This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 5, March 6-12, 2005
College Education in
Crisis
Five years from now, the
Philippines’ tertiary education will likely face a crisis if the current trends
in college enrolment and dropouts will continue. Due to continuing tuition hikes
more and more students enrolled in private colleges and universities find
themselves either dropping out or forced to transfer to state institutions.
By Carl Marc Ramota Five years from now, the
Philippines’ tertiary education will likely face a crisis if the current trends
in college enrolment and dropouts will continue. Citing recent studies, the
Anak ng Bayan Youth Party revealed over the weekend that due to continuing
tuition hikes more and more students enrolled in private colleges and
universities find themselves either dropping out or forced to transfer to state
institutions. But the state universities
and colleges (SUCs) are plagued by similar problems: Not only are they few now
and their enrolment quotas limited, they are also haunted by increases in
tuition and other fees thus forcing many state scholars to leave. As a result, Raymond
Palatino, vice president of Anak ng Bayan (nation’s youth) said, students who
can no longer afford to study in expensive private tertiary schools and are
planning to transfer to public higher education institutions may just have to
give up their dream of earning a college diploma. Palatino also predicted an
upsurge in the rate of college dropouts and number of out-of-school youth in the
coming school year, a situation that will worsen in 2010. Recently, the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) National
Commission of the Philippines reported a measly 22 percent overall student
survival from 1st to 4th year college. In June 2004, the Wallace report revealed
that the dropout rate in college is at a staggering all-time high of 73 percent. A similar study – a primer
on the country’s education system - was made by the National Union of Students
of the Philippines (NUSP) also in June last year. Palatino said that access
to public higher education institutions, which are the last resort for students
who want to obtain a college degree, has become impossible to many college
hopefuls. While it is true that SUCs offer a tuition lower than private schools,
educational expenditures in state schools and universities have seen the biggest
increases in recent years, thus making it also inaccessible to ordinary
students. Exodus
from private school to public A new report by the
Commission on Higher Education (CHED) shows that the number of tertiary
population in schoolyear 2002-2003 was 2.4 million compared to 1.87 million in
1994-1995. It cites however that while state institutions had their population
soar by 415,972 (from 399,623 to 815,595 during the same period), private
colleges and universities could only absorb an additional 139,357 enrolees (or
from 1.472 million to 1.611 million). It is true that in 1997,
enrollment in private tertiary schools grew by 6.47 percent. By 2002 however the
figure plunged drastically to a -2.8 percent. Enrollment figures in private
schools fell by 46,354 in schoolyear 2002-2003 from 1,657,735 in the previous
year. The exodus of college
students enrolled in private schools to state universities and colleges (SUCs)
over the last two decades is also shown in other CHED records. In 1980, only 10
percent of college students were studying in SUCs. By 1994, the number went up
to 21 percent and in school year 2002-2003, it already accounted for 34 percent
of tertiary population. Apparently, Palatino said,
many college students have been going in droves to SUCs in recent years because
of the incessant tuition and miscellaneous fee hikes in private schools as
mandated by the Education Act of 1982. This is aggravated by the
low priority that government places on state education as manifested not only by
constantly chopping down education budgets but also by reducing the number of
public tertiary schools in the country. From 271 in 1996, the number of public
tertiary institutions was down to only 173 by 2002. As a result, enrollment
figures in public tertiary schools have also seen a sharp decline since 1997,
from a growth rate of 20.75 percent that year to only 0.9 percent by 2002.
Biggest
tuition increase in SUCs In recent years, the shift
from public to private funding of SUCs has resulted in the jacking up of tuition
and miscellaneous fees in all these institutions. The biggest increase in
tuition took place in the Philippine Normal University (PNU) last 2003, from P10
to P50 per unit or 400 percent. Ladderized tuition hikes
are also ongoing in SUCs in Central Luzon and Bicol until 2006. The Central Luzon State
University (CLSU) plans to increase tuition and other fees by as much as 298
percent. Similarly, the Aklan Polytechnic Institute will implement a 400 percent
tuition increase within four years, which effectively doubles tuition every
year. Most of these increases
were the result of the imposition of a tuition scheme similar to the Socialized
Tuition Fee Adjustment Program (STFAP) implemented in the University of the
Philippines (UP) in 1989. Under the program, the UP tuition shot up by nearly
300 percent, from P11 to P300 per unit today. This scheme is also now being
implemented in public technical and vocational schools in the country. While some SUCs increased
their tuition by more than a hundred fold over the last years, some feigned by
pretending to maintain the same rates. What they did however was to increase
miscellaneous fees as well as tuition in graduate schools. At the Polytechnic
University of the Philippines (PUP), for instance, tuition remains at P12 per
unit. But the same university has imposed a 67-100 percent hike in processing
fees this school year. The biggest increase was for the fine for late enrolment,
from P10 to P100. And there are new fees charged: for shifting form,
verification of grades per subject, re-admission fee and change of subject or
schedule. Other SUCs such as the
University of Northern Philippines
in Vigan, Ilocos Sur and Samar
State Polytechnic College in Eastern Visayas
collect a P200 development fee. In UP, laboratory fees in
five departments and colleges have increased from P50 to P600. In its graduate
schools, tuition increased in 2001, from P300 per unit to a maximum of P700, a
66.67 to 400 percent hike. Anak ng Bayan Youth Party’s
Palatino said that with educational services now being treated as a mere
“commodity for trade,” educational institutions previously insulated from market
forces due to relatively stronger state support in the past must from now on bow
to the "harsh discipline of the market." “By ‘privatizing’
institutions of higher learning, the state must now clamp down on the
proliferation of non-viable campuses and course offerings,” he added.
“Apparently, the ideal of ‘non-viability’ is not connected to any other concept
than that of profitability.” Paying
scholars Overall, Palatino said,
expenditures for public education including tuition, lodging, food,
transportation and books have soared in recent years. He cited the findings of
the 1998 International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility
Project of the University of Buffalo
on Philippine higher education which reveals that a student in a local
university or college (LUC) who lives with his or her parents needs at least
P46,950 every semester. On the other hand, an iskolar ng bayan (state
scholar) who lives as an “independent adult” will need as much as P101,650 a
semester. So now, most Filipino
families can’t anymore afford to send their children even to public schools,
especially given the stagnant wage level and declining income, he said. Based on the 2003 Family
Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), the average Filipino family income went
down by 10 percent compared to year 2000 figures. The inflation-adjusted average
family income in 2003 fell to P130,594 in 2003 from P145,121 in 2000.
Province
of the elite The current crisis in
tertiary education, Palatino said, should also be blamed on government’s policy
of rationalization. The policy allows SUCs to be treated no longer as national
agencies performing socially-oriented activities and hence entitled to
government subsidy, but as income-earning entities. “This further translates
into incentives for money-making tertiary schools, thereby fully encouraging the
commercialization of education,” Palatino said. “The policy has ensured
corporate dominance even in public education, making tertiary education the
province of the elite.” He said government’s own
education policies further inflate the ballooning uneducated population. “If it
will continue its present thrust on education, the government will be driving
more and more students out of school every year,” he said. Bulatlat © 2004 Bulatlat
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Contributed to Bulatlat
(First of two parts)