YOUTH AND STUDENTS UNITE! SCRAP OTHER SCHOOL FEES!

Unity Statement of the Rise for Education Alliance

Believing

that accessible and affordable education is a right that must be continually

asserted, we, youth leaders, campus journalists, and students from various public and private
schools in the Philippines, unite to call for the junking of all other school fees collected from students.
Incessant tuition increases have led to the spiraling cost of matriculation in our schools,
further making education both at the basic and tertiary level far from the grasp of the ordinary Filipino
family. Testament to this is the steady rise in drop-out rates and the surging statistics on student
loans. We remember with rage the depressing case of Kristel Tejada, who took her life after failing to
pay her tuition in the state-run University of the Philippines. Yet despite the outrage and the
snowballing call of the student movement to stop tuition increases, school administrations backed
by no less than the Aquino administration still continue their rabid campaign to charge higher fees.
In the folds of the now-familiar story of ever-increasing tuition rates lie the narrative of the socalled other school fees (OSFs). Apart from tuition, OSFs have also become a tool for school
owners to maximize profit from educational institutions. From unnecessary workbooks and modules
in high school, to exorbitant, dubious, and redundant fees charged at the tertiary level, OSFs go in
tandem with spiraling tuition rates to squeeze more funds from students and their families. OSFs
range from the mundane development fees and energy fees to the obscene charity fees and
enhancement fees that are obviously unnecessary.
Through the years, OSFs have morphed into a monstrous twin of tuition increases. These
unnecessary fees are so prevalent that OSFs actually comprise bulk of the total semestral
matriculation of students. In some schools, other fees even surpass the cost of tuition, with fees
ranging from around P1,000 to as much as P25,000. State universities and colleges (SUCs) are no
exemption, for state schools including the Polytechnic University of the Philippines and UP charge
exorbitant fees that even exceed existing tuition rates per unit.
Apart from being a formidable element that brings the total cost of matriculation up several
notches, OSFs also remain vastly unregulated. The Aquino regimes extant policy of education
deregulation codified in the primordial Education Act of 1982 and further exacerbated by the
mockery that is CHED Memorandum Order No. 3, series of 2012 has left loopholes that have been
exploited by school owners to charge thousands upon thousands of pesos in OSFs. Instead of
supporting calls to stop tuition and other school fees, President Aquino and his cohorts in both the
Department of Education and CHED have further perpetuated this insidious system of moneymaking through their refusal to implement genuine regulatory rules on tuition and OSFs.
As such, it goes without saying that youth and students must now collectively challenge these
unnecessary fees and collectively campaign to junk them all. As the student movement braces for
the ensuing battle against OSFs, we must also fortify our ranks. Already, attacks against democratic
students rights have begun, with school administrators and the Aquino government itself vilifying
those who intend to resist. As we fight against tuition and other school fees, it is thus also necessary
that we assert for our rights.
Youth and students must stand united in fighting against tuition increases and other school
fees. We must march out of our classrooms and into the streets to demand that the national
government backpedal on its policy of deregulation. We must drumbeat to the nation and to the
world our demand for accessible and affordable education.
EDUCATION IS A RIGHT!
JUNK ALL OTHER SCHOOL FEES! STOP TUITION INCREASES!
HOLD AQUINO ACCOUNTABLE FOR SPIRALING COST OF EDUCATION!