THE Kabataan Party-list group on Wednesday denounced the approval of increases in tuition and other school fees (OSFs) in 268 private colleges and universities by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).
Kabataan said the schools got an average of P86.68 increase in tuition per unit in 262 schools and the CHED also approved increases in other fees for 237 schools.
For sure, the fee increases will affect students enrolled in these schools who are already shouldering the high costs of tuition and other redundant and dubious fees, the group said in a statement.
Tuition has skyrocketed in the last five years.
A study released by Kabataan Party-list group last year showed that both tuition rates and profits of private universities almost doubled under former President Benigno S. Aquino III’s first five years in office.
School administrators have also employed the practice of double-charging students by imposing OSFs, which go to expenses supposedly already covered by their tuition.
These include garbage fee, athletics fee, cultural fee, donation fee, energy fee, Internet fee and developmental fee.
The last fee was banned by the CHED, but several schools, including public universities, continue to charge its students with such a fee under a different name, the group said.
“The existence of other school fees and their regular increases only reinforce the commercialized orientation of education in the country. Education remains a commodity to which capitalist educators and school owners continue to milk out profits from students who can pay,” the group added.
“We urge the Filipino youth to call for the abrogation of CHED Memo Order 3, which has turned the CHED into a mere stamp pad for increases, as well as the Education Act of 1982, which brought about this reorientation of education,” Kabataan said.
The group reiterated its call for the establishment “of a truly free and nationalist education” and not a commercialized education that has become a milking cow for capitalist educators.
For its part, the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) slammed the increases and said it is indicative of the Duterte administration’s adherence to the same policies that have made education inaccessible to the youth.
“The Duterte administration’s policies are nothing more than the perpetuation of the same policies used by previous administrations. Once again, the President has reneged on his promise for change. The policies of deregulation, commercialization and privatization in our education remains firmly rooted, as manifested by the continuing collection of exorbitant fees,” NUSP said in a statement.
“To make things worse, it seems this administration is set to intensify the crisis of higher education in the country. Promises of free education turned into the nightmare of socialized tuition because of President Duterte’s conditional veto. Now, we are faced with bills from both houses of Congress that are set to implement a socialized tuition scheme for all state universities and colleges, effectively limiting the number of students able to enter the tertiary level,” the group added.