CHED chief to seek
additional funding

Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman Emmanuel Angeles is set to ask for additional funding for tertiary education as he set a meeting with the presidents and heads of state universities and colleges (SUC) in the country prior to budget deliberations in Congress next week.

Angeles said that the current budget of SUC’s is not enough to fully ensure the delivery of quality education and make Filipino graduates competitive in the international market.

This year, the national government has allocated P208 billion for the 112 SUC’s nationwide including the University of the Philippines (UP). This is higher than the P19.4 billion proposed earlier by Malacañang.

Of the P20.8 billion, P15.4 billion would go to the salaries of faculty members and employees.

State colleges and universities cannot operate, however, on government subsidy alone as they are expected to raise P7.2 billion in internally-generated income, P3 billion in tuition, P1.50 billion in other school fees, and the rest from grants, donations and other sources.

Internally-generated income, CHED says, is retained by the SUC’s and automatically forms part of their operating budget.

The SUC’s heads are expected to ask for more funds to improve their facilities such as libraries and laboratories and for faculty training and scholarship programs.

Angeles is set to appear before Congress on September 22.

Authorities said funding for education in general has lagged compared with neighboring countries which have invested heavily in their educational system.

Singapore allocated 3.7 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to education, Thailand 3 percent while the Philippines allocated only 2.5 percent of GDP.

"In Southeast Asia, we are only two notches higher from Cambodia and Laos in education spending relative to GDP," he said.

Cambodia spends 1.9 percent and Laos, 1.7 percent to education.

Government figures showed that of 100 Grade 1 pupils, only 66 managed to complete elementary schooling while only 58 of these enters high school. Of the 58, only 43 finished secondary schooling while only 23 enters college. Only 14 of these managed to complete their college education.

Angeles said this is a "dismal situation" that CHED wants to resolve adding that the country’s competitiveness will suffer greatly if the present trend is not addressed.

Aside from asking Congress for additional funding for SUC’s, Angeles said he will also tap the help of the private sector, mainly the business community in upgrading the quality of education offered by SUC’s through grants and training programs for the faculty.