DARAGA, Albay—Albay, which pioneered the free college tuition program, stands to gain further from Republic Act 10931 or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act of 2017 which. President Duterte signed into law last year.
The government will implement the law this coming school year.
Albay 2nd District Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, who pioneered the free college education in his province and who principally authored RA10931, said the province will have an initial batch of 30,000 enrollees under the program this year.
About 17,000 of them will enroll in state universities and colleges (SUCs) and 12,000 in local universities and colleges (LUCs).
In his social media account. Salceda recently shared a message from the Daraga Community College here, the first school to publicly announce a notice on the registration for UAQTE: Free College at DCOMC.
“Registration, April 21 (GPA 85%); examinations April 23 to 28,” the college noted.
Whereas before only Albay had enjoyed the free college scheme, state colleges and universities around the country will now start admitting enrollees this June for free.
There are 112 SUCs and 78 LUCs presently accredited by the CHED and about 122 technical vocational institutions accredited by TESDA in the country.
The program will finally ease the once-perennial burden in the country’s education system: high cost or unaffordable tuition fees.
Salceda first introduced the free college tuition concept under his Universal Access to College Education program in Albay, where he was provincial governor for nine years until 2016.
The program helped 88,888 students complete their studies and served as the “inclusive tool and key to Albay’s poverty reduction from 41% in 2007 to 17.1% in 2015.”
As Albay’s congressman, he filed HB 2771 last year, based on “lessons learned” from his Albay program designed to help “solve the continuing paradox that while college education helps people escape poverty, Filipinos have to be rich to afford one.”
“Free tuitions and miscellaneous fees in state-run colleges and TESDA-accredited technical vocational schools is no longer just a dream. I am humbled to be the principal author of the law that has made this reality possible,” said Salceda in a recent interview in Legazpi City.
“I am not afraid to say that an Albayano Congressman is the Father of Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education,” he added.
At the state-run Bicol University in Albay’s second district, which Salceda represents, some 28,000 students stand to benefit from the measure with an annual subsidy of about P480 million.
Salceda said the law is a “most vital social legislation” that ushers in the Duterte administration’s “next wave social revolution in building a more egalitarian society.
Under RA 10931, aside from free tuition and other fees, students who belong to the poorest families may even get additional financial assistance from the government in the form of conditional cash transfers.
RA 10931 has mechanisms that provide all Filipinos equal opportunities to quality education in both private and public educational institutions with its Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) for Filipino Students and Student Loan Program (SLP) for Tertiary Education.
Salceda, who is senior vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee, which ironed out the 2018 budget for the new law, said the UAQTE program also allocates some P1.3 billion in student loans for those who belong to the lowest 30 percent of the population who may need additional financial resources in pursuing their college studies.