Protest actions looming against tuition increases

Students and youth groups are gearing up for a huge protest action against tuition and other school fee increase while public and private schools gear up for protests against tuition and other fee increases.

“We, the students, have no choice but to defend our right to education. It is becoming very difficult for many of us to go to school because of the rapid increase of tuition and other fees,” the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) and Kabataan party-list said in a statement.

Earlier, the NUSP, with the Kabataan party-list, asked the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to crack the whip against erring schools for hiking tuition without proper consultations.

The youth and students groups have been meeting with students who report tuition schemes and unjust fee increases in their schools. The NUSP is set to attend tuition consultations to be held at the Philippine School of Business Administration (PSBA) and Jose Rizal University (JRU).

“A tuition consultation, to be true to its name, should be democratic and consultative. Many tuition consultations we have attended serve as venues for the mere passing down of decisions by the school administration to the students,” they said.

“It is also important to note that, in the final analysis, a tuition consultation is a smokescreen which cannot solve the problem on tuition and other fee increases. CHED and the government should straighten up their skewed policies which spawned the deregulated environment of the Philippine education system,” they added.

CHED earlier issued a memorandum appealing to schools not to increase tuition.

The NUSP and Kabataan party-list group, however, rebuked CHED’s memorandum describing it as “toothless.”

The NUSP disclosed that different students and youth groups are preparing to hold a protest today at CHED to call for a tuition moratorium.

“I cannot fathom why CHED still exists if it can’t regulate and command the schools with regard to tuition and other fee increases. We can’t help but think that CHED protects the interests of the school owners and not that of the students,” Einstein Recedes, national president of the NUSP said.

“We call for CHED to pass a tuition moratorium for the our sake, the students. We will never tire of advancing our constitutional right to education because our future is at stake here,” he added. –James Konstantin Galvez, Manila Times