Student, youth groups protest roadmap for higher education

STUDENTS from different youth groups hit Friday the Roadmap for Public Higher Education Reform (RPHER) of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III saying, it would lead to education crisis.

Some 100 students from the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), Kabataan Partylist, and League of Filipino Students (LFS), supported by other students from various schools in the city, held a cultural protest at Freedom Park on Friday, at 6 p.m. to express their opposition against the RPHER.

Penelope Palma Gil, NUSP secretary general, said in line with the celebration of the International Students Day Saturday, they reiterated their call to the Aquino administration to repeal the Education Act of 1982 and to scrap the RPHER.

The Aquino administration is determined to push for the reconstruction of the country's educational system through RPHER, the master plan of which for public tertiary education is set to achieve in 2016.

As this developed, the government is also pushing for approval of the Davao Regional State University System (DRSUS) or House Bill 5311, which provides for the merger of the University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP), Davao del Norte State College (DNSC), the Davao Oriental State College of Science and Technology (DOSCST), and Southern Philippines Agribusiness and Marine and Aquatic School of Technology (Spamast).

Davao City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte–Carpio earlier expressed support for RPHER as she believes this will improve the quality of education.

But Palma Gil describes RPHER as a roadmap to the education crisis since it intensifies the government plan to abandon its responsibility in providing education to Filipinos.

Neil Lopez, coordinator for the Kabataan Partylist, echoed the same sentiment. He said the supposed reforms erode the public character of the state universities and colleges and will only worsen the inaccessibility to education by a majority of the students.

“We need more state universities and colleges… and the key in providing accessible and quality education is not the merging, but allocating more budgets for education and other social services,” Palma Gil said.

She added that Filipino students deserve to have a nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented educational system that would serve for the development of the country.

But Lopez said the government remains deaf to their call and instead continues to allot a bigger budget for debt servicing and for the military.

“We also urged the government to re-channel debt servicing and military budget to education and social services,” Lopez said.

sunstar.com.ph