Mindanao Studes Face More Problems Over Tuition Fee Hike

DAVAO CITY - The party list Kabataan criticized Friday the Commission on Higher Education for suspending memorandum orders that limit tuition increases by private schools.

Karla Hyasmind Apat, Kabataan vice president for Mindanao, said the suspension of memo orders can be considered an attack to the student’s right to accessible education.

“We are threatened that the government’s acquiescence to private schools to repeal the limit to tuition and other fees increase will pave the way to an increase in the number of students dropping out of schools,” Apat said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.

She said CHED released a memorandum Feb. 20 informing colleges and universities that Memorandum Order 14 (CMO) and the two ensuing orders have been suspended pending review by the government commission.

The new order advised schools to “withhold recognition” of CMOs 14 of 2004, 42 of 2006, and 7 of 2007 “as the prevailing policy in tuition increase."

The memo orders imposed limits on tuition increases. CMO 7 states that tuition and other fees increase “should not be more than the prevailing national inflation rates.

CHED said it would instead follow CMO 13 as a guideline for any tuition increase for the current school year.

“But CMO 13 does not impose a limit on tuition increase. It only requires a consultation with the stakeholders which ends in mere informing the students regarding the increase,” Apat said.

The Kabataan party list fears that since CMO 13 does not include miscellaneous and other fees in consultation, schools can raise tuition fees by increasing miscellaneous and other fees.

The order, she said, is now being used by the University of Mindanao to propose as much as 11.36% increase in tuition fees.

Davin Acuram, UM student and president of the College Student Government, said the school administration reasoned out that the increase was prompted by the escalating prices of commodities.

“These are the same reasons that made CHED to submit to the private schools campaign to lift the cap on tuition increase. CHED has just institutionalize the annual increase without due consideration that Filipino students and their families who cannot afford such increases because of the increasing gap between the price of education and the capacity of the Filipinos to spend on it,” she said.

Apat’s group and members of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) and different student organizations were planning to file a case in court to seek a temporary restraining order to stop CHED from revoking the restriction on tuition increases.