Kabataan Partylist

Regulate tuition hikes, new lawmakers told

“Apparently, “dagdag-bawas” activities don’t just happen in elections. So pervasive is the culture of dagdag-bawas, corruption and greed in this country that even the education sector is not spared from this wicked practice.”

This was the reaction of Kabataan Partylist President Raymond Palatino over reports of new round tuition hikes in private colleges and universities, adding that among private school owners now emerge the new breed of “dagdag-bawas operators.”

Palatino said corrupt politicians and election operators don’t have the monopoly over dagdag-bawas activities as private tertiary schools have long developed and perfected its own “dagdag-bawas” machinery with yearly tuition hikes.

“While candidates accuse each other manipulating election results to clinch victory, private schools owners and administrators are padding tuition and other fees to jack up their profits.”

“Partial reports of tuition hikes involving hundreds of schools all over the country only confirm our long-held fears that the anomalous suspension of the tuition cap early this year will be used by school owners to increase tuition beyond the inflation rate which will lead to bigger tuition and miscellaneous fee hikes this school year,” he pointed out

He accused the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA) and the Arroyo administration of conniving with each other to suspend the implementation of CHED memorandum order no. 14 and subsequent amendments CMO 42 and CMO 7 which provide for a cap on tuition and other fee increases based on the prevailing national inflation rate.

“This gave private schools bigger room for “tuition padding” (dagdag) which served as a pay off for the much need school owners’ support for administration candidates.”

Palatino said the timing of the tuition cap’s suspension last February 20 is questionable as it came out in the middle of tuition consultations in various private schools and after COCOPEA’s meeting with President Arroyo a week earlier.

“Unfortunately, the reverse result of “tuition padding” is the decrease (bawas) in the number of enrollees and the corresponding upsurge in the number of dropouts and out-of-school youth. With higher tuition rates and more preventive fees being charged both in private institutions, we fear that their numbers will double up this coming semester,” he warned.

Meanwhile, Palatino called on elected district representatives and soon-to-be senators to translate their electoral agenda and promises to practice by making the immediate resolution of the current ‘tuition hike crisis’ their top priority this Congress.

“This will be the best opportunity for them to prove to us that they are really for the youth and they participated in this elections to defend and uphold the interest of young Filipinos, particularly for education.”

“Tuition and other fee increases in these times of economic hardship and poverty are clearly uncalled for. These only make college education more elusive to young Filipinos.”

“We call on our next set of lawmakers to join the students’ clamor for an end to unabated tuition and other fee increases and an immediate investigation on the suspension of the tuition cap,” Palatino concluded.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 29th, 2007 at 3:10 pm and is filed under News and Press releases, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.