NORDIS WEEKLY
February 5, 2006

 

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Students ask junking of Ched Memo 14

Urge additional education budget

BAGUIO CITY (Feb. 2) — Student organizations under the banner of the Youth Demanding Arroyo’s Removal (Youth DARe) staged a protest action on January 31 at the People’s Park here, calling for the junking of Commission on Higher Education (Ched) Memorandum 14, and reiterating their demand for a higher education budget.

According to John Panem, National Union of Students in the Philippines (NUSP) Baguio-Benguet coordinator, Ched Memorandum 14 removes the rights of students for proper consultations on tuition and other school fee increases.

Panem recalls that February is the consultation month for tuition and school fee hikes in the colleges and universities in the city. He said that there would be no need for consultations this year because Ched Memo 14’s implementation allowed school administrations to increase school fees without consulting students, as long as the increase is lower or equal the present inflation rate.

Under the said memo, Panem added, if Ched does not decide on student petitions regarding tuition hikes within 30 days, the increase is automatically approved.

“Ched’s mandate is to ensure accessible education for the Filipino youth. Ched Memo 14 is a clear violation to this mandate because it gives too much freedom to school administrations to increase fees. Now that every Filipino family face relentless price hikes of basic commodities and services, this freedom curtails the right to survive,” Panem stressed.

Panem further criticized the proposed 2006 budget that allocated about P721.1 billion to foreign debt payment, while giving a measly P119.1 billion for education. He added that a separate P1 billion was allotted for hiring 15,000 new police officers aside from the P98.4 billion military budget. He added that state colleges and universities (SCU) continue to experience budget cuts, while the military budget gets additional allocations.

According to Panem, there is no need for new police officers; what we need are public schools and facilities to employ more teachers. He added that teachers together with other government employees, including police officers have long been asking for pay increase to cope with the present economic crisis but the GMA administration continues to ignore them.

“Meager budget allocation for education, SCU budget cuts and allowing policies like the Ched memo only show the GMA administration’s lack of regard to the youth. We want Arroyo out,” Panem reiterated. # Kim Quitasol for NORDIS

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