| GMA Can Do Something
About Tuition Hike
| Daluyong |
 |
| Mong
Palatino |
President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo's insensitivity to the economic hardships experienced
by majority of our countrymen today may have had to do with her
decision to keep mum on the issue of tuition increases.
She must be
advised that the students' primary concern today is no longer limited
to mere technicalities like whether if a school was able to conduct
a fair consultation with its constituents regarding its plan to
hike tuition or if it was able to comply with the rules and regulations
of the Commission of Higher Education (CHED). The issue today is
about the high cost of education discriminating against promising
but poor students of the country. The problem is about the mass
of students dropping out of college every year, abandoning their
dreams and losing hope of any bright future ahead of them.
About 367 private
colleges and universities hiked their tuition this school year with
one school in Manila increasing its fee by as much as 111%. This
figure does not include schools that forego tuition increases but
quietly jack up miscellaneous and laboratory fees.
Tuition increase
is one heavy burden we have to grapple with while our parents are
also troubled in finding means to pay the high electricity and water
rates, rising prices of basic commodities and other monthly living
expenses. These are hard times and in order to survive, we need
to give up something. However much we wanted to finish our studies,
if faced with the option of staying in college or dropping out to
earn money for survival, there is no question we will choose the
latter.
Schools have
relative autonomy in raising tuition because the two-decade old
Section 42 of the Education Act of 1982 allows it. Therefore, to
stop the annual increases in tuition, Congress must amend the law
or repeal the specific provision mentioned.
But this does
not mean the executive branch of the government can do nothing about
the issue. On the contrary, we think it is the President who can
completely turn the table around in favor of the struggling students.
For one, she can direct CHED to draft a more stringent guideline
for schools planning a tuition hike. She can also call for a thorough
investigation of schools that collect superfluous and exorbitant
school fees. And while Congress is not yet done reviewing the law
and an investigation of erring private schools is being conducted,
the President can even order a moratorium on tuition increases in
the meantime.
It is not enough
that she let Congress decide whether or not to finally end the deregulation
of tuition collection in the country. She can rally her allies in
both Houses of Congress to prioritize the review and amendment of
the Education Act of 1982. She can issue a statement that she is
worried about the obvious unrestrained tuition hikes in our schools
that is forcing millions of Filipino students to end their studies
and that she is hoping Congress will pass a law on this matter.
If she was able
to ask Congress to bring down the high electricity rates and order
the suspension of the controversial Purchased Power Adjustment,
there is no reason why she can't do the same to bring down the expensive
cost of education in the country as well. After all, at stake here
is the welfare and future of our children from pre-school to college.
We are reminding
the President that we did not participate in the campaign to oust
an incompetent President so that the successor would just repeat
what the former President was doing everytime the youth asks something
legitimate: and that is doing nothing.
Very soon, President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will pay for her indifference to the students'
well-being and to our just demand for a freeze on tuition hikes
and an accessible quality education for all.
------------
*This article was written last month after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
publicly announced on radio that she can't do anything about tuition
increases.
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