Free college education fund for 2018 completed
Free college education in 2018 is now assured.
On Thursday, Davao City 1st District Rep. Karlo Nograles, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, bared that the House of Representatives has already realigned enough funds for the full implementation of Republic Act (RA) 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act.
“I’m happy to announce we've found 140 billion to finance the
free higher education [law] for 2018,” Nograles told reporters in a press conference.
The solon, who flew in straight from Samar, said that the amount will “cover for everything” that's provided for in the celebrated law, which President Duterte signed last month.
“That will cover the amount needed for 2018. So that's free tuition and miscellaneous expenses for all SUCs (State Universities and Colleges), including UP (University of the Philippines); LUCs (Local Universities and Colleges) that are accredited by CHED (Commission of Higher Education), and it will cover the free technical-vocational education in tech-voc institutions under TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority).
“Plus the tertiary education subsidy which may be used for SUCs and private [universities and colleges], and also the student loan program,” noted Nograles.
Covered by the law are students from the country's 114 SUCs, 16 LUCs accredited by CHED and 122 Technical-Vocational Institutions (TVIs) under TESDA.
Achievement unlocked The visibly elated Nograles explained how the P40 billion target was creatively achieved within the limitations of the proposed P3.767-trillion national budget for 2018 as embodied in House Bill No. 6215. Nograles is the main sponsor of the measure, also known as the 2018 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).
“We got P30 billion from the Department of Education (DepEd) for their school building program, particularly those with problems on their [having] no buildable space, no vacant lot... we were able to carve out P30 billion from that budget.
“The rest: from the Department of Transportation (DOTr), there are two projects there in the detailed engineering planning... it's an ODA (Official Development Assistance) project, it is the EDSA BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) project and the Quezon Avenue BRT project. So both of them combined, we were able to get P3 billion to add to the free higher education [fund],” Nograles said.
Apart from that, the House was also able to raise P6 billion from various scholarship programs embedded in the SUCs and CHED.
“We also had various reductions in the projects of the DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) for ICT systems and infrastructure. So all in all we were able to raise P40 billion,” Nograles said.
It was recalled that Duterte submitted the proposed national budget to the House and Senate before the signing of RA 10931 on August 4.
This means that the free college tuition program was taken into account during the crafting of the 2018 budget by Malacañang.