MANILA, Philippines - An official of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has denied reports that state-run Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) will implement a staggering 1,600 percent tuition increase next year.
In an interview with The STAR, CHED commissioner Alex Brillantes said the university will not impose changes in the tuition rate for PUP students, which is currently pegged at P12 per unit.
Brillantes attended the PUP Board of Regents meeting at the university’s campus in Taguig City on Tuesday.
The meeting was met with protests from students who challenged the supposed plan of the university to impose a tuition increase starting 2016.
Earlier, the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) claimed that the university will start collecting as much as P16,000 from the students.
“The proposed P16,000 tuition of the PUP administration highlights the direction of Philippine education toward massive privatization,” NUSP president Sarah Elago said in a statement.
“This is what the neo-liberal policy on education of the Aquino administration is all about: taking away the public character of s tate universities and colleges, inflicting the power of consumption in the cost of education, and denying the students their right to free and quality education,” Elago added.
But Brillantes clarified that the schedule of fees released by the student group is the proposed tuition rate for the senior high school program that is currently under discussion among officials of PUP, CHED and the Department of Education (DepEd).
He added that the P16,000 should it be approved, will not be paid by the students but by the government.
In an interview with Interaksyon, PUP president Emanuel De Guzman clarified the supposed schedule of fees for the proposed senior high school program.
He said that since the university does not have any appropriations to absorb Grade 11 and 12 students, they would have to rely on the P22,000 per senior high school student allocation from DepEd.
“The DepEd will allot P22,000 per student annually, but the policy of the department is 60 percent of the allotment should go to tuition,” De Guzman was quoted as saying in the report.
De Guzman said that the university would lose around 12,000 freshmen as a result of the K to 12 program, thus the need to absorb senior high school students to prevent loss of jobs among employees.