CHED can’t stop closure of PSBA

MANILA, Philippines - The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said yesterday it cannot stop the Philippine School of Business Administration (PSBA) Quezon City campus from closing this month, citing the autonomy of higher education institutions.

“It’s really their call, that’s the thing with private schools,” CHED chairperson Patricia Licuanan said.

However, Licuanan said CHED is assisting the students in transferring either to PSBA’s Manila campus or to other schools.

“We just want to make sure that the students will have to be transferred,” she said.

Licuanan said the management of PSBA’s Quezon City campus wants students to transfer to their Manila campus.

“That would be done automatically for all those who desire that,” Licuanan said. “But some might not be able to do it, then that’s when the CHED-NCR is trying to help them find other places that they can go.”

Licuanan thinks the school’s “very bad” economic situation forced them to shut down.

“It seems that the economic situation was very bad already so they had to close. I suspect that there were also internal problems or politics going on between the present administrator or president of the board,” the official said.

Licuanan also said all seniors should graduate from PSBA and the rest should transfer to a more convenient place.

“That is not always as easy as it may seem, there’s differences in tuition and stuff like that so that has to be ironed out,” she said.

“I suppose, those who will graduate in October are lucky because, they were able to get out before the crisis. But we are worried for students this second semester because they should really graduate from PSBA,” she said.

She said senior students may transfer to PSBA-Manila but still get the degree from PSBA Quezon City.

The PSBA earlier said operations of the Quezon City campus will be terminated “due to serious business losses that have been sustained for the past eight years, including the recently concluded fiscal year” that ended on May 31.

Meanwhile, the termination of the employment of PSBA-QC’s academic personnel will be effective on Nov. 8 while for the non-academic personnel, termination will be effective on Nov. 29.