Bongbong Marcos: SUCs for Free College Education

Invest in Our Future

“Education is one of the most important services that the government can provide to the people.” - Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. 

The Filipino Youth is the most indispensable asset of the nation.  An accessible higher education enriches our youth’s vigor, renews the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the people, and develop our creative capacity to design our own future.

We all affirm that education is the bedrock of a prosperous and developed society. For this reason, education occupies an important part in our socio-economic, political, and cultural life. Most Filipinos deeply regard education as a way out of poverty.  This is a timeless recognition that we all agree on rooted in our shared belief that universal education is a right and that higher education is a continuing commitment for a better future. That is why the Philippine Constitution mandates the State to “…protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels and shall take appropriate steps to make education accessible to all.”

Bongbong Marcos believes that investing in our future requires the unlocking of enabling opportunities and make them democratically accessible to people especially the Youth. All our current efforts towards inclusive development amount to nothing if the Youth remains incapacitated and unable to compete with the rest of the world on a level playing field. Education is the ultimate equalizer that allows an equitable, fair, and socially just society to flourish.

For Bongbong Marcos, Youth Empowerment has been one of his lifelong obsessions. And education plays a key role in facilitating youth development in nation-building. To this end, he authored a number of legislations to improve the country’s education system. He advocates for increasing the compensation of public school teachers through his Senate Bill No. 3106, the Public School Teachers’ Salary Upgrading Act. Teachers do both instructional and non-teaching tasks yet their compensation is not commensurate to the amount of work they do. He is also pushing for a mandatory continuing education for teachers as stipulated in Senate Bill No. 2531 or the Teachers Education Act to ensure that our educators are continuously equipped with new knowledge and skills. Likewise, Bongbong Marcos is constantly working to upgrade the quality of public school facilities and libraries. His proposed First Class Public Schools and Libraries Act aims to modernize our public schools and libraries and provide students better resources for their school-related works and activities. Lastly, he seeks a Moratorium on the Creation or Conversion of State Universities and Colleges to give the government enough time and effort to carefully review the competitiveness of many of our state universities and colleges (SUCs) and recommend the appropriate action plans in response thereof.

A strong support for free college education is not just morally right. It is also good economics. A nation’s development is largely dependent on the quality of its human capital- the creative forces that have been widely recognized as the most indispensable factor of production. That is why education is one of the key pillars of nation-building. Education enriches the collective human learning experience which ultimately creates the productive drivers of economic growth and development. And with increasing productivity comes upward social mobility. So education creates a productive workforce that contributes to our economic development and social well-being.

Our advocacy is not just limited towards increasing the functional literacy of the population- the ability to read and write. We should go far beyond the mere transfusion of basic learning skills. Higher education is the way by which the people could further enhance their inherent aptitudes and abilities through designed academic programs in their chosen fields of specialization.

But our present higher education system is in need of transformation. Despite the existence of 547 state colleges and universities nationwide, only a trickle of the population has the opportunity to make it to college. The number of those who complete their tertiary education is even far lower since not all of those who studied college have the sustaining means to finish their studies. While the government does socialize higher education through subsidized tuition fees in state universities and colleges (SUCs), the cost of education still remains high especially for those coming from low-income families. It is not just the tuition fees that hinder people. The miscellaneous costs associated with schooling are also an additional burden.

Although there have been efforts in expanding the scope of scholarship programs to poor yet deserving students, access remains severely constrained. Not only that, many regional SUCs lack the adequate capacity to absorb a much higher number of enrollees, this is true particularly in Mindanao Area. In addition, as the number of SUCs burgeoned in the past few decades, the quality of education appears to have diminished as public resources become increasingly overstretched and thinly spread across a vast number of state-funded academic institutions. Facilities in many of these institutions are operational but in deplorable conditions. Furthermore, the subsidy cuts by the government in recent years are also forcing some SUCs to raise their tuition fees to match the rising costs of education and inflation rate.

Also, the number of those who are able to enter SUCs is low due to high cut-off entrance mark and limited available slots. Furthermore, though 1.4 million students are enrolled in SUCs, there is no assurance that most of them would graduate given the added cost of education.

      As per statistical data from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), the graduation rate for the Academic Year 2010-2011 was 56.75%. The gross survival rate, on the other hand, stood at 65.93% for the Academic Year 2011-2012. The data simply confirmed that higher education remains a big obstacle that prevents the country from fully realizing its development potential.

For a long time, the less fortunate segments of our population have been repeatedly cut off from wealth-generating economic activities of the nation. But as world rapidly changes, less inclusive economics means reversing the gains of development leading to all sorts of social ills and deprivation. To better position our country for global competition, we need to make higher education more affordable and accessible.

In light of these challenges, our firm belief in education as the most reliable path to our nation’s progress echoes that of Bongbong Marcos. As a nation-builder, he believes that education is the foundation on which our future stands. It is our chief goal to make college education accessible for every Filipino regardless of his or her financial circumstances.

We call on the government and policymakers to expand the coverage of free higher education to make the development of our human resources more socially inclusive.

In addition to Bongbong Marcos’ current proposal to fully subsidize those who enrolled in SUCs, the United Youth of the Nation for Bongbong Marcos (UYON BBM) advocates for  mobilizing public resources for increasing the capacity of our SUCs to absorb more students from low-income families.

To widen the reach of higher education to areas with high poverty rates like Mindanao, SUCs should likewise invest in an open-education system where less privileged youths could have access to socialized college education without incurring heavy financial burden to finish their degrees. Our state-funded higher education institutions (HEIs) could efficiently make use of IT resources such as offering online courses, virtual trainings and workshops, interactive online mentors, web-based simulations, and multimedia software that can help students learn more, and learn better, in less time. By doing so, this would also enable hundreds of thousands of working students to complete their studies without the need for quitting school totally. What we need is a simple recognition that with little help, under-privileged students could make their way through college.

The Filipino Youth is the most indispensable asset of the nation.  An accessible higher education enriches our youth’s vigor, renews the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the people, and develop our creative capacity to design our own future.