Mismatch made in heaven

Our beloved lawmakers recently got our education system tangled up in their brawl over this addictive substance called “pork.” In doing so, they also played around with P8.3 billion of our taxes.

Originally, the administration of the motorbiking Duterte Harley put the amount in the 2017 budget of ARMM. Some remarkable congressmen from ARMM transferred it to DPWH, which would spend it for projects of their own choosing. If the money stayed with ARMM, the ARMM governor would control it, leaving the congressmen out of the picture.

Now, killjoy Sen. Panfilo Lacson gave away their deal to the public as “pork.” The senators in the bicameral conference committee then threatened to block the entire 2017 budget. The implication was clear: For his first full year in office, Duterte Harley would have the recycled 2016 budget of our former leader, BS. Surely the congressmen would not want that!

As a compromise, the bicameral committee gave the P8.3 billion, instead, to CHED for “free” tuition in state universities and colleges, or SUCs. After all, the senators already filed bills on the free tuition.

How many hearings did the Senate hold on the big issue of free tuition, which was, for many years, also the subject of intense debate in the United States, which was already the richest country in the world? The Senate held a total of one hearing.

Just what must it do with the P8.3 billion, CHED had no idea. For one, it could not expect guidance from Congress. There was no law on it! The bicameral committee just left CHED to its own device. And we all knew there was trouble in CHED.

Immediately, our senators claimed the glory over the “free tuition.” Their minions heralded it as the greatest news ever to hit this side of South China Sea since the Russians landed.

Anyway, the parents of students in the SUCs perhaps jumped for joy, but not everybody in business and even the academe welcomed it.

It was a haphazard move by Congress, devoid of studies and debates, which must entail a huge undertaking by the government. The P8.3 billion could barely cover the tuition in more than 600 state institutions in the country. What would happen? CHED would play god to choose the “deserving” students and weed out the rest.

One thinking in the academe suggested that “free tuition” would cause the migration of students from private schools to SUCs. Government officials said the SUCs had competitive examinations to deal with the problem. They forgot that students from rich families that could afford private schools always had the advantage in those exams.

Also, our education system was terribly mismatched with the needs of industries. Among Filipinos from 15 to 24 years old, 1.5 million are jobless, or almost half of the unemployment rate. They are the youth—idealistic, strong, ambitious and hopeful! And they are jobless!

For that, heaven help us, the DOLE blamed the “mismatch” in our education system. Out of every 100 students who entered Grade I, only 43 would go to high school, and only 14 would finish college. What would happen to the other 86 percent—we would just let them become criminals or drug pushers or prostitutes to survive?

Please do not tell us that basic education and technical-vocational training already had their fill of budget allocation, because they remained miserably underfunded.

What was the great news about the free tuition again?

As it turned out, the government already subsidized each student in SUCs at about P30,000 a year, meaning every family in this country, including the poor, paid for each student some P1,000 per year. What was P8.3 billion more!