No law needed vs. ‘bogus’ school fees

DESPITE the uproar of student groups and lawmakers over alleged abuse in collection of miscellaneous fees, the Commission on Higher Education said there is no need for a law governing the collection of such fees.

This as the Commission is now discussing with owners of higher education institutions (HEIs) and student groups for a framework that would regulate the collection of miscellaneous fees.

“On June 24, we expect to come up with a common ground with all stakeholders, including the definition of what are the basic miscellaneous and other fees and come up with a listing of what are the prohibited or dubious fees,” CHED Executive Director Julito Vitriolo said.

The consensus framework may however be implemented only during the second semester of this academic year or next academic year.

The CHEd official said that there are 10 “core” miscellaneous fees, which include registration fee, medical and dental fee, athletic fee, and laboratory fee, which students are required to pay.

Kabataan partylist Rep. Raymond Palatino recently aired in the Senate the “dubious” collection of miscellaneous fees by some tertiary schools in the country, citing examples such as printing fee, theses proposal fee and band fee.

Palatino pointed to as culprits the University of Nueva Caceres (band fee); St. Scholastica’s College (thesis proposal, thesis editing and resume printing fees); Polytechnic University of the Philippines (memorabilia fee); Colegio de San Juan de Letran (Pistang Pinoy fee); and Central Luzon State University (communication fee).

The Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines legal counsel Ana Abad countered that St. Scholastica had consulted its parents and students regarding the fees that they collect.

Meanwhile, lawyer Antonio Abad of the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities also said that the cited bogus miscellaneous rates are “isolated cases.”

Abad added that the miscellaneous fees differ from school to school depending on their clientele adding that schools cannot just operate on the money left from the tuition they charge the students.

The National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) earlier challenged the CHED to order a freeze in the collection of questionable miscellaneous fees while investigations are underway and a regulatory framework has yet to be established to prevent abuses.

Contrary to the Commission’s claim that the miscellaneous fees are for improved facilities and additional benefits within campuses, NUSP National President Einstein Recedes said that the CHED’s own data showed that only 5.5 percent of all HEI’s in the country “can be assumed to have adequate facilities.”

CHED Chair Dr. Patricia Licuanan have said that only 83 out of the 1, 791 HEI’s in the country have adequate facilities to provide quality tertiary education to its students.

Sixty out of the 83 are private colleges and universities and 23 are state-run institutions. However, a decline in quality came at a time when CHED data showed that a number of HEIs has exponentially increased in a three-year period (2007 to 2010)—from 1, 701 in 2007 to 2008, 1, 741 in 2008 to 2009 and 1, 791 in 2009 to 2010. –MARIA NIKKA U. GARRIGA, Manila Times