Wednesday, May 28, 2008 Editorials: School opening woes
THERE is a time of the year that many parents would rather not think about.
June is welcomed and disdained; welcomed because it provides parents the opportunity to educate our children and disdained because it means another round of expenses.
The situation is even worse this year for low and middle income wage earners, what with the already high prices of food, medicines and other basic household needs on top of the increased cost of school supplies, school uniforms, and books.
And what about tuition fees for enrollees in private schools, colleges, and universities?
Towards this end, the President “ordered the freezing of tuition in all state colleges and universities for the current school year and urged private higher education institutions (HEIs) to do the same in light of the rising prices of oil, food and other commodities.”
Selective
The presidential motive is sound but whether private institutions will acquiesce is something that needs watching.
When the school season opens next week, observers are worried that there would be a tremendous decline in the number of enrollees in both public and private schools.
The reason need not be over emphasized.
Thousands of parents are forced to choose between the imperatives of family survival and the need to educate the children.
Criticism
But militant student groups chided the so-called “selective” order of the President regarding the freeze on tuition fees.
They claim that an estimated 70 percent or thereabout of the nation’s college level students are enrolled in private schools.
They would have welcomed a more sweeping order from Malacañang that includes private HEIs.
The youth group Kabataang Pinoy and the National Union of Students of the Philippines asserts that the “exclusion of private tertiary schools only proves the emptiness of the much ballyhooed government support for tuition regulation.”
Soul-searching
Indeed, the school opening season is upon us again, the time when responsible heads of families are forced to make a decision on behalf of their progeny, a sort of do or die decision “that tries men’s soul,” to quote a phrase from a T. S. Eliot poem.
Indeed, it’s a season when private school owners, parents, and GMA should take an extra deep soul-searching for the nation’s youth.
