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Watch out for the hidden costs
(Philippine Daily Inquirer Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Second of a series
ILOILO CITY-WITH ALMOST all prices going up these days, how much do parents have to spend this school opening to get their children educated?
In Western Visayas, free public education in pre-school, elementary and high school is a misnomer as parents pay more for "hidden expenses" like maintenance of buildings, school activities, projects and other incidentals throughout the school year.
While fees in public schools may be bearable, the day-to-day expenses of school children in the barrios and the cities have gone up, according to regional Department of Education officials here.
College levels
The private tertiary level known as Higher Education Institutions (HEI) by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) may not have hiked their tuition, but some have increased their "other fees" which does not need CHEd approval.
Some state universities and colleges have also devised bracketing and "ladderized" systems to justify their tuition hikes.
The DepEd Regional Planning Unit projects that 479,474 private and public high school students will be enrolling for school year 2006-2007, up by 8,259 students from last school year's figures.
In the elementary level, about 1,017,501 pupils all over Western Visayas are expected to enroll, compared to last school year's 999,975. The DepEd Regional Planning Unit also projects 50,208 pre-school children to start school.
The parents of these school children may find it gratifying to pay only P150 upon enrollment, such as in the case of a typical public elementary school like M.V Hechanova Memorial School (MVHMS) in Jaro District, Iloilo City. The amount will cover the Parents Teachers Community Association (PTCA) fee (P100), pupil-related activity (P20), library donation (P10), clinic donation (P10) and the Red Cross (P10). The Boy Scout and Girl Scout registration fees of P35 each are not compulsory.
DepEd-authorized public school miscellaneous fees are for the Anti-Tuberculosis Campaign, Red Cross, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts for a total of P20. Schools also have to decide whether they are going to charge the non-compulsory minimum school paper fee of P40 for elementary and P50 for high school, considering that public schools are mandated to come up with school papers yearly.
However, like other public schools, MVHMS has to contend with expenses for daily maintenance, school activities and projects, and participation in competitions or community affairs-forcing it to present a list of expenses to the PTCA, which in turn will ask help from the parents. Payments would be in staggered basis throughout the school year. This is where the "hidden cost of education" lies, where a parent shells out several thousands of pesos.
"How a school manages its expenses depends on the management style of the school head and the PTCA. Most school collections for various expenses are done through the Homeroom PTCA with the class adviser presenting expenses to them and the PTCA deciding on and collecting the contributions," said Filipino Education supervisor Sonia Jereso, who also serves as officer in charge of the DepEd Regional Elementary Division.
The DepEd still enforces the "Authorized Voluntary Contribution Policy" this year as in the last three years where the PTCA controls, determines and collects the fees for the school paper and other fees "deemed necessary" upon concurrence with the teachers and the principal.
Since teachers have been forbidden to collect and keep school fees two years ago up to the present, the job goes to the treasurer of the PTCA.
The parents are brave. They now question the expenses that they have to pay for," said Jereso, adding that the DepEd is always swamped with complaints about school fees during enrollment.
At the government-funded West Visayas State University Integrated Laboratory School, elementary school students have to shell out P8,000 for miscellaneous fees on enrollment.
Typical public high schools, said the Regional DepEd, would charge not more than P500 per student this school year. However, if the fees are more than that, these may get the approval of the PTCA and the school board who have the authority to charge fees as long as approved by the parents.
High school expenses
This year's day-to-day expenses related to schooling have also gone up. High school and elementary students in the towns and villages of Western Visayas, according to DepEd, need to have an allowance of P30 to P60 a day while their city counterparts need about P60 to P200 a day for food, transportation and school needs.
"Daily food and projects are the main concerns of students and their parents. We tell teachers that projects should be the outgrowth of lessons and not something where students have to buy so many materials," says Dr. Eduardo Pearanda, assistant chief of the DepEd Regional Secondary Division.
Expensive transport fees
Just reaching school itself is already a great expense. Pearanda cited some schools in Negros Occidental and Capiz where high school students had to pay P100 one way to ride a "habal-habal" or a motorcycle with wooden planks on the sides that can seat as many as eight people.
"This is just a small percentage of students. What these students do is to ride with friends but still, the rest drop out eventually because of expenses like these," says Pearanda.
Suzette Pamplona, senior education program specialist of the DepEd Regional Planning Unit, says for school year 2004-2005, they recorded 32,924 secondary students who dropped out of school. These represent seven percent of the total student population in Western Visayas. At the elementary level, two percent or 25,772 dropped out of school.
"Students drop out especially during planting or harvesting season when they have to help their parents," says Pamplona.
"There is no such thing as free education right now because government has no budget. The cost of education is too expensive," says Ruby Magbanua, coordinator of the Panay Alliance of Concerned teachers.
Magbanua says the Philippine educational system would greatly improve if the government channeled income from revenue collections to increasing the budget for education instead of debt servicing that takes up 40 percent of the national budget.
Private education
Parents who enroll their children in private schools face staggering tuition fees. Private schools need DepEd approval of tuition fee hikes.
In a high-end school like the Westbridge School for Boys in Iloilo City, parents of an elementary pupil will have to pay P27,531 for tuition and P5,000 for miscellaneous fees. High school fees in the same school run from P31,888 to P43,248 a year.
Assumption Iloilo has yet to release its tuition rate but based on last year's fees, an elementary school paid about P29,000 while a high school student pays from P30,000 to P32,000.
A pre-schooler of Ateneo de Iloilo (formerly Sta. Maria Catholic School) pays about P27,342. Elementary students, pay around P30,000 to P40,000 while secondary school students pay from P35,000 to P45,000. These include miscellaneous fees.
At the tertiary level, fees have slightly gone down because fewer students enrolled due to lack of money, said CHEd.
The Regional CHEd reports tuition rates dropped an average of 10 to 11 percent the last two school years. Students pay P270 to P848 per unit.
Dr. Freddie Maningo, CHEd Education Supervisor II, said out of 74 Higher Education Institutions in Western Visayas, only less than 20 as of this month have applied for tuition increases compared to last year's 23.
Maningo adds that some HEI's increase their "other fees," something that CHEd does not have any control.
CHEd also reports that in the last two years, the same HEIs charge fees of P600 to P850 per unit in their graduate schools (masteral and doctoral levels).
Public universities
It's a different story altogether with government-subsidized universities like the University of the Philippines in the Visayas and the West Visayas State University that both have the Socialized Tuition and Financial Assistance Program.
UPV uses the income bracket system through consultations with the student and verification of his economic status while WVSU uses the "ladderized" system where students submit the necessary requirements upon enrollment and the administration determines what bracket the student belongs, imposing different tuition and other fees for every year level with the first year students paying the most.
The National Union of Students of the Philippines claims in its research that in the last 13 years, 83.6 percent of the total population of the UP system are paying their full matriculation fee and only 8.6 percent belong to brackets 1 to 5 or students who do not pay other fees.
"UP's bracket system and WVSU's ladderized system are actually different forms of tuition fee increases," said Karen Edaniel, Iloilo Anakbayan chair and a graduate of Political Science and Sociology from UPV.
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