UP students raged over the new tuition scheme upon the release of ‘tuition discount’ results last June 30. Using the hashtag #BracketAKaNa, which trended worldwide, students expressed their dismay over the UP Administration’s maneuvers to trap them to pay skyrocketing fees.
“The new Socialized Tuition System (STS) is nothing but a broadened and systematized mechanism to further extract exorbitant matriculation fees from students,” said Hon. Neill John Macuha, UP Student Regent. “Contrary to the claims of the administration, this makes UP education even more inaccessible to the Filipino youth,” he added.
A replacement for the Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program (STFAP), the reformed STS guised to resolve bracketing issues and concerns on application processes is nothing but a ‘red herring’ to further commercialize UP education. Through the re-bracketing system, the UP administration smoothly implemented the automatic tuition increase through a default payment of Php 1,500 per unit which equates to more than Php 30,000 per semester.
“The youth should be afforded of their right to education and not mere tuition discount.You can’t sell something that is rightfully ours,” added Vanessa Yunque, UP Visayas USC Chairperson and Vice Chairperson for Visayas of Katipunan ng mga Sangguniang Mag-aaral sa UP (KASAMA sa UP).
Aside from STS, other schemes such as exorbitant miscellaneous fees, forced loans, 6% interest rate and purging of classes are also implemented in UP. These profit-generating schemes have been implemented in the University under Pascual’s term, concurrent to that of Aquino’s.
Socialized tuition mechanism, tuition increases and loan schemes are components of President Aquino’s sham higher education reform dubbed as Roadmap to Public Higher Education Reforms (RPHER) which seeks to reduce the number of state universities and colleges and further obligate them to be self-reliant.
Office of the Student Regent will call for a protest assembly on July 3 to gather concerned students, parents, student councils and other formations and call for the junking of the socialized tuition system. A system-wide assembly shall be held on July 16.
“We call on the students to actively call for the junking of STS. The start of classes on August shall be marked by massive campus strikes and protests against STS and other forms of commercialization,” Hon. Macuha concluded.
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