baguio City, youth groups led by Kabataan Party-list  opened the school
year with protest actions saying such does not answer basic problems of the educational system but gives additional burden to students and parents paying expensive fees in universities and colleges.

“As another school year begins, millions of students return to their schools only to find the same old problems—inadequate facilities and skyrocketing matriculation,” said Kabataan party-list coordinator
Marben Panlasigui.

According to data released by the CHEd Cordillera regional office, 8 universities and colleges in Baguio City and La Trinidad Benguet proposed increases in their tuition. These include University of Baguio-5%, Saint Louis
University-5%, Philippine Women’s University-7%, University of the Cordilleras-7%, Easter Colleges-10%, Pines City Colleges-10%, Baguio School of Business and Technology -15%, and Phil. Nazarene College-
30%.

Panlasigui said most increases are implemented without undergoing any form of proper and democratic consultation with students, parents, and other concerned sectors even with theimplementation of CHED memorandum Order No. 03 or the current government’s tuition regulation policy.

“CHED Memo Order 3 is a toothless regulation policy. While it has guidelines for consultations regarding fee increases, CHEd has no proper mechanism to monitor compliance of University Administrators,”Panlasigui said.

The youth leader also added that tuition increases on incomingfreshmen is not included in the said memorandum. This is the reasonwhy, according to him, different universities and colleges usuallyimplement carry-over scheme to bypass consultations.

The Kabataan Party-list and other party-list groups under the Makabayan Bloc in Congress last week reiterated the call to the immediate passage of House Bill 698 or the Tuition Regulation bill and filed House Bill 354 which seeks to impose a three-year moratorium on tuition and other fee increases on all educational institutions.

“Considering how important education is for our people and how costlyit has become for them, it will only be fair for the government toensure our citizen’s right to education by imposing a three-year
moratorium on all kinds of fee increases, whether tuition or otherschool fees, on all schools that have registered a profit in theprevious year. This is just to give our people some kind of relief,considering that they have yet to feel the promised social paybackfrom higher taxes,” the Makabayan solon said.

The sentiments of students and the Makabayan bloc in Congress are well taken. But then reasonable and pragmatic approach could be taken by government to study merits of their sentiments. Running  schools, according to its administrators is not that easy as they have to contend with rising costs like salaries of teachers and making better facilities conducive to learning. There has to be a middle ground somehow – and this could be attained by having more consultations between schools and students to arrive to reasonable consensus.