DAVAO CITY – Militant youth group Anakbayan said the government’s spending of over P31 billion for private schools to enroll thousands of students who could not be accommodated by public schools should instead be allocated to state colleges and universities.
Anakbayan cited a research by Canadian Curtis Riep which revealed the government paid private schools for last year’s 800,000 students or almost 60 percent of the 1.3 million private school students.
“It is absurd to spend huge money to fill the capitalist educators pocket, while state universities and the public basic education suffer from budget cuts and shortage of school facilities,” said Malaya Genotiva, Anakbayan-Southern Mindanao regional spokesperson.
“To push SUCs to become self-sufficient through tightening their budget and spending people’s money for private education shows that Aquino has abandoned the state’s responsibility to uphold the people’s right to quality and accessible education,” Genotiva added.
Through the Government Assistance to Students and Teachers in Private Education (Gastpe), the government subsidizes a student’s tuition in a private school by as much as P10,000 for every school year.
“Instead of filling the pockets of private schools and businessmen, the government must appropriate full subsidy on education to make it accessible at all levels as stipulated on the law,” Genotiva said.(davaotoday.com)
