Kabataan Partylist

February 22, 2007

The Kabataan Partylist, together with the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) and College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) today called on senatorial aspirants to join the students’ clamor for an end to unabated tuition and other fee increases.

“This will be the best opportunity for them to prove to us that they are really for the youth and they are running to defend and uphold the interest of young Filipinos particularly on education,” Kabataan Partylist president Raymond Palatino said.

Around 2,000 students from University of the East in Manila and Caloocan, University of Santo Tomas, Far Eastern University, Centro Escolar University, University of the Philippines in Manila and Diliman, De La Salle Araneta University, Mapua Institute of Technology, Philippine Christian University, Philippine Normal University and Polytechnic University of the Philippines boycotted their classes and converged along Morayta in the university belt to protest proposals for another round of tuition and other fee increases for the coming school year.

“Candidates, particularly incumbent officials should set aside destructive, divisive electoral campaigning for the moment and focus on pressing and unresolved issues that concern youth and the people.”

Palatino particularly emphasized the need to resolve the controversy created by the new Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) memorandum order no. 14 or the guidelines for applications for tuition and other fee increases.

“Private schools and CHED should first settle the issues over the illegal implementation of tuition and other fee hikes this school year under the agency’s memorandum order no. 14 before approving proposals for another round of school fee increases.”

“The school year is about to end but private schools which increased tuition and other fees have not yet started giving refund to the students,” Palatino said.

“If these school administrators will get away with the illegal tuition hikes they implemented this school year, it’s likely that they will implement even bigger increases for the upcoming semester without student consultation.”

Palatino also urged senatoriables to prioritize concerns over incessant tuition hikes by reviewing existing education policies such as the Education Act of 1982 and CHED memo 14. He added that lawmakers should also investigate schools for charging dubious and excessive fees to students.

He also called for a moratorium on tuition and other school fee hikes this coming school year.

“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.”

“With more preventive fees being charged both in private institutions and state schools, we fear that the number of college dropouts will double up this coming semester,” he warned.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 am 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.