The Commission on Higher Education, the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, and the Unified Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education Act (UniFAST) have been asked to explain the poor implementation of the Universal Access to Quality Higher Education Act of 2017 or Republic Act 10931.
Albay Rep. Joey Salceda Salceda, principal architect of RA 10931 or the free college and tech-voc law, said its implementation is largely due to “mishandling, inexact policies, circuitous processes, wholesale delays and confusion, and lack of commitment.”
With a full P41-billion budget since January 1, 2018, “these three agencies have little to show other than the misery and welfare losses of the intended student beneficiaries, their parents, and partner private schools,” Salceda noted.
In his in-depth study titled “Grand Mismanagement of the Implementation of Free College Law,” Salceda said the measure’s poor implementation also caused opportunity losses to the economy, and inconvenience among school partners, and could derail the holistic goal of the UAQTEA program if its policies and regulations would continuously be disregarded.
Some schools, he added, have begged for guidance on what to do with students, many of whom have already failed to enroll due to delays on the part of CHED.
“As the principal author, sponsor, and advocate of universal access to quality tertiary education, I am deeply disappointed and depressed by these dismal turn of events, which do not bode well for the contribution of this law to nation-building and national development,” the lawmaker said.
Salceda’s study shows only nine public higher education institutions (HEIs) engaged in the program have been paid by CHED for the first semester tuitions of their enrollees as of Nov. 9. There are 112 state universities and colleges (SUCs) and 87 compliant local universities and colleges (LUCs) in the country.
Delayed payments to partner schools “seriously undermine their financial capability to pursue their various programs in infrastructure, innovations, research and development,” he said.
Such fiscal instability, Salceda said, “presents temptations for schools to configure and collect student fees in gray areas and defeat the overarching intent of the law for free tuition and other school fees.”
UniFAST was established to reconcile, improve. expand, and put under one body all government-funded modalities of the Student Financial Assistance Programs (StuFAPs) for tertiary education, and special purpose education assistance, in both public and private institutions.
It includes scholarships, grants-in-aid, student loans and other specialized forms of StuFAPs formulated by the UniFAST Board, under the UAQTEA.
Salceda lamented the apparent nonfeasance by CHED and UniFAST on the free higher education (FHE), student loan program (SLP), the tertiary education subsidy (TES); and by TESDA on tech-voc scholarships.
On free Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Salceda noted two “highly disturbing elements:” 1) the entire P7-billion budget has been disbursed to TESDA amidst reports that public tech- voc schools “have been compelled to collect reimbursable fees, thus restraining the ability of students to avail of tech-voc education;” and
2) TESDA “has grossly misunderstood the intent of UAQTEA on the P7-billion allocation, and just conveniently add allowances to expedite utilization, thus enabling public TVET schools to ‘cannibalize’ the enrolment of private tech-voc providers and ease them out, instead of increasing the number of beneficiaries as envisioned by the law.”
Despite the poor performance, Salceda said it is “difficult to understand why UniFAST desires to retain control of the FHE budget for SUCs contrary to the intent of RA10931, which clearly states that after the first year, the budget should go directly to SUCs.
Paying SUCs directly aims to avoid billing gridlocks between CHED-UniFAST and SUCs to give the latter flexibility in planning, upgrading and implementing plans. The only reason. Salceda explained, why the first year of implementation of FHE was assigned to UniFAST was to gather baseline information, which was not even attained.
On TES, policy insufficiencies have deprived eligible beneficiaries of certain grants leading to welfare loss that compelled some student beneficiaries to drop out. TES was envisioned to be a national Grants-In-Aid program to provide support for the poor under a non-discriminating benefits FHE system.
As a consequence of these flaws, Salceda said, over one million applicants have been deprived of grants, and only less than 400,000 qualified for assistance – “an unforced error that automatically created a pool of 600,000 thwarted ambitions.”
With the recent appointment of Prof. Popoy De Vera as CHED’s chair and UniFAST’s ex-officio chairman, Salceda said there should be no further execution instability with respect to UAQTEA, and all the flaws and policy misinterpretations will immediately rectified.