A student regent of UP reacted on the statement of CHED Chairperson Patricia Licuanan.
CHED – University of the Philippines Student Regent Raoul Danniel Manuel reacted on the remarks of Commission on Higher Education Chairperson Patricia Licuanan about free education.
Recently, many rejoiced when news reports entailing about the free tuition on state universities and colleges in the Philippines broke in. Undeniably, lots of people have really praised the Duterte Administration for it.
However, based on a recent news report in News Info Learn, the chairperson of Commission on Higher Education (CHED), Patricia Licuanan, expressed in an interview by Winnie Monsod that the free tuition will be more of an advantage to rich citizens than to the poor ones.
Based on the report, the CHED chairperson said that tertiary educational institutions only have eight percent of the poor people and that the rich are most likely to benefit more from the P8.3 billion allocated budget for free tuitions in SUCs.
The news report also entailed that the Office of the Student Regent of the University of the Philippines reacted to the statement of the CHED chairperson.
According to the report, UP Student Regent Raoul Danniel Manuel said that the remark of the chairperson of CHED that the move will be more of an advantage to ‘rich students’ compared to the ones who are poor ‘is a rejection of reality at best and an attempt to stop free education at worst’.
The UP Student Regent held the government accountable for poor students’ low enrollment rate in the tertiary level citing the K-12 program which has recently been adopted.
According to Manuel, the said program brings an ‘additional cost’ as an effect to the parents for the education of their children.
Reportedly, before the K-12 Program was passed, it has sparked lots of headlines and elicited many reactions in the past.
There were people who believe that it is what the education system in the country needs and there are also others who don’t see it as one of the necessary solutions.
Some of those who are on the affirmative side when it comes to the adoption of the additional two years in the basic education curriculum see the move as an alignment to international standards and to produce globally competitive graduates.
On the other side, there are also people who believe that it is the quality of education which should be improved and not the quantity of years in the curriculum.
