Bill seeks to prioritize bright but poor students in gov’t scholarships

Photo courtesy of CHEd

MANILA, Philippines — Students who have laudable academic performance and underprivileged will be given priority in the grant of scholarships for tertiary learning in the Philippines.

Senate Bill No. 2679 or the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST) Act gives students, who have shown laudable academic performance, the priority to receive scholarship grants.

Under the Senate Bill, underprivileged students, especially whose families are recipients of the conditional cash transfer program, would be prioritized in the provision of grants-in-aid.

According to a Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) commissioned study, students from higher income families are enjoying more of the government’s financial assistance programs compared to students from low-income families.

62 financial assistance programs

“Government had in place up to 62 student financial assistance programs across 17 agencies.

Though some programs performed fairly well, a majority had low coverage. More worrisome were the results of a CHEd-commissioned study that showed how these programs were increasingly enjoyed by student beneficiaries from higher income families,” said Angara, a known advocate of educational reforms,” Senator Juan Edgardo ‘Sonny” Angara, co-sponsor of the bill, said.

Angara said student financial assistance programs in 2011 only served 60,000 or two percent of 2.7 million tertiary-level students amid thousands of poor but deserving students.

The bill said that loans would also be extended to students facing liquidity problems, regardless of economic status.

The bill further seeks to establish a socialized tuition fee scheme, based on the student’s personal circumstances, family income and socio-economic characteristics, which will be used as a guide by state universities and colleges and public technical-vocational institutes throughout the country.

Harmonizing schemes

“We merely seek to put up a system that harmonizes our student financial assistance programs and makes their administration more effective and efficient. With such a system, we empower not just CHEd, but all other government agencies, to ensure that their student financial assistance rightly go to who needs it and where it’s needed the most,” Angara said.

The senator said no tracer study was conducted to check whether the assistance government extended had actually reached those deserving beneficiaries.

“Tertiary education, a proven stepping ladder towards a better life, remains inaccessible and expensive to many. Hopefully, through such scheme, we step closer to realizing our goals of having one college graduate in every Filipino family. We as a country pay a bigger price when we fail to provide our people enough options and opportunities at availing an education,” he said.

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