Solons to review free college tuition law IRR

Senators on Wednesday welcomed the release of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the law mandating free tuition in state universities and colleges (SUCs) and vowed to scrutinize it.

“We will study it to make sure the IRR fully covers the intention of the law,” said Sen. Francis Escudero, chairperson of the Senate committee on education.

Earlier, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairperson Patricia Licuanan announced that the IRR for Republic Act No. 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act is already complete and is ready for signing.

Licuanan said implementation of the law will start in 2018, and will apply to students in SUCs and government-run technical and vocational schools.

“I haven’t seen it, but we will check if they followed everything that was agreed upon during the bicam (bicameral conference meeting),” Escudero said.

“But we will surely check it because they might limit the coverage of the law,” he added, noting that Congress has already allotted P8.3-billion for the new tu- ition policy for school year 20172018.

Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, one of the proponents of the free college education policy, commended the CHED for spearheading the promulgation of the law’s IRR and completing it just four months after President Duterte signed the bill into law in August.

“Now that the legal framework of the free tuition policy is in place, a more difficult task looms over the horizon—the on-the-ground implmenetation of a massive P51.4-billion program involving 1.5 million students enrolled at 112 SUCs across the country,” Gatchalian said in a statement.