Commission on Higher Education (Ched) chief Patricia Licuanan. PHOTO FROM CHED’S FACEBOOK ACCOUNT
A militant youth group on Wednesday hit Commission on Higher Education (Ched) chairperson Patricia Licuanan for saying that free tuition will not benefit the poor.
The League of Filipino Students (LFS) said Licuanan and CHED merely “revealed their failure in providing tertiary education for most, if not all, of the Filipino youth.”
In an interview with Winnie Monsod on Monday, Licuanan said there are issues in implementing free tuition for college students.
“The poorest of the poor are not yet in college. They have been knocked out long ago and enrollment of the poorest quintile in higher education is only 8 percent. So it’s not going to benefit the poor,” she said.
READ: ‘Free tuition won’t benefit the poor’
Her comments were in response to the Senate’s appropriation of P8.3 billion in funds to finance the tuition of all students in the country’s 114 state universities and colleges (SUCs).
Licuanan said Ched prefers to start with the “poorest segments” instead of offering free tuition to all students.
LFS chairperson JP Rosos called Licuanan and CHED “anti-student and anti-people.”
“Providing free public education must cover every Filipino youth regardless of their background,” he said. “There should be no conditions in providing free public education.”
READ: Free tuition for tertiary education ‘can be done’
Rosos pointed out that it was Ched that allowed “relentless increases in tuition and impositions of other school fees.”
He accused Ched of allowing education to become “a lucrative business for capitalist educators.”
“In the past decades, state universities have been increasing their collection from students. Without any regulation, private schools have also increased their profit by miles due to tuition and other school fees paid by students,” he explained. “It is no wonder that only a handful of the poorest quintile can afford college education.”
Senator Bam Aquino, in a statement, described CHED as “out of touch,” especially since three out of four students drop out from SUCs because of insufficient funds.
He said college students might not be considered poorest of the poor but many of them come from families of minimum-wage earners. IDL