Friday, May 30, 2008 Roperos: President’s call By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
WHAT seems to be happening to President Arroyo at the moment is that she has become like a fish roasted in a slow-burning fire of her own making. The fire is, of course, the rising cost of education.
Ms Arroyo, however, is aware of this problem. She knows it is compounding the contemporary national condition of skyrocketing prices of basic commodities on top of low wages from regular work.
Right now, placed on the shoulders of the President are the woes of the nation’s millions of parents who must enroll their children in schools in compliance with the national policy to have their children educated formally, regardless of whether or not they have the needed funds to do so.
But the problem becomes even more complicated in the face of the prevailing economic condition, of the continuing inflationary trend in the economy. Given the almost daily escalation of basic commodity prices, what can we do?
To stave off deep discontent among the people regarding the opening school woes, GMA has ordered all state colleges and universities not to increase their school fees. And she hoped private schools would follow suit.
Unfortunately, the latter seems not to care about what GMA asks them to do. They refuse to heed the President’s urgent request using the reason that they have finished their school enrolment schedules. The truth seems to be that the GMA was late in reacting.
In the Central Visayas alone, 26 private schools have been reported to have already increased their tuition fees despite the request of the President to freeze the increases. At least 19 of these schools are in Cebu province.
That they are already implementing the tuition increases shows that the presidential request was made quite very late already. There is no problem with the state colleges and universities since being government institutions they have no choice but to heed Ms. Arroyo.
In fact, during the presidential visit in northern Luzon the other day, she ordered the roll back of the tuition fee increases that were already implemented, and asked that the excess be reimbursed to the students’ parents.
That is well and good, but at least some 70 percent of the nation’s tertiary level students are enrolled in private schools. And majority of the private school heads are not quite sympathetic enough to the President to heed her call, and refund the amount already collected.
