After some 400 students, faculty, and workers held a
walkout protest against proposed budget cuts in UP and 59 State Universities
and Colleges (SUCs), they now face another issue regarding laboratory fees.
On November 3, 2015, students from the University of the
Philippines Cebu exposed yet another issue that involves other school fees
(OSF). Two political organizations expressed their opposition to the approval and
implementation of these laboratory fees to be instituted to their respective
laboratory courses.
Like the other constituent units and universities, UP Cebu
updates its curriculum every five to six years. With this, the different
academic divisions of UP Cebu are currently developing their respective new
curricula to adjust to the K to 12 system that has already been implemented for
three years. In this light, the UP Cebu administration, under the leadership of
Dean Liza Corro, proposed new laboratory fees that corresponds to the proposed courses.
Brief history of Tuition and Other School Fees
The University of the Philippines’ mandate as the National
University states that UP shall “Protect and promote the professional and
economic rights and welfare of its academic and non-academic personnel.”
As a part of its rights and responsibilities, it is also
stated in the UP Charter of 2008 (RA
9500) that it “shall take affirmative steps, which may take the form of
an alternative and equitable admissions process to enhance the access of
disadvantaged students.”
Both lines from the UP Charter indicate that as the country’s
national university, it has the responsibility to provide access to all
Filipino citizens, regardless but especially for those financially incapable
yet deserving youth. It is every Filipino citizen’s right to have a quality,
and accessible education on all levels, as stated in the Philippine
Constitution.
It was in 1983 when students started paying tuition to receive
UP education. The late president Ferdinand Marcos, through his Presidential
Decree No. 1177, “began to allot more than a third of the national budget to
debt servicing as foreign debt incurred by the Marcos government boomed
dramatically.” (Lora, 2013)
In those days, students had to pay a flat-rate tuition of
P40 per unit. Today, three decades after the first imposition of tuition in UP,
students pay P1,500 per unit at most. In UP Cebu particularly, students pay up
to P1,000 per unit.
Aside from the tuition UP students pay, they also have to
pay for other school fees such as miscellaneous fees (energy fee, development
fee, library fee, and the like) and certain laboratory fees (all depending on
the course that require it).
Essence of Laboratory Fees
The revision of the different programs’ curriculum entails
the removal of some courses, to cater to the K12’s Senior High School
curriculum. With some introductory subjects already tackled in senior high,
necessary adjustments to the UP Cebu program’s course offerings have to be
made. Thus, with the proposed instituted courses, there is a need for
laboratory fees.
However, in a statement made by the UP Cebu student council
chairperson, Justine Balane, said that “students are charged for the use of
electricity (power consumption) plus maintenance of the air conditioner and
computer units inside these laboratories.”
In pursuit of knowing what the essence of the fees is, I interviewed
the Associate Dean for Academics, Dr. Richelita Galapate, PhD.
The inclusion of the power consumption and the maintenance in
the calculation for the laboratory fee does not necessarily mean students pay
for the entire calculated fee. For instance, in a certain subject, the total proposed
fee is P1,000 which indicates that P600 of it is actually for the power
consumption, the student must only pay P400. The rest of the calculated fee (P600)
is allegedly subsidized by the government.
Balane also claimed that “The admin and some of the faculty
says we have limited funds. They say we are missing out on good laboratory
experiments, software upgrades or other important stuff needed to improve the
quality of education if we don’t collect lab fees.”
But when asked whether the laboratory fees are used for
rehabilitation of facilities, Galapate said that those allegations are
incorrect. The budget for which classroom and laboratory rehabilitation and
maintenance are from the Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) budget
of UP Cebu.
In the Biology program’s case, their supply for chemicals
and equipment are funded by the laboratory fees that students pay. The moment
they run out of chemicals for that certain course, they cannot immediately
restock because they would have to request for funding which can be a very
bureaucratic process to undergo, and that would take a long time. In an
instance where they do run out of chemicals, they would have to wait for the
next semester to collect lab fees which they will use for that semester.
Redundant, Exorbitant, Dubious Fees
According to National Union of Students of the Philippines,
the said other school fees have three characteristics—redundant, exorbitant,
and dubious (RED).
In the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)’s Memorandum
Order No. 14 series of 2015, “Tuition” is defined as the “charges for
instruction and general services of all students”. The laboratory fees that UP
students pay are redundant, exorbitant, and dubious in nature because students
already pay tuition. Given this definition of tuition, and Dr. Galapate’s explanation
of the rationale of the said laboratory fees, it is indeed RED.
In a statement released by NUSP, they stated, “the
commercialization of state education via tuition and OSF increases … tell us
that the UP administration is hell-bent to sacrifice its public character.”
UP Cebu student council vice chairperson Vince Dingding said,
“What the admin failed to see is that these laboratory fees are redundant fees
given that the budget for laboratory materials should be taken from the tuition
that students pay; that’s the purpose of tuition anyway.”
Dingding added that these “lab fees” are not the only
redundant fees that students of UP Cebu are paying. “The fact that these Iskolars
ng Bayan pay for the school’s development fee is also redundant… Dean Corro
said so herself, UP Cebu has certain budget, which by the way increased since
the previous years, allotted for capital outlay.”
The Office of the Dean released a press release which stated
that,
“For UP Cebu alone, it has a budget
of P173 million this year. Next year, the endorsed budget is at P208 million,
but this amount is only for capital outlay (amount used to finance physical
structures) and equipment outlay. This means that when the other portions of
the budget will be included, like the personal services (PS) and maintenance
and other operating expenses (MOOE), next year’s budget for UP Cebu is
significantly high.”
The Nagkahiusang Kusog sa Estudyante, a political organization in UP Cebu, calls to their fellow Iskolars ng Bayan to oppose tuition and other fees.
“Fees do not equate development”
NUSP vice chairperson for Visayas, Dyan Gumanao, said that the
OSF issue that UP Cebu now faces is just like any other university’s problem
regarding OSF. “The problem is clear, the State is slowly abandoning the SUCs
all over the country. These increasing tuition rates and other school fees
are manifestations of State abandonment,
leaving the students to fend for themselves.”
Instead of doing fully subsidizing UP, the Aquino
administration chose to implement the Roadmap to Philippine Higher Education
Reform (RPHER) whose end-goal is to make SUCs self-sufficient with the help of
the private sector. In that case, the public character, as well as the mandate
to promote accessible education, of UP will soon vanish.
Similarly, NUSP Chairperson Sarah Elago, through a
statement, said that “Aside from abolition of SUCs, RPHER promotes the
neoliberalization of education via private-public partnerships and tuition and
school fees increases. Now, more than ever, we need to stand up against this
intensifying privatization and commercialization of education. Otherwise, there
will be no more students in our universities and colleges, private or state-run.”
Gumanao added, “if only the government had done its duty and
fully subsidized UP, there wouldn’t be any problems regarding the budget for
MOOE and academic-related stuff. Students
wouldn’t be left with the burden to pay a fortune for education.”
To date, the proposal of the new instituted courses and
their corresponding laboratory fees are still pending in the Office of the Vice
President of Academic Affairs Office of the UP System’s administration.
****
References:
42 SUCs get P145 M in additional funds [Online] / auth. Diaz Jess // The
Philippine Star. - October 29, 2015 . -
www.philstar.com/education-and-home/2015/10/29/1515931/42-sucs-get-p145-m-additional-funds.
Guidelines and
Procedures to be observed by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) intending
to increase tuition and other school fees, and introduce new fees [Online] / auth. Commission on Higher
Education // Commission on Higher Education Website. - 2005. -
http://www.ched.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/CMO-No.14-s2005.pdf.
No Budget Cut [Online] / auth. Galolo Jeandie // UP
Cebu Website. - September 24, 2015. -
http://upcebu.edu.ph/no-budget-cut/.
SC-DAC Report on
Incoming Laboratory Fees
[Online] / auth. Balane Justine // Google Drive. - November
2015. - https://goo.gl/QRpBBw.
Student and youth
groups hold Aquino accountable for tuition hikes, budget cuts - See more at:
http://nusp.org/just-march-against-tofi/#sthash.VlDPFUsM.dpuf [Online] / auth. NUSP // National Union
of Students of the Philippines. - March 14, 2014. -
http://nusp.org/just-march-against-tofi/#sthash.VlDPFUsM.dpuf.
Where has the
public character of UP gone?
[Online] / auth. NUSP // National Union of Students of the
Philippines. - July 16, 2015. - http://nusp.org/up/.
Why We Call to
SCRAP STFAP: A mini primer
[Online] / auth. Lora Kristian Jacob // Facebook. - March 9,
2013. -
https://www.facebook.com/notes/kristian-jacob-casas-abad-lora/why-we-call-to-scrap-stfap-a-mini-primer/10151377229129794.