No sympathy for the poor

 

 

In the Philippines, a country so full of promise but has not really taken off to the next stage, most Filipino families consider their children’s college education as a viable option out of poverty. The paradox is you have to be well-off to get a college education today in the Philippines.

 

Despite the economic downturn, people continue to remain optimistic that a college degree is the key to a good job. It is the contemporary belief that we educate ourselves to get a job; that education could determine one’s economic destiny.

 

In an interview after his daughter Kristel Tejada, a first year Behavioural Sciences student at the University of the Philippines (Manila), committed suicide for failing to pay her school tuition, Christopher Tejada repeatedly stressed that it was his daughter’s hope and dream to finish college so she could lift the family out of the claws of poverty. The Tejadas, most particularly Kristel, saw education as a means to a better life, a tool to rewrite their story. Poor families share with the better-off and the rich this aspiration for upward mobility through education. This is true anywhere in the world, whether in rich or poor societies.

 

In an outpouring of support, students from the University of the Philippines join
a vigil for Kristel Tejada. Photo courtesy of the Philippine Star. Click image to
view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejKua6x3hxU, Kristel Tejada laid to rest.

Education is a right proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Thus, it shall be free at least in the elementary and fundamental stages, and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

 

But here comes an uninformed and somewhat skewed opinion from Jose Montelibano who writes a column for the Philippine Daily Inquirer where he challenges the basis for subsidizing public education (See http://opinion.inquirer.net/49217/college-subsidy-for-whom-for-what). Subsidized scholarship, he says, is “an extension of an old tradition when benefactors choose to support the most deserving who cannot afford a college education. This has less to do with education and more about rewarding talent, or an act of charity.”

 

Obviously, Montelibano doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

 

Education has never been, in our colonial past or present, a charitable act. When the state provides funding to a public higher institution of learning like the University of the Philippines (UP), it is not doling charity to its students, but it is performing a fundamental obligation to make education accessible to its citizens. There is a big difference between charity and obligation which Montelibano apparently doesn’t seem to understand.

 

While the state recognizes education as a right, it must also be aware that higher education cannot be for everyone. The self-evident truth is that higher education also discriminates. Education will help everyone to improve their lot, this is almost a universal truth. But not everyone can enter university or college because there are standards that must be met. There are other ways the rest of society who are not accepted to institutions of higher learning can have real opportunities for improving their lives. Not everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, an accountant or a nurse. In the same way as not everyone can have the skills and aptitude of a mechanic, an electrician, a carpenter, or a plumber.

 

Montelibano writes: “Government scholars, though, must have a different criteria [sic], a standard that demands service to the people ahead of service to the self or family. The state must help those who are determined to help the common good, who are committed to become models of good citizens.”

 

However, this is not the purpose for the establishment of the University of the Philippines.

 

The expectation is noble and dignified that when they graduate, Iskolars ng Bayan will reciprocate the government for its assistance. But imposing it as a student’s contractual obligation is not a fair quid pro quo when it is the government’s fundamental responsibility to make education accessible. Service to the people is a loose concept that could include students joining protest rallies against the government for its anti-poor policies, for its incompetence in governance, or against a do-nothing Congress, or demanding minimum wage increases and improving working conditions.

 

It is the emphasis on contractual thinking based on commercial or private agreements that is rotting the core of the subsidized or socialized tuition policy of public universities such as UP.

 

Because the institution has adopted a policy to subsidize or socialize tuition, there is an implied authority that it can restructure and readjust tuition anytime on permissible grounds like the effect of inflation on the cost of running the university. The idea of restructuring tuition rates on the basis of inflation is essentially a commercial argument, a justification that comports with concerns for the bottom line. But it is not that simple since it is the obligation of the state to make education accessible that it must consider all other revenue options rather than conveniently impose on the students and their families the burden of equalizing cost with revenue.

 

The declaration of policy for the establishment of the University of the Philippines is very clear that “the State shall promote, foster, nurture and protect the right of all citizens to accessible quality education.”

 

Under Section 9 of its Charter, UP has a mandate to take affirmative steps to enhance the admission of disadvantaged, poor and deserving students. This should be what we must be concerned about, not Montelibano’s suggestion that state-sponsored scholars should not use their education for themselves but for the people, an arrogant idea that comes from the smugness of a privileged life.

 

A World Bank study has pointed to inequality in access to higher education in the Philippines as a continuing problem, together with the glaring gap between the labour requirements in the market and the quality of graduates produced by local colleges. The study also found out that although more and more students are entering college and universities over the years, the growth is concentrated on people belonging to higher-income households. To address this inequality, the Work Bank proposed that there should be more grants of scholarships and loans to deserving students.

 

But more access to student loans does not guarantee completion of a college degree, and finding a good paying job after graduation.

 

In the United States, steep hikes in student tuition and fees have increased the debt levels of both students and universities. The cost of university per student in the U.S. has risen by almost five times the rate of inflation, making it less affordable and increasing the amount of debt a student must take on. Even though student loans are often available, the idea of repaying student loan debt, with high interest rates and low job prospects, is a significant roadblock for many.

 

So, if availability of student loans is not a guaranteed formula in equalizing access to higher education, what can be?

Click link below to view  College Tuition: 1k to 75k per semester with graphic
showing the wide range of tuition at private and state universities in the
Philippines, courtesy of GMA News Online.
 http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/300312/news/nation/college-tuition-1k-to-75k-per-semester

The University of the Philippines has in place what it calls a Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program, or STFAP for short. Under this policy, every UP student regardless of capacity to pay and financial need is subsidized since tuition and other fees are much less than the direct cost of their education. Furthermore, it socializes tuition through grants and subsidies for tuition, miscellaneous and laboratory fees based on ability to pay and financial need of the student.

 

On paper, the STFAP sounds adequate and a decent program. In practice, however, it doesn’t work.

 

Since everyone is subsidized, students from economically privileged families enjoy this benefit even if they don’t need the subsidy. They pay tuition that is substantially way lower if they would enrol in a private university that offers the same quality of education. For example, the average cost per semester for a course in civil engineering or computer science at UP is P20,000. In Ateneo, the cost would be between P75,000 to P80,000. Only children from well-to-do families can go to Ateneo, so the high tuition is not a financial concern. In UP, even the poorest but bright students will not cut it for a year, a situation that befell Kristel Tejada.

 

UP’s STFAP assigns brackets for students based on family income and other family characteristics and socio-economic indicators. These brackets are good for one year, which is unrealistic because it does not take into account the changing economic conditions of families and society as a whole like the possibility of unemployment as a result of lay-offs or economic slowdowns. Kristel Tejada’s father was laid off from his job but Kristel remained slotted in her bracket although the family has lost its declared income.

 

What UP should be doing is to charge wealthy students the equivalent rates prescribed by comparable private universities and use the difference as additional amounts available for subsidies to economically disadvantaged students. This, to my mind, is the right way to socialize tuition, not to apply the subsidies across the board that also benefits the wealthy. But as tuition is steadily increasing at a record-breaking pace in the last two decades, it is even feared that children from wealthy families might consider enrolling in public universities, a fact that UP’s STFAP has not considered into account. This raises the spectre of student quotas in addition to economic brackets, which could possibly displace slots for needy students, thus making the socialized tuition program even more irrelevant.

 

To address the crisis in higher education in the Philippines, President Noynoy Aquino has developed its government’s response called Road Map for Higher Education Reform (RMHER), which identifies three fundamental problems: lack of overall vision, deteriorating quality, and limited access. But instead of eliminating barriers to entry to college education, Aquino’s RMHER simply continues the emphasis of his predecessors (Ramos and Macapagal-Arroyo) on the eventual commercialization of higher education, its subservience to the needs of the global market, and gradual abandonment of state-funding. RMHER intends to focus on five priority areas, which include agri-fisheries, mining, electronics, services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

 

During the term of President Fidel Ramos, the government implemented a Long-term Higher Education Development Plan (LTHEDP) which stressed cost-efficiency and global competitiveness. Ramos also signed the Higher Education Modernization Act (HEMA) allowing state universities and colleges to embark on joint business ventures with the private sector, privatize management of non-academic services and determine their own tuition and other fees. As these institutions started generating higher internal income, government funding of higher education also begun to fall.

 

When President Gloria Arroyo assumed the presidency, she revised the LTHEDP to make public universities and colleges self-sustaining, with the ultimate goal of abandoning state funding for higher education. President Aquino’s higher education reforms are already in the LTHEDP, and nothing in the RMHER is new. It merely reiterates past proposals which have already been enacted but rejected by students.

 

Aquino’s RMHER intends to socialize tuition for all state universities and colleges following the UP’s STFAP model that emphasizes cost recovery without limiting access among the poor. As mentioned here earlier, the experience of UP in socialized tuition resulted in periodic restructuring of tuition fees. Instead of widening access, the STFAP has become instrumental in excluding many indigent but deserving students, of which Kristel Tejada is the latest victim. A study of the STFAP shows that in two decades it has decreased the percent of student population enjoying free tuition, from 20 percent in 1991, to less than a percent at present.

 

There is a much bigger picture than Kristel Tejada’s suicide, but the young student’s death symbolizes the fast accelerating exclusion of the poor from access to higher education such as the University of the Philippines. Kristel wasn’t alone in her financial predicament, but UP and the government don’t seem to care.

 

If Noynoy Aquino has extended his sympathy to the Tejada family for the loss of their daughter, that, Mr. Montelibano, is a charitable act. But the president seems to have no place for charity in his heart.

A university of the people

 

 

The recent suicide of Kristel Tejada, a freshman at the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila, for her inability to pay her tuition is a clear indictment against a university that has, as a whole, failed itself badly.

 

To any reasonable person, UP is culpable on at least two significant counts. One, on the policy level, both in strategic and administrative/procedural terms. And second, on the matter of being a public university devoted to social causes such as education for the people.

 

UP Manila Chancellor Manuel Agulto told a press conference on Monday, March
18, they did everything they could  to help Kristel Tejada, the 16-year-old freshman
who committed suicide reportedly over failure to pay tuition on time. Click link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjsOg3dL9gA to view University of the
Philippines press conference  on death of Kristel Tejada.

As an administrative/procedural issue, it is surprising that UP still adheres to the impractical and useless medieval practice of disallowing students to attend classes if they have not paid their tuition fees. As if it will compel students to pay or discourage non-paying students from attending classes for which they are not welcome. Here in Canada and in the United States, or even in U.P. during our troubled days in the late ’60s, practically anybody can attend classes, but only those who are enrolled and have matriculated will earn credits for attending. For as long as you do not disrupt classes or assassinate the professor or your seatmate, I have not heard of anyone being disbarred from a classroom. In other words, the operative word must not be the non-payment of tuition, but non-granting of credit to those not enrolled or have failed to pay tuition, which makes sense. Period.

 

Corollary to this impractical policy of not admitting students for failure to pay tuition is the even sillier procedure of requiring students to go on a leave of absence if unable to pay their tuition. Leave of absence is usually resorted to in extenuating circumstances in order not to lose student status; otherwise a student has to apply for re-admission if his or her status is lost. Financial difficulty is not generally an acceptable reason for going on a leave of absence. This type of leave is reserved for cases like medical and compassionate grounds, e.g., student illness which may include surgery or therapy, or a close family relative is ill and requires care by the student.

 

A more effective way to compel students to pay on time is to penalize them with fines for late payment of fees or to withhold their final grades. This will encourage students to budget their financial resources more responsibly. Private universities adopt this common practice of imposing fines for late payments, a practice banks also impose when loan or mortgage payments are late.

 

But the abject failure of the university to address the strategic policy of subsidizing education for bright and intelligent but financially indigent students is as tragic and unjustifiable as Kristel’s suicide. In some schools in the United States, this concern is dealt through an affirmative action program. Here in Canada, the government heavily subsidizes tertiary education and many universities offer bursaries, scholarships and other forms of assistance, while both federal and provincial governments also offer generous loans which students pay after finding work when they graduate.

 

In Quebec, students are serious about the idea of free tuition as it has deep roots written in the most fundamental text of the Quebec educational system that there should be free education. The underlying narrative is about making university a fee-less service like health care. The student strikes in Montreal which started last autumn and continue until now are dubbed as the Maple Spring comparing them to the Arab Spring that toppled dictatorships in the Middle East. Quebecers are known to be more aspirational when it comes to social rights and, to them, any hike in tuition signals a weakening of government commitment.

 

At present, UP has what is called the Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program or STFAP. In December 2006, the UP Board of Regents restructured the STFAP by increasing tuition and miscellaneous fees due to inflation and for the purpose of serving the needs of students who are most deserving of financial assistance. Obviously, this did not mitigate the financial difficulties of Kristel Tejada that she saw taking her own life as the only option for failing to pay tuition for the second semester.

 

Under the STFAP, UP students are assigned brackets based on their family income and other family characteristics and socio-economic indicators. According to reports, Kristel was classified under bracket D with an annual family income between P135,001 to P250,000 and was required to pay P300 per unit, or a total of P4,500 for 15 units per semester, the normal student load.

 

There is only one wage-earner in Kristel’s family: her father who works as a taxi driver. Her mother is a homemaker, in other words, she looks after housekeeping and caregiving for her family while her husband works. We don’t know the size of Kristel’s family but it is highly unlikely for a taxi driver to earn as much as P250,000 annually. Realistically, Kristel should have been assigned a lower bracket, say P80,000 to P135,000, which would give her the benefit of free tuition, miscellaneous and laboratory fees, plus a standard stipend of P12,000 per semester.



Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4qfXuB6W_8
to watch interview of Kristel Tejada's father who said that his
daughter really aspired to finish her education at UP and how
much she was devastated in filing a leave of absence.

Kristel’s father found out the availability of a student loan only later, so when the family applied, the student loan office even reprimanded them for applying late. Because of bureaucratic red tape, Kristel never got a student loan. Not letting students know of the existence of student loans or other forms of assistance like available scholarships is a common shortcoming among public universities. Colleges in the United States, for instance, currently give little or no advantage in the admission process to low-income students, compared with more affluent students of the same race. A recent American study concluded that better colleges in the U.S. are failing to lure talented poor students despite a stated desire to recruit an economically diverse group of students.

 

Even with the STFAP in place, UP still fails miserably to inform financially indigent students that this program and other forms of assistance are available. Perhaps this shortcoming is not unintended because the UP Strategic Plan for 2011 to 2017 fails to address the growing problem of financial capability of some of the best and brightest students across the country who come from economically underprivileged families.

 

Assigning students to certain brackets is not necessarily an effective way of subsidizing education. As it is, it has become an instrument for periodic restructuring of school fees on the pretext of inflationary costs. Inversely, it also has the effect of favouring students from well-off families because even if they are slotted in the higher income brackets and thus required to pay full tuition, this has no effect on their admission at all. Their privileged economic status already guarantees their admission and a stress-free college life without the financial woes that weighed down on Kristel. As a result of economic bracketing, the tuition these well-off students pay is also subsidized since their fees are still way lower than those prescribed by private universities offering the same quality of education.

 

According to the UP Office of Scholarships and Student Services, a study of the STFAP in 2009 showed that only 1 in 100 students enjoys free tuition, which is very disturbing for a public university that is supposed to be accessible to the people. Under section 9 of the UP Charter, the university has the mandate to democratize access to this premier institution:

 

“The national university shall take affirmative steps which may take the form of an alternative and equitable admissions process to enhance the access of disadvantaged students, such as indigenous peoples, poor and deserving students, including but not limited to valedictorians and salutatorians of public high schools, and students from depressed areas, to its programs and services.

 

“No student shall be denied admission to the national university by reason solely of age, gender, nationality, religious belief, economic status, ethnicity, physical disability, or political opinion or affiliation.”

 

Those who presently run the university and are responsible in designing its strategic plan must review thoroughly the UP Charter so they will not lose sight of the original mandate given to them. It is not enough for the university to seize the leadership (a fact not lost that other private universities have apparently overtaken UP’s great tradition of excellence) in the making of a globally competitive Philippines. This type of aspiration speaks of the goals of a large public corporation. But UP is not simply a large corporation. While it must be managed and run with the most progressive and advanced business practices, the university is still mandated to provide a haven for those who cannot afford the high quality of college education it offers.

 

The university is being sidetracked by a singular focus on promoting academic excellence, strong research and creative capability, and building modernized physical facilities and technological infrastructure for teaching, research and administration. Undoubtedly, these are all legitimate concerns of a modern university. But achieving these goals should not be at the expense of paying lip service to the university’s mandate to democratize access by disadvantaged people or those without financial means.

 

There are many like me, pejoratively called Iskolar ng Bayan, who have benefited from a UP education despite my economic circumstances. Without access to scholarship opportunities, I would not have possibly obtained the best education at home that enabled me to pursue further studies abroad. After completing high school, I was faced with the most serious crisis in my young life. I had always wanted to pursue higher education but my family was so destitute they could not send me to university. It was a feeling of life and death similar to what Kristel must have felt. After missing the first semester at university, I had to weigh the benefit and hardship of accepting a missionary scholarship in a foreign country versus entering the workplace at a very young age. Fortunately, I was able to find a UP scholarship opportunity, but only after a rigorous search and connecting with the right office.

 

Kristel Tejada wasn’t alone in her financial struggle. Poverty did not deter her from enrolling at University of the Philippines, where, she thought (as I did), she could get the best education in the country. In the spirit of being a humane institution, UP must reignite its commitment as a public university, to be open and accessible to a diversity of students that includes bright but disadvantaged and financially destitute youth. A truly socialized tuition and financial assistance program is one that fully recognizes the primordial obligation to nurture the education of those who are economically disadvantaged and underprivileged.

 

Whereas Kristel Tejada’s tragedy may justify blaming those who might have been responsible for her death, one way to recover from this tragedy is, in fact, to learn to stop the blaming. No one gets absolved from this tragedy. When we cease to blame, we either take responsibility for our actions or become free to recognize that blaming is futile and paralyzing. As one philosopher puts it: “for such things happen as part of the whirligig of life, and laying blame is a waste of energy which could be better directed at repairing damage or starting afresh.”

 

How do we start afresh?

 

First, let’s re-examine our university’s mission, find out how the university can become again the university of the people, where the young can aspire to be the best they can be under a system that nurtures its brightest, particularly the disadvantaged and the less privileged, not because it ought to but because it recognizes that in a democratic society the right to education is a fundamental right that provides equal opportunities for everyone, not only for those who can pay the fees.

 

Second, let’s offer opportunities for bright but poor students to avail of bursaries, grants, loans and even work placements so students can work and study at the same time.

 

Third, let’s inspire our youth to exert their best efforts through volunteer and cooperative work opportunities that engage them not only to excel in the academe but also to give of their talents to their communities and future workplaces.

 

Though we need to probe the circumstances that brought about this tragedy, the time is ripe to get our ideas for change off the ground now.