Ched and ‘profit participation’

Batas Mauricio

I AM repeating here previous articles I wrote on the collection by the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) of what has come to be known in education circles as “profit participation” from the tuition and other fees which poor students are paying to state colleges and universities.

Despite these articles, and despite a letter I wrote much earlier to the Commission on Audit (COA), no clarification has been given to me, and no one seems interested to look into the issue––especially to answer the question, “why should Ched collect profit participation from the tuition of poor students when, precisely, these students are forced to study in government schools due to their poverty?”

Perhaps, this is one reason why tuition fees in government schools continue to increase year per year, making collegiate education less and less affordable to the growing majority of young Filipinos. Ched and COA have chosen to ignore these questions, but they should be made to answer soon, don’t you think so? All right, read on:

What is “profit participation”?  It means the portion of the tuition paid by the students of state colleges and universities, who enroll in public schools because they are usually very poor and highly marginalized, that are paid to Ched officials for no other special reason but simply because of their being Chedofficials.

If Ched officials will only stop taking their “profit participation,” then the budget cuts, which are being resorted to by Malacanang to help the government deliver other basic goods and services to the rest of the citizenry, will not really matter anymore since huge amounts could be saved by public schools if Ched gives up its “profit participaton.”

Again, I am repeating here my plea for Malacanang, Congress and even by the Commission on Audit, to look into reports that poor students who have no other option but to enroll in state colleges and universities (SUCs) for lack of money to go to private schools are being made “milking cows” by top officers of the Ched and of SUCs.

Reports which we have written about here in this column for more than a year now indicate that favored officials of Ched and SUCs actually receive allowances from the SCUs which come from the poor students’ tuition and other fees as “profit participation.”

The question here, which becomes relevant as classes open again is this: why should poor students who are forced to enroll in government schools because of poverty be made to give part of their hard-earned money to officials of Ched and SUCs?

What is really appalling to me, on the other hand, is the decision of top officials of the Ched to collect “profit participation fees” from the tuition paid by poor and marginalized students who, because of poverty, had to enroll in state colleges and universities.

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com