EDUCATION is a RIGHT

ART. XIV SEC. 11987 Philippine Constitution

“The State shall protect and promote the right of
all citizens to quality education at all levels, and shall
take appropriate steps to make such education accessible to all.”

2008 UP Charter (RA 9500)

“The University of the Philippines is hereby declared as the national

university. The State shall promote, foster, nurture and LIMITED OFFER:
TUITION DISCOUNT
protect the right of all citizens to accessible quality
education. Toward this end, it is the policy of the State to strength-
en the University of the Philippines as the national university.”
A Primer on the Unsustainability of
At the initial implementation of STS, there are common feedbacks the Socialized Tuition System (STS)
that ctitized the policy, mainly: lack of transparency, questions
that cannot accurately determine socio-economic classes,
misbracketting and bracket sliding among others. These however
were anticipated by the alliance because of the scheme’s character
as a railroaded policy.

2012 - The death of a UP Manila student heightened the cam-

paign against the sociaized tutition

2013 - As a response, the UP administration conducted a survey

to support another set of reform for then STFAP. However, even
with only 32% respondents from the studentry the BOR approved
the ‘new’ scheme

2014 - STS was immediately implemented without further study FOR INQUIRIES, CONTACT CECILLE BAELLO AT
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 HISTORICIZING SOCIALIZED
TUITION AND TUITION INCREASE
2014 - The approval of the Socialized Tui-
tion Scheme (STS) last December 2013 once
again reformed the STFAP. Non-completion
of online forms and/or non-acceptance to the
discount system will automatically place ALL
students (SN 2007 and later) under the Default
Bracket ND (No Discount) and will be charged
Php1500/unit (other units aside from DIL,
LB, MNL are charged at Php1000/unit).
2012 - Institutionalization of the Bracket
B Certification Scheme which effectively in-
creased the default bracket of those who do not
apply for this to Bracket A (Php1500/unit in
LB, DIL, MNL and Php1000 in other units).
TACTICS FOR COMMERCIALIZATION
The academe should be able to offer its mark of academic excel-
lence to students from all walks of life, but more importantly to
students who are poor, as mandated by RA 9500. Ironically how-
ever, based on the newly reformed STS, UP charges P1,500/unit for
students who were not given any ‘discounts’. Clearly, the socialized
tution in UP succeeded in its goal in “edging out the poor” in the
university.
EDUCATION: BASIC
SOCIAL SERVICE
The projected income of SUC’s for 2014 is 7.2 billion, but this is a
mere 4% of the projected 177 billion of DAP. A genuine Iskolar ng
Bayan is never impossible if lump sum funds from projects such as
DAP are rechanneled for social services.
A UP tuition system that is uniform and affordable for all is possible
if we call for the prioritization of the allocation for education over
debt servicing and the military budget.
We, the Alliance of Concerned Students is firm in its
stand that the immediate solution for us to gear to-
wards an accessible UP education is to junk the so-
cilaized tuition scheme. This campaign however would
only be possible along with the call of the rollback of
tuition to the pre-STFAP rate, Php40/unit, while inten-
sifying genuine scholarship programs for the suppos-
edly non-paying students in the university and our as-
sertion to greater state subsidy that will compliment
education as a basic social service.

2007 - Implementation of the Alphabetic Brack-
eting Scheme (A-E2) which replaced the Numeric
Bracketing Scheme after another wave of tuition
fee increase (from Php300 to Php1000-Php1500/
unit)
1989 - The Socialized Tuition and Financial Assis-
tance Program was first implemented in line with
the increase in tuition (from Php40 to Php300/
unit). Numeric Bracketing Scheme (1-9) was used
to determine the amount of tuition each student
shall pay.
We encourage the studendry to take a united stance
STATE ABANDONMENT
in bringing back the public character of UP. It is a
The experience of UP can never be seperated to the context of the
challenge for us to uphold a nationalist, scientific,
Philippine education system. This heightened commercialization as
manifested in policies such as the socialized tuition as the state’s sys- mass-oriented education!
tematic abandonment of its responsibility for such basic social service.
OPPOSE TUITION INCREASE!
All our SUC’s experience budget cuts almost annually. STOP FEE HIKES!
Rcently in UP, we had a 1.43B cut in the proposed budget. JUNK STS! ROLL BACK THE TUITION!
The goal of Aquino’s RPHER (Roadmap for Higher Education Reform),
FIGHT FOR GREATER AND ADEQUATE
is to drastically diminish state support in SUCs by 2016. 50% of the
SUC’s budget should then come from income-generation that is STATE SUBSIDY!
mainly juiced from the socialized tuition – a clear manifestation of the NO TO COMMERCIALIZED EDUCATION!
State’s agenda of leaving its responsibility to the students’ pockets. UPHOLD THE PUBLIC CHARACTER OF UP!

Source: KASAMA sa UP