OPINION

RAGE, ANGST, FRUSTATION By Karla Apat

While the government is busy making itself more appealing to its international audience, only 14 out of 58 Filipino high school students can finish college.

This and a lot more issues angers the youth today.

Figures show that almost half of the country's estimated population do not have access to quality education. Out of the 85 million Filipinos, the country has a strong count of 42 million young Filipinos without quality education.

The President, on the other hand, boasted of the country achieving economic growth as the peso reaches its highest after half a decade.

However this remains a blatant lie. Truth is more and more youth drops out of school due to the skyrocketing cost of education.

The story of the Iskolars

Iskolars ng Bayan weep for they are no more the scholars of the people. Last December the University of the Philippines' Board of Regents (highest policy-making body of the university) approved the whooping 300 percent increase of a unit in UP.

A student who wishes to enroll in UP Mindanao needs to have an estimate of Php 11,600 per semester for a regular load of 18 units. Before the approval of the increase, a student only needs Php 4, 400. That is a Php 7, 200 added burden to the parents of the UP student.

UP administration, however, said that the university has to do something to maintain the quality of the UP education. But how many students can avail that quality?

The UP programs and policies serve as a blueprint for other state university to follow. If it is successful in UP, they will do it in other state colleges and universities. That's their way of abandoning their responsibility to educate us.

Not only them

Not only the students of state-owned or subsidized universities are the ones enraged. The month of February is the month when Private Higher Education Institutions' (HEIs) submits their proposals to increase tuition fees.

The youth is not surprised if the government agency Commission on Higher Education (CHED) supposed to monitor the increases in tuition fees allows HEIs to continue milking our parents' pockets," Memorandum Order No. 14 issued by the Commission on Higher Education last year allows the increase in tuition without consulting the students so long as the increase does not exceed the year's inflation rate.

But, the CMO 14, even if already declared illegal by the House Committee on Education, is still used by PHEIs to increase tuition and other fees that even exceeds the inflation rate.
It is an utter connivance of the government with the private sectors. The annual tuition hike in private universities makes education more elusive for the Filipino youth.

Planned abandonment

The commercialization of UP education is the government's plan to abandon its responsibility to education. What they really want is to decrease the number of state-owned learning institutions and give it to the private sector. But how many Filipino students can avail studying in private institutions? The cost of education and the purchasing capacity of the Filipino family have a wide discrepancy.

Angst to action

More and more youth are pushed out of school, making them vulnerable victims of child labor, human trafficking, and other anti-social activities.

The youth today commemorates the National Day of Action. Now is our chance to be heard.
The youth's anger must not remain as angst. We will let our rage fuel us to do something about our situation. It is time for the youth to take charge and change the course of their situation.
We cannot just sit down and wait for a miracle when we can do something now.

The Kabataan Party-list is a youth sector partylist that is set to join the coming elections. We call on to the youth to take the power into their own hands and make the youth's voice be heard in the government.

KABATAN-ONAN KITA ANG PAGLAUM OG KAUGMAON!