Lawmakers passed the prohibition of the “No Permit, No Exam” bill at the committee level on Wednesday.
This means that no student will be prohibited from taking an examination despite failure to pay tuition fees and settle other dues from school.
“Schools have no right to deny admission or enrollment to any student having unsettled tuition or other school fees,” said Senator Chiz Escudero, chair of the Committee on Higher, Technical and Vocational Education.
“So if in the second semester, a student did not pay tuition fee for the first semester, the ‘no permit, no exam policy’ won’t even apply because you would deny enrollment,” he further said.
Dr. Anthony Jose Tamayo, vice chairperson of the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations (COCOPEA) supported this measure.
The penal provision of the measure provides that teachers would not be included in any charges filed. Only the school management will be held liable.
The penalty would be P20,000 from P50,000 for every violation.
At the same Senate committee hearing, the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act was also approved.
CHED chair Prospero de Vera said the policy voucher program for students in private universities should be properly laid down. At present, 1.6 million students are applying for the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act, wherein the budget is limited.
Escudero assured it will be clarified in the measure that ‘academically qualified students can apply for vouchers.
In the amendment, students enrolled in private universities may qualify to apply for a voucher despite the presence of public schools in their place of residence.
Furthermore, Escudero said the coverage will be expanded to cover private HiGher Education Institutions (HEIs) even when there are SUCs in the area.
Prioritization will be based on amended list the senator also said the Revised Higher Education bill was also approved.
During the last Congress, it passed in the House of Representatives, but it reached only the period of interpellation in the Senate.
De Vera said they no longer expand CHED, but this was given the “implementation responsibility.”
He said all the mandates, original ones and new ones, were consolidated in one bill through the enactment of Congress and rightsizes it so that they can have proper administrative structures to implenet programs and policies given to them by Congress.
At present, CHED has 1,300 employees wherein half are contractual employees who will oversee more than 2,000 public and private higher education institutions with 4 million students.
in the same hearing, senators scored the owner of Colegio De San Lorenzo following the closure of the school last August.
CHED was informed of the impending closure only three days before it stopped operation. Their students were told of the closure dueinf the dirst day of school on August 15.
Sen. Raffy Tulfo said if the school owner knows about their plan to close the school, why did they accept enrollees.
Prof. Mary Claire Balgan, the school’s president noted they still tried to save the school but failed. She said their negotiation with a another company failed.
“We attemoted to sell the school to confinue the schooling of our students and retain faculty members and staffs but failed so we decided fo close the school,” explained Bagan.
