THE Commission on Audit has flagged both the Palawan State University (PSU) and the University of Rizal System (URS) for their failure to comply with the funding requirement for Research and Extension Services set by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).
In separate compliance reports released last month, COA said the two state universities underfunded both Research Services and Extension Services by providing only a fraction of their required share of tuition collections in 2024.
Under the CHED Memorandum Order No. 20, s. 2011, budget allocation for Research Services should be set at 10 percent of the total tuition fee collection net of the cost of administrative costs.
This funding will be used for “expenditures related to the formulation or implementation of programs, projects, and activities, such as, but not limited to honoraria and incentives of researchers, lecturers, or research presenters, research assistants (with contract of employment) and wages of other personnel, office and IT equipment, facilities, supplies and materials, training and travel expenses, in-house research review, research presentation in appropriate forum and other research activities.”
On the other hand, a similar 10 percent is also required to be set aside for Extension Services for “instructional materials necessary for effective technology transfer of research outputs to the community, skills training in livelihood relative to the research output, honoraria of trainers undertaking the technology transfer of research outputs to the community, travel, training and seminar of extension services personnel, trainers’ industry immersion program, wages of contract of service personnel other services (job order).”
For state universities and colleges (SUCs), the tuition comes from the Free Higher Education Fund transferred to them by the CHED.
Auditors noted that PSU tuition fees, after deducting the university-wide common administrative costs, amounted to P328.558 million, which means P32.856 million should have been provided for research services and the same amount for extension services.
However, only P8.42 million was allocated for research or 2.56 percent of the net tuition, P24.43 million short of the recommended budget.
Extension services also got P8.29 million or only 2.52 percent or P24.56 million lower than intended.
“We recommended that the Management (of PSU) implement the budget allocations stipulated in CMHO No. 20, series of 2011, …to promote uniform fiscal policies on the use and disposition of internally generated funds across SUCs,” the audit team said.
PSU officials said the main campus adheres to the CHED Memorandum Order, but its clustered external campuses only have limited funding, so that full compliance was not met.
It explained that priority was given to paying the salaries of job order and contract of service faculty and staff.
In the case of URS, the audit team said only P4.468 million was allocated for research services or merely five percent of the 2024 tuition.
Extension services fared worse as it only had P924,741 in funding, representing just one percent or a mere tenth of what it was supposed to get.
“The budget allocated for the two major functions of the University was reduced to as low as five percent or P4,467,683 for the research services and one percent or P924,741 for the extension services,” the audit team said.
The URS assured the COA that it has already implemented corrective actions.
“As per the Program receipts and Expenditures (PRE) FY 2025 of the University, the prescribed percentage rate of allocations or Research and Extension Services is already being followed,” the audit team said.
