PUP STUDENTS OPPOSE 2000% TUITION HIKE

On March 19, hundreds of students from Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Mabini Campus in Sta. Mesa, Manila walked out of their classes to protest the impending increase in its tuition fee from P12 per unit to P200 per unit.

Students threw out decade-old chairs, tables and other school furniture to symbolize their vehement opposition to the impending increase in their tuition.



For the past 5 years, the PUP administration has imposed increases on processing fees: graduation fee, diploma fee, transcript of records, to development fee, laboratory fee and many other fees. And true to his reputation of being anti-student, incumbent PUP president Dr. Dante Guevarra, plans not to spare the lowest tuition fee among state-run schools and decided to increase PUP's tuition despite the absence of a consultation.

Dr. Guevarra invokes the Board of Regents' (BOR) power to increase tuition stipulated in Republic Act 8292. He is unstoppable; further adding that the increase in tuition will be used for the improvement of facilities. This is despite the ample budget allotted for the university's beautification program.

Past PUP presidents (Dr. Zenaida Olonan, Dr. Ofelia Carague, and former OIC president Dr. Samuel Salvador) have all proposed to increase PUP's tuition. These attempts were met with intense opposition from students.

The PUP administration should call for an increase in PUP's budget and should not pass on the burden to students whose parents eke out on a very low income. Of the 108 State Universities and Colleges (SUCs), PUP maintains the lowest tuition rate. The glaring fact that 90% of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are private colleges and universities, whose tuition range from P20,000 to P40,000, makes education highly inaccessible. Most students who come from the province are children of farmers, farm workers, OFWs, and teachers who send their children to PUP mainly because of the very low tuition. Increasing PUP's tuition will deny many students of their right to education.

State abandonment has crippled the state of Philippine education. It pushed self-reliance of SUCs, leasing out of properties, scrapping of Capital Outlay, resulting to commercialization of education.

Yesterday's 'golpe de gulat'(as fellow blogger Tonyo Cruz aptly puts it) will snowball into a bigger, bolder action if the BOR ignores its stakeholders' calls. On March 29, the PUP BOR will decide on the proposed tuition hike. Join us.

Education is a right, not a privilege.