CHED chief says free higher education law on track

MANILA, Philippines — The implementation of the free higher education law is on track, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman J. Prospero de Vera III said on Saturday.

Responding to criticisms of Albay Rep. Joey Salceda on the supposed problems in the implementation of Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education law, De Vera said the lawmaker might not have the latest information on the status of the implementation.

“I have the highest regard and respect for Representative Joey Salceda who championed the passage of Republic Act 10931 that is why I take his comments very seriously,” said De Vera. “However, he may not have gotten up-to-date information on Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST)’s implementation of the programs.”

Contrary to the claim of Salceda that only nine state universities and colleges have received reimbursements for waiving tuition and other fees, De Vera said 62 SUCs and CHED-recognized local universities and colleges (LUCs) have completed billing amounting to over P3.2 billion as of October.

He said the reimbursement claims of an additional 77 SUCs and LUCs are now being processed.

De Vera said he is also supporting Salceda’s proposal to lodge the reimbursement budget directly to the schools rather than in CHED or UniFAST.

“But this is difficult to do under the proposed 2019 National Expenditure Program (NEP) because of existing fiscal and accounting requirements such as the proposed Cash Based Budgeting system,” said the CHED chairman.

He added that the SUCs prefer the current reimbursement method and that “CHED is thankful that Congress has included the CHED-submitted special provisions to correct these legal constraints in the House approved version of the 2019 NEP.  We hope that this major reform can be done, with the help of Rep. Salceda, when Congress tackles the 2020 NEP.”

De Vera said the guidelines for the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) program have also been issued, and that over 13,700 scholars have already received their stipends.

“Another 163,529 poor but deserving students in public and private higher education institutions and 77,424 students in private universities with no SUC/LUCs will qualify for TES subsidy as soon as their universities complete the submission of requirements,” he added.

The CHED official said they have only approved short-term loans this year as they are crafting a long-term loan system to make sure public funds are accounted for, adding that no fees were collected from students for return service as claimed by Salceda.