Piecemeal attempts to fix PH education system is bogus, fraudulent

Amid the approval of the Free Education Law today by the Commission on Higher Education and the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education, the entire Philippine education system remains heavily commercialized and starker because of its repressive character.

Youth and students welcomed their initial victory for their decade-long fight for a nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented system of education with the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education but it remains a palliative reform that does not solve the worsening state of the education system in the country.

With the wide and well-supported clamor for a genuine education program that will serve the interest of the Filipino people, the Philippine government is blatantly not concerned in resolving the most basic problem confronting the youth. They are fooling the youth by fixing it through a piecemeal manner for the education system until now is anchored on neoliberal policies mandated by the United States.

The law is a phony and only gives false hope for it does not bear a fundamental change in the anti-Filipino and anti-student policies dominating the current education system.

Students are keen and sharp in analyzing that these palliative reforms are types of machinery for cheap and docile labor, especially under the K-12 program. Filipino youth and students who are supposed to serve their country are poised and equipped to be sent to other countries to fill in cheap labor force.

Commercialization in the Philippines’ education sector is a big burden to the entire Filipino nation. In 2017, the Duterte administration allotted P8.3 billion for at least 1.4 million students in 114 State Universities and Colleges to benefit from what they call “free tuition.” But until today, hundreds of SUCs still collect tuition and other fees remain deregulated, dubious and redundant.

The youth does not call for a piecemeal education reform. As the problems in the educational system of the country worsen, they call for a total reconstruction of the education system that is nationalist, scientific and mass-oriented that will advance the democratic aspirations of the millions of oppressed and exploited people.