Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno wants to revisit the present “free” college education system in state universities and colleges (SUCs) to “optimally allocate resources” that are funded mainly by taxpayers.
Diokno said this said over the weekend following his previous statement that the free access to state university education was “unsustainable.”
“Government resources funded by taxpayers’ money, by nature, are finite… The present regime is unwieldy, inefficient, and wasteful,” Diokno said in a message.
“An indicator of wastefulness is the rising dropout rate. The proposed reform also aims to reduce the threat to the robust private school system,” he added.
“The elements of my proposal are the following: first, focus on strengthening the K-12 program; second, filter, through a nationwide test, those who should be entitled to free education.”
“Third, allow those who passed the nationwide exam and are entitled to ‘free’ education to use their entitlement [a 4-year voucher] to enter or reject their assigned state university, and if the latter, choose an accredited private university; and reduce the number of existing SUCs [state universities and colleges] overtime through mergers,” Diokno said.
He said the poor have a better chance of entering college and completing the same if they have a good foundation.
“That’s one of the goals of the K-12 program. That’s the key — excellent basic education. That should be our focus,” he said,
Diokno said the other goal of the K-12 program is to prepare the student for gainful employment or higher education. “Many are not interested in going to college; they just want better jobs,” he said.
Last month, Diokno said in a forum led by the University of the Philippines School of Economics that he was not in favor of Republic Act (RA) 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act of 2017, calling it “anti-poor” because more people do not attend college.
The law provides eligible students free tuition and exempts them from other fees charged by state universities and colleges, as well as local universities and colleges.
Diokno said if the government wanted to help the poor, it should focus more on enhancing basic education.
The government is allocating P924.7 billion for education in the 2024 National Expenditure Program, which is 3.3 percent higher than the 2023 budget.
Elaborating on the filtering process, Diokno said there should be a nationwide test for those aspiring to go to college.
“Assuming the national budget can afford x number of government scholars per year, say x is 2 million. Then every year the government will choose x over 4 or 500,000 scholars per year. SUCs are not equal. Some are excellent, others good, some are barely adequate. The score of the examinee will determine to which SUC and its campus he or she will be assigned.”
“Theoretically, as a government scholar he is entitled to y amount of education vouchers. He may refuse to enroll in an SUC assigned to him,” he said.
Diokno said the voucher would be released annually and be based on the satisfactory performance of the government scholar.
On the mergers of SUCs, Diokno said it could be done over a period of years. Initially, he said it could be started by having the same set of trustees in all SUCs within the same region.
“Note that there are several SUCs in a region,” he said.
“This set of proposals are not perfect, but they could immensely improve the allocation of scarce government resources,” Diokno said.