Students May Face Forced Vacations After CHED Budget Cut
FORCED VACATIONS – In the Senate hearing for the 2020 budget, CHED got a P11.6 billion budget cut for their proposed budget, because of this, thousands of college may face “forced vacations”.
According to Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, instead of diplomas, the government would be handing out dismissal slips. He said that the budget cut is a ticket for a forced vacation for a number of private and public college students.
“There are many kinds of leaves a student can avail himself of, but a government-imposed ‘tuition-subsidy holiday’ shouldn’t be one of them”, Recto stated. He added that enrolled college students would be affected.
Scholars who were given a guarantee by the government that if they maintained high grades would mostly be affected. The 2019 budget for CHED was P52.43 billion, however it was cut down to P40.78 billion.
That amounted to a P11.6 billion, or 23% cut in the proposed 2020 budget. Based on a report by Inquirer, 80% of CHED’s budget is for the implementation of the Universal Access To Quality Tertiary Education (UAQTE).
This 2019, the budget for UAQTE was P42.5 billion. The largest component of this is the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES).
Based on a report by Philstar, this year, TES had a budget of P25.28 billion. The budget finances 708,993 beneficiaries in five major assistance programs.
However, for 2020, the UAQTE budget was slashed to P35.36 billion. This means a deep cut of P7.12 billion.
CHED has already appealed to restore the P10.35 billion cut in its budget. Because if they can’t get it restored, 175,260 students under the Student Financial Assitance Program will suffer.
Along with them, 1,932 medical scholars. Also added to the list are 115,352 to 199,920 students, all benefiting from TES would suffer.
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