There’s more to the P8.3 billion allocated by President Rodrigo Duterte to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) to pay for free tuition of poor but deserving students in state universities and colleges next year.
The amount alone is staggering, and the beneficiaries would thank the heavens for this gift which was originally intended to finance infrastructure projects in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao but was instead reallocated for free tuition due to pressure from the Senate.
But while P8.3 billion is nothing to sneeze at, it is also technically not sufficient to provide free tuition to all Filipino youths and only solves part of the problem since it doesn’t include ancillary costs like projects, uniforms and other school expenses.
Still, free tuition is free tuition, and with it, there is an obvious need to ensure that the beneficiaries will be the country’s poor youth who can ill afford a decent education in these days of K to 12.
That’s just part of the problem since educators fear that the announcement of the P8.3-billion budget would signal the exodus of a substantial number of students from high-priced higher education private schools to state universities and colleges that also offer high-quality teaching.
Even before the free-tuition announcement, there had been a steady number of wealthy students who chose to avail of state education even if they could afford to study in the best private schools owing to the high quality of teaching available in state schools.
The announcement will only exacerbate the situation for poor but gifted and intelligent students who will race and compete with their rich counterparts for precious state funds that will finance their education at least on the high school level.
The 1987 Constitution had required the government to provide universal free education at least until high school in which students by then will either rely on their parents’ money, work themselves to support their education, avail of student loans or apply for scholarships similar to the US education model.
Militant youth groups usually demand universal free education in all levels without considering the costs and without even suggesting how to achieve that other than convert the country into a communist welfare state, but the P8.3-billion budget for free tuition is probably the closest one can get to meeting that goal at least partially.
Again, the government needs to define the guidelines for implementing the allocation of free tuition of students starting next school year; and among these guidelines is to ensure that those who can afford an education should give way to those who cannot, that those who can afford the best education possible should not cheat and deprive others of that same golden opportunity.