Militant students demand freeze in tuition rates

Militant students demanded yesterday that the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) impose a moratorium on the increase in tuition rates.

"A moratorium on increases in tuition and other fees is the only viable alternative left in alleviating the economic suffering of students and their families as the expanded value-added (EVAT) tax starts taking its toll on their finances," said Marco de los Reyes, national president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP).

Students held a rally at the CHED central office in Pasig City against another likely increase in tuition and other school fees for the next school year.

CHED’s Regional Task Force on Tuition and Other Fees met at the government agency’s National Capital Region office to deliberate on disputed cases of tuition and other fee hikes.

However, the NUSP expressed serious reservations on the ability of the board to rule impartially on these cases.

The NUSP cited that almost half of the representatives of the task force are representatives of school owners and administrators, such as the Catholic Educators Association of the Philippines (CEAP), Association of Christian Schools and Universities (ACSU), Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges (PASUC) and the Coordinating Council for Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA) as against only one from the student sector through the National Youth Commission.

"These associations of school owners would most definitely wield significant influence in the resolution of disputed cases," Delos Reyes said.

"All of these would be at the expense of the interests of the students in the disputed schools because it is highly unlikely for these associations to forsake the interests of the colleges and universities they represent and rule in favor of the students in their clamor for a moratorium on tuition and other fee hikes," he added.

The group urged an immediate review of the CHED Memorandum No. 14, which allows colleges and universities to raise tuition and other fees without discussing the same with students and parents, as long as the increase is within the inflation rate cap.

Of the more than 80 schools in NCR that applied for tuition and other fee increases, less than 10 applied for tuition and other fee hikes at rates higher than the prevailing year’s inflation rate of 7.4 percent.

This means that an overwhelming number of schools in NCR will be raising their tuition and other fees without prior consultations with the students or student representatives at their respective schools.

This is a glaring loophole of the CHED Memo 14 that leads, in essence, to the full deregulation of tuition and other fees, De los Reyes pointed out.

"This will render the CHED powerless in averting tuition hikes and protecting the students," Delos Reyes noted.

Delos Reyes said CHED Chairman Dr. Carlito Puno seems more intent on protecting the right to profit of private schools rather than the right to education of the youth.

"Lest he forget, enrollment in private schools has dramatically gone down precisely because of the failure of CHED to avert the unabated tuition hikes over the years," the NUSP leader said.

"CHED played blind to tuition and other fees increases in the past despite growing economic uncertainties on the part of the students and their families. The Commission on Higher Education must protect the students first before the interests of the school owners if it were really concerned about the youth’s (right) to accessible and quality education," he stressed.

De los Reyes said that under the current scheme, CHED has become unwitting instruments of private colleges and universities instead of creating means for the students’ greater access to education. — Sandy Araneta