THE League of Filipino Students (LFS) is opposing the implementing rules covering the socialized tuition system and the increases in tuition and other school fees (OSFs) issued by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).
With the implementing rules, LFS said more than 100 state universities and colleges (SUCs) would slap increases in tuition and OSFs as part of the policy to make SUCs fend for themselves.
On Monday House Bill 5633, otherwise known as the “Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education” bill was passed. While the LFS considers the passage of the bill as some sort of an initial success of the students’ movement toward free education, the tuition increases remain along with OSFs.
“This is a victory of the youth and the campaign for free education that we have been demanding for [so] long. Even though it paves a way for the youth’s struggle, the tuition system remains. The guidelines for the budget are used to reinforce the need for collection, which will eventually lead to a justification of tuition increase in schools. What’s worse, this could also be used to implement a loan system,” LFS National Spokesman JP Rosos said.
Rosos said the struggle to achieve free education is not over.
“The approval of tuition increases in more than 100 universities manifests the continuing neoliberal policy of commercializing education and making it inaccessible to the poor and even the middle class,” Rosos added.