FREE Eduk Watch, an alliance of youth and student organizations nationwide, has raised the alarm on the release of the long-delayed implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of Republic Act (RA) 10931, or the Universal Access to Tertiary Quality Education law, by the Commission of Higher Education (Ched).
The group claimed the issues and concerns they previously brought up continue to be unresolved.
“Queries on access, budget and guarantees for the law’s proper implementation remain unanswered,” they said.
The law, as well as its IRR, Free Eduk Watch said, is “intrinsically flawed” from the very beginning.
Apparently, the provisions of the IRR are evident on its bias to the owners of private universities and colleges, the group noted.
In addition, they said it only “reinforced the long-standing opportunism of the private sector on tertiary education” since the Batas Pambansa 232, or the Education Act of 1982, was signed into law by then President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.
“Plans of expanding and capacitating state universities and colleges [SUCs] and local universities and colleges [LUCs] are, at best, only secondary and merely maintain the country’s long-standing dependence on private institutions in providing tertiary education,” Shara Mae Landicio of Kaisa UP said.
Out of the 118 community colleges, only 78 were approved by the CHEd to receive funds from the national government, the coalition said.
Given this, they want a full disclosure of the accreditation process and how the higher education agency plans to guarantee the inclusion of the remaining LUCs.
Landicio, also the group’s spokesman, encouraged a mandatory accreditation of all LUCs in order to make education universally accessible.
For Jade Lyndon Mata of activist group Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan, most LUC students are economically disadvantaged and average learners.
“Why punish them with exclusion from the law when they are the ones that need it most to lift themselves out of poverty, considering that the Duterte administration has already forsaken the poor the past two years,” she asked.
They condemned officials claiming that everyone could avail themselves of the stipend for college students when in fact only one-fifth or 20 percent of all enrollees will benefit from the tertiary-education subsidy.
The alliance said the P40-billion education budget allocated for academic year 2018 to 2019 is insufficient, considering the required funds stand at P114.52 billion so as to provide enough subsidies and loans to all students.
Also, they worried that the implementation of the law will even worsen in the coming years.
Currently, there is a lack of an automatic appropriations provision to sustain it and the requirement for public universities and colleges to undergo yearly scrutiny from government officials.
What the group agonizes more is “Malacañang’s penchant for favoring capitalist-educators’ interests.”
Polytechnic University of the Philippines Student Regent Elijah San Fernando said “the CHEd has time and again irresponsibly delayed the release of the Student Loan Program [SLP] handbook and SLP Designation Framework as the academic calendar commences in less than two months.”
While the CHEd obviously delayed its release and has not informed the general public on how to avail themselves of the law’s benefits, Free Eduk Watch has committed to continue insisting that the youth should always be represented in the crafting of documents and an intensive national consultation must be conducted for both college and senior high-school students in all public and private schools in the country.
In view of this, they called on all students excluded by the CHEd to contact them via their Facebook page and plan out the next steps forward.
The coalition is comprised of 27 sectoral and campus-based youth organizations and student councils in Metro Manila, Tacloban, Davao, Pagadian, Oroquieta and Ozamiz City.