Educational system continues to deteriorate under the US-Macapagal-Arroyo regime
Six months after tens of thousands of youth and students participated in ousting the corrupt and antipeople Estrada, no positive steps have been taken by the current administration to address their grievances. There has been no change in the condition of students under the US-Macapagal-Arroyo regime other than the fact that their burdens now weigh heavier on them.
In the face of higher prices of petroleum products, basic commodities, water services and other family expenses, students and their parents now have more to burdens to bear. This latest school opening, more than 400 private colleges and universities nationwide raised their tuition fees. In Mindanao, about 26 government colleges and universities raised their fees by an average of 15%.
On May 23, the Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines (UP) approved a hike in tuition and other fees in UP Manila, UP College Baguio, UP Visayas and 20 out of 25 colleges in UP Diliman. Thirteen colleges in UP Diliman raised graduate tuition fees from P300 to P500 per unit, four colleges from P300 to P600 and one college from P300 to P700. Laboratory courses at the College of Science that cost only P300 per unit in 1997 now cost up to P1,500 per unit.
In Baguio City, a number of colleges and universities raised tuition and other fees by 5-10%. Many students from the city's private elementary schools transferred to public schools in the metropolis because of higher fees.
Higher school fees have also been due to the Education Act of 1982 that persist under the current regime. Under this law, there are no restrictions in tuition fee hikes. This has led to a 2,000% increase in tuition since the law was enacted by the dictator Marcos. Despite the hardships wrought by the higher cost of education, the only form of relief repeatedly proposed by Congress is the imposition of a 15% ceiling on tuition fees paid by students in their first year in college.
Officials of the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (DECS) themselves admit that there is a dearth of 16,214 classrooms, 142 million textbooks and 29,000 teachers. In spite of this, the regime has paid more attention to swelling the budget of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). This July, on the occasion of the AFP's anniversary, Macapagal-Arroyo announced that she would be giving the military P10 billion for its "modernization". Debt service and corruption are the other items that gobble up the budget of the reactionary government.
In 1997, the reactionary government allotted P12 billion from a World Bank loan to fund the construction of 2,000 classrooms annually. But in 1998, only two classrooms had been built and only 200 more in the first half of this year.
On January 23, when Macapagal-Arroyo had just taken power, students, through the National Union of Students of the Philippines, aired four demands. These were 1) a halt to tuition fee hikes, 2) advancement of students' democratic rights, 3) augmenting subsidies for education, and 4) the unconditional release of student political prisoners. The regime has not addressed these demands.
With renewed hikes in school fees and inadequate government subsidies, criticism, opposition and protests have rained down on the US-Macapagal-Arroyo regime. To this, the Commission on Higher Education has rudely retorted that if students wanted quality education, they had to pay for it.
Students have formed an alliance called Education for All. During Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address on July 23, they joined widespread protests in front of Congress to reiterate their demands.
Students have long been battling the decadent educational system. Instead of a commercialized, feudal, pro-imperialist and elitist education, they are fighting for free, scientific, patriotic and mass-oriented education. So long as there are no basic changes in society, the youth will remain oppressed and their right to education curtailed.
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