HIT THE BOOKS A vendor expectantly sits amid stacks of secondhand books on a Claro M. Recto Avenue sidewalk at the University Belt on the weekend before schools reopen on Monday. JOSEPH AGCAOILI
Malacañang yesterday warned school administrators against springing “unpleasant surprises” in the assessment of fees this coming school year.
Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said the Commission on Higher Education “is working on a framework to rationalize the miscellaneous fees charged by colleges and universities.”
“We encourage administrators to communicate with other stakeholders so that all concerned are assured of a fee system that has no hidden surprises,” Lacierda said in a statement yesterday.
The administration came up with the statement just days before schools open next week.
Lacierda said transparency and accountability must be the hallmark not just of public but also of private service.
“All educational institutions entrusted with the hard-earned funds of their students have an obligation to make the fees they collect demonstrably relevant and logical,” Lacierda said.
“The lofty goals of education should not be a cloak for charging fees that are either arbitrarily set or assessed with a lack of clarity, ending up violating the consumer rights of students and parents,” he added.
In Brunei, President Benigno Aquino III said his administration was pursuing a “multi-pronged approach” to address education concerns.
When asked to comment on public education spending that consistently trails behind other countries and falls below recommendations of development agencies, Mr. Aquino told reporters the government had to judiciously divide its budget to fund priority programs.
The President also underscored the importance of government’s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program in bringing social services, including free public education, to the poorest Filipino families.
Government is set to begin the K+12 (Kindergarten plus 12 years) program when classes open on June 6, increasing by three years the country’s basic education program.
“We’re advocating K+12. At the same time, we’re advocating CCT. At the same time, universal health. All of them cannot take a backseat to the others,” Aquino said.
“They’re all urgent needs. They also dovetail each other. For instance, if a family has low income and cannot provide proper nutrition to children, they grow weak, fall ill and drop out of school,” the President said.
The UN recommends that developing nations spend 6 percent of their gross domestic product on education, but the Philippine allocation in recent years has been lower than three percent.
“Can we bring that 6 percent to education then forego CCT and the augmentation to DoH (Department of Health) to give it to education first? Like any other economy, we’re trying to divide the pie to make the most impact,” said Aquino.
He said the CCT program, which targets 2.3 million families, even needs additional funds of up to P2 billion. The program gives education and health subsidies to poor families.
Critics point to government’s poor education investment as the cause of shortages in teachers, classrooms, textbooks and facilities in public school.
ACT Teachers party-list Representative Antonio Tinio called it “historical underspending”: Government spends an average 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product for education.
“They presented education programs, new ideas, and the most ambitious, the K+12. But I think there is a disconnect between the programs they are presenting to the public and the funding commitment of the government, as reflected in the national budget,” Kabataan party-list Representative Raymond Palatino told the Inquirer in an interview.
This year’s DepEd budget of P207.27 billion, already 18.5 percent higher than last year’s, still falls below UN recommendations.
Public schools need some 66,000 classrooms to reach the ideal ratio of one classroom for every 45 students. It needs 102,000 more teachers.
For Palatino, education officials must assert more political will if they were to succeed in reforming Philippine education.
“I hope they will lobby with their principal, and that is the President, to show support for their programs by preparing a budget reflective of their vision of the education reforms that they want. And I hope to see the budget to be presented to congress this August,” said Palatino.