Various youth groups from several schools in Manila trooped to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) in Quezon City on Thursday to stage a protest against a “flawed” directive which allowed school administrators to permit yearly tuition hikes in universities and colleges.
About 30 student leaders from University of the Philippines Diliman and Manila, Miriam College, University of Santo Tomas and De La Salle University Araneta joined the protest, condemning the agency’s approval of tuition hikes and other school fees.
CHEd is set to release the list of schools which will raise their tuition for school year 2015-2016. However, the data will only be made available during the first half of May.
“With this new set of increase in tuition and other fees, CHEd exposed itself again as an institution that caters to the interests of profit-seeking capitalist-educators while betraying the youth’s right to education,” League of Filipino Students national chair Charisse Bañez said in a statement.
The protest featured the students burning a photo of President Benigno Aquino III and the logo of the commission while saying both colluded in making tertiary education more inaccessible to the Filipino youth.
The student leaders earlier lodged complaints before CHEd questioning the implementation of Memorandum No. 3 of 2012 which guided higher educational institutions in increasing their tuition and other fees.
One of the provisions under the CHEd directive which is allegedly being violated by school administrators pertains to the conduct of consultations with stakeholders before a tuition increase is implemented.
National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) president Sarah Elago said school administrators resorted to holding bogus consultations in order to railroad tuition increases.
“Malakas ang panawagan ng mga estudyante na mapabasura ang CMO No. 3 Series of 2012 dahil wala naman itong ginagawa para masagot yung lumulobo na bilang ng mga dropout at out-of-school youth sa ating mga eskuwelahan (The students’ call to junk CMO No. 3 Series of 2012 is strong because it does not solve the problem of increasing number of dropouts and out-of-school youth),” Elago said. RC
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