Pocket protests mark opening of college classes

Small but scattered protests greeted the opening of classes for colleges and state universities on Monday as youth groups expressed outrage over what they see as an education crisis worse than the previous administration.

“The situation is worse now than during the term of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,” Charisse Bañez, secretary general of militant youth group Anakbayan, said.

While classes began, Bañez said eight million youth were not in school, mainly because they cannot afford the rising tuition and other fees.

Leading a rally of around 30 placard-carrying students in front of the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) offices on Monday morning, Bañez said the budget allocated by the national government for education decreased from 13 percent of the national budget in 2010 to 11 percent under the term of President Aquino.

“The ones affected the most by the budget cuts are the youth who depend solely on the state-run universities for their college education. But what do you expect them to do if tuition costs more than their family’s income?” Bañez said.

Elsewhere, protests were staged at Polytechnic University of the Philippines, University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, and Philippine Normal University.

An out-of-school youth, Goper Santos, a 17-year-old high school graduate, cannot afford the tuition even at the city-run Quezon City Polytechnic University.

Joining the protests, Santos said he took the entrance exam at QCPU in May but he was discouraged from attending the school upon learning that he needed to pay P8,000, including miscellaneous fees for the semester.

“We just could not afford it even in good times… so I gave up,” Santos said. He was hoping to take a four-year information technology course after graduating from Lagro National High School in Quezon City.

The irregular jobs of his parents as a swimming pool cleaner and air conditioning mechanic make it difficult for his family of five to make ends meet, he said.

Bañez said the likes of Santos have nowhere to go because even education in the public schools was no longer accessible to them.

At the country’s largest public university, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, its College of Technology has the highest tuition at P250 per unit, she said. A normal 18-unit load could cost a student P4,500.

According to CHEd, more than 281 private colleges and universities are expected to raise tuition by an average of 10 percent this year.