CHED urged to keep study program for poor

A PARTY-LIST lawmaker has urged the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to reconsider its earlier proposal to scrap the “study now, pay later” program despite its low repayment rate, it was learned on Monday.

According to Rep. Raymond Palatino of Kabataan party-list, the Study-Now-Pay-Later Program—which is currently saddled with a poor repayment rate of one to three percent—has helped a lot of poor students finish college, and for that reason should not be dropped.

Those who need to pay should not be asked to do so, Palatino said, because the government has an obligation to offer free tuition to all Filipinos in order to give them the chance to have a better future.

Instead, CHED should work with government financial institutions to improve access to education, he added.

The Higher Education commission gave assurances that it would look into the proposal, the legislator said.

Earlier, Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara of Aurora province, the chairman of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education, said that the program needed to be reassessed and strengthened so that it could be more responsive to the needs of college students.

He pointed out that the Philippines suffered from a depressingly low loan repayment—less than 2 percent to 3 percent.

That percentage is far below that of Hong Kong (100 percent), South Korea (81 percent) and China (79 percent), according to a 2003 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization study.

“One of the reasons for this miserable turnout is the lack of sanctions [on] defaulters and their guarantors,” Angara said.

Out of the five countries (including the Philippines) covered by the study, China, Hong Kong and South Korea have imposed heavy penalties like publishing the names of defaulters and taking legal action against them, he added.

Though possessing the power to impose legal sanctions, the fourth country, Thailand, did not aggressively implement these on erring borrowers

Consequently, the Southeast Asian kingdom registered a low loan repayment rate of 21 percent. –Sammy Martin, Reporter, Manila Times