COMMISSION on Higher Education Chairperson Prospero De Vera urged state universities and colleges (SUCs) to have an “affirmative action” program to ensure that disadvantaged students have equal access to free education.
De Vera made the call as he noted the increase in the number of students applying at SUCs, making access to free education even more difficult for them, especially those coming from poverty-stricken areas and indigenous communities.
He cited data showing only around 14 percent of the more than 100,000 applicants at the University of the Philippines passed the entrance exams recently.
The admission rate at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines stood only at around 15 to 20 percent.
“They should put a program to track who are those getting admitted to our state universities and colleges and then to slowly increase the percentage of those coming from public schools, from indigenous communities, and from poverty-stricken areas so that they can tweak the admission process and increase the percentage of students who come from disadvantaged groups,” De Vera said.
He explained that without such a program, students from disadvantaged groups may be crowded out by students from relatively well-off families who can afford review classes before taking the entrance exams.
“We want equity. It should be access and equity to quality education,” he added.
De Vera said the increase in the number of students pursuing tertiary education at SUCs started to increase in 2017 after then President Rodrigo Duterte signed into law Republic Act 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education that mandated free tuition in SUCs nationwide.
Enrollment in SUCs also increased during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the economic downturn, with students from private schools transferring to SUCs and even Local Universities and Colleges (LUCs).
