Tigkiriwi

The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd)  granted hikes in tuition fees to at least 250 private colleges and universities nationwide, prompting my relatives in Negros Occidental to say the incoming school year will be a season of tigkiriwi. The Ilonggo term refers to a hideous facial expression due to severe pain.

According to a report by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, tuition fee increases would amount to P41.52 per unit, but it will be higher in Metro Manila where students will bear increases averaging P79.90 per unit.  This will translate to at least P750 per student taking 18 units per semester in a school outside the national capital region, or P1,438 per student taking the same load per semester in Metro Manila. The increases are minimal in the province, but if this is topped with parallel increases in “miscellaneous fees,” it will be a different story.

The number of schools whose application for tuition fee hikes got the nod of CHEd represent only 10 percent of some 2,247 higher education institutions in the country and because the commission is not saying whether or not it is putting a cap in signing approvals, conventional wisdom points to the agency acquiescing to the request of schools, saddled as they are with increments in running a business.

I expected many noise would greet the CHEd announcement especially from parents because the hikes would be added to mounting increases in the cost of food, transportation, medicine, light, water, etc.  Except for some militant sectors raising their voices against the CHEd directive, it seems the issue has lost its sting or the news has yet to sink into the public consciousness.

A study published by ABS-CBN news the other day showed that every year, enrollees in public schools are increasing by at least 20 per cent.  The trend is interesting because the rate is conversely proportional to the drop of enrollees in private schools. In other words, what the private schools lose, the public schools are catching.  Now that is interesting because it would appear the tuition fee hikes are made to fill the gap in the private schools’ loss in enrollees. The question is, are students of private schools made to absorb the financial losses due to the drop in enrollees?

The study did not present specifics about how many students go to college directly after high school, or find work as high school graduates.

Many years ago, only the children of the poorest of the poor would opt out of high school to help their families.  Economics was a factor, but so was inaccessibility because oftentimes, they couldn’t find a public school in places where they live.  Nowadays, we find families where both parents are earning, but still can’t afford the rates of private high schools and colleges.

Modernization has many downsides, but one upside is the opening up of many opportunities to high school graduates that were unheard of 20 years ago.  They can take up vocational courses that can be completed in one or two years, and if they are patient and diligent, they can find work right away.  I have a relative whom I sent to vocational school in the south. After finishing the one-year course in electronics, she found work in the Mactan Export Zone. If only she can rein in her impulse spending for cell phone load and ukay-ukay, she would be able to save enough and achieve her goal to finish accountancy.  The important thing is, she is no longer a burden to her family and getting a college course has become a reality.

Establishing a school is a major investment that would need mega millions in investments, but in the course of documenting cooperatives in Leyte, I came across a unique story of poor housewives and mothers who put up a pre-school in Palompon, Leyte.

In the 1980s, VICTO National tapped housewives in Palompon for the program, Cooperative Women in Development or CWID.  VICTO is a secondary coop with more than 200 primaries under its federation.  In partnership with the Palompon Community Multi Purpose Cooperative PACCI, they mobilized women to become entrepreneurs even as they continue to function as homemakers.

An offshoot of their going into small business like sari-sari store or vending barbecue was the need for a facility where they could drop in their young children in the care of a baby sitter.  The setup gave the mothers the idea to put up a nursery school, which actually materialized in 1993 with the help of PACCI.

The following year, PACCI built a building to accommodate the growing enrolment list, by children of Coop members and non members alike. Last year, PACCI successfully registered the educational institution with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the name, Palompon Child Learning Center.

From a nursery school with less than 20 children, the PACCI-run institution has become a major pre-school in Palompon with more than 150 children attending nursery and kinder classes. Plans to extend the pre-school services to include elementary and high school education are underway.