State schools allowed to raise tuition, other charges

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III has issued a new policy and guidelines allowing schools to increase their tuition and other charges next year to help them make more money, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said Monday.

He said the new policy and guidelines would result in a “more progressive budget.”

But Kabataan Rep. Raymond Palatino said the new policy was an attempt at justifying the cuts in the budgets of state universities and colleges and allowing them to dictate the increases in their charges, which would result in higher tuition and other fees.

“What is the government doing, commercializing the country’s education?” Palatino said.

“The government is supposed to give subsidy and not just rely on imposing higher tuition fees because that is exactly what we are trying to prevent. This government is making education so expensive that it would seriously burden the parents.”

Palatino said he feared the new guidelines would result in more students dropping out of school because they could no longer afford the tuition and other charges.

Mr. Aquino’s new policy says the boards of state universities and colleges “are authorized to fix the tuition fees and other necessary school charges and at the same time adopt and implement [a] socialized scheme of tuition and school fees for greater access to poor but deserving students.

“An increasing budget for basic education [elementary and high school education] coupled with a decreasing budgetary trend for [state universities and colleges] over the long term would allow for a more progressive education budget.”

But Palatino would have none of it.

“It looks like the government is pitting the basic education against the tertiary, when both are equally important if we want really to provide quality education for our children,” he said.

The new order is said to have considered the findings of the latest Philippine Public Expenditure Review by the World Bank, which says the distribution of public school enrollment becomes “increasingly skewed in favor of richer households as the level of education rises.”

Abad said state universities and colleges had more than enough budgets, and that prompted the Palace to impose “budget cuts.”

The 110 state universities and colleges proposed a P45-billion budget for 2012, but the Palace approved only P23 billion.

Abad said state colleges and universities generated P25.36 billion in income in 2010, and that those had an “unused balance” of P15.96 billion.

This school year, those schools were expected to generate P27.59 billion, which would allow them to have an “ending balance” of P16.56 billion that would be counted as a beginning balance by next school year, Abad said.

“With P27.59 billion plus the approved P23 billion, that’s more than the P45 billion they were asking,” Abad told the Manila Standard.

Students have been denouncing the budget cuts, saying it is the government’s responsibility to provide quality education.

But Senator Edgardo Angara agreed with the Palace position and said state universities and colleges had vast tracts of land that could be used to generate income. –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today