It is the State that the Constitution obligates to provide its citizens with a “complete, adequate and integrated” system of relevant education. To this end, the Legislature charters state universities and colleges. A more recent phenomenon in the scheme of public education have been local colleges and universities (LCUs), funded and maintained by local government units.
This is as it should be—the State performing its bounden duty to school its citizens. Unlike other jurisdictions that forbid private higher education institutions—Germany, being one example that easily comes by—our Constitution recognizes that the State cannot do it all and that private enterprise is necessary. But it cannot and should not be such that state universities and colleges close or phase out their programs to allow private higher education institutions to flourish. That would be a clear violation of a constitutional duty. Rationalization, of course, may require a university to leave to private HEIs courses they already adequately provide to which “access” is not an urgent issue.
Five years ago, at the Cagayan State University, it was thought that we could do away with tuition. And so, to much fanfare, a no-tuition system was announced. Of course, the university continued to collect what it calls “fiduciary fees”—but, having been collected for specific purposes (sports, medical and dental fees, athletics, etc.) they had to be reserved for such purposes. Five years after, it can now be said that the experiment was not altogether felicitous. Because we did not collect tuition fees, we could not avail ourselves of the scheme set forth in a CHED memorandum that would have allowed us to apply the income to various university purposes. Then too, there is the problem of paying the fees of part-time instructors (often called ‘lecturers’) whose salaries are not provided for in the national appropriation for state universities.
It is true that many who should otherwise be in university or college are not — having been “knocked out,” in the words of Chair Pat Licuanan, earlier by such factors as financial restraints and stringent admission policies coupled by poor preparation for college work. But that of course is not an argument against revisiting the scheme of tuition fees in state universities and colleges. It is rather an occasion to review the criteria we use to determine who should benefit from public university or college education as well as address the causes of attrition. During the incumbency of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a study she commissioned showed that, as a general rule, it cost much more to school a young Filipino in a state university than in a private institution. There is nothing surprising really about that finding, for state universities and colleges, on the average, pay better than their counterparts in the private sector, if one does not include the HEIs that charge astronomical fees. You pay for quality, and if you want professors with good credentials, you must make a good offer, something that state universities and colleges—with their system of incentives and the guarantee of security—can offer more readily than private colleges and universities. And you do not ease the strain on the public purse by charging the students more because you would then be making access a very pressing issue and be remiss in your duty to provide “complete, adequate and integrated” education for young Filipinos.
So while media wanted to see sparks fly in the exchange between Pat Licuanan and Poppy de Vera, I hear both making valid points that need studied responses. On the one hand, there is the issue of getting more people to avail themselves of the benefits of post-secondary schooling. But this need not take the form of university education, for we must strengthen vocational schooling in this country and, by making evident the ready employability of those who complete trade and craftsman courses, to show that tech-voc is not some sorry recourse for those who do not make it to university, but is as promising and fulfilling an option as pursuing an academic track. It has long been pointed out that there is something amiss with our system of scholarships and grants, because these are usually granted by selecting from competitors by means of a test. But as between the graduate of a barangay high school and one from the classy high school in our provincial urban centers, it is the latter who has a better chance to getting the grant, but who needs it less. As importantly, serious studies should be made that take a look at the attrition rate to discover what the reasons are that many youngster do not move higher up in schooling!
Having acknowledged this important dimension of Chairman Licuanan’s position, Commissioner de Vera’s insistence about shunning elitism is serious and well-intentioned. It is in fact an argument for access—one of the reasons that state universities and colleges exist. In fact, the Catholic Church in the Philippines must still struggle with the paradox of its preferential option for the poor and the clear elitism that prevails in many of the country’s leading Catholic institutions! No amount of prestidigitation can attenuate the painful contradiction. Of course, the question then becomes one of fiscal policy: Can the budget take the added strain of making the state provide for what SUCs would otherwise earn from tuition fees? State institutions generally have three classes of funds: those that come from the General Appropriations Act, those that are realized from fees collected, and those it receives for scholarships, researches, extension programs and development from motley sources. When you adopt a free tuition fee scheme, you automatically close down one of the sources of SUC funds. Can the state make up for this short-fall? And then too there is the important principle that students value education for which, somehow, they pay. This challenges our creativity, because it calls on us to device a scheme whereby students and graduates of SUCs in some significant and no merely token manner contribute to the viability and feasibility of SUCs.
No, I see no looming conflict, no fisticuffs. I hear rather two thoughtful people making very important points about the future of public higher education in the land and the very important deal of educating tomorrow’s Filipinos.