State of the Nation’s Youth

June 5, 2010

As Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo prepares to deliver her eighth State of the Nation Address (SONA), the youth and students across the country is preparing for another class walk-out this coming Monday to join other sectors in a protest rally where the real state of the nation shall be heard.

For us, a bleak future has become the legacy of the Arroyo administration. For the past seven years, education has become less accessible for Filipino students as a result of the rising cost of tuition and other fees collected in our schools. Besides the worsening crisis in the education sector, we also face rising food and fuel prices bringing along with them the cost of other basic commodities.

Based on the budget received by the Departmentof Education, the government spends only P12 per student per day. This is appallingly less than the P14 that they spend on an M16 bullet. In fact, government subsidy to education has been on a consistent decline since Arroyo came to power. In 2001, the government was spending a measly 3.3% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on education. The amount, which already falls short of the United Nations prescription of a minimum 6% of the GDP, dropped to 2.4% in 2006.

Since 2001, the national average tuition rate has risen by almost 70%. In the National Capital Region, the average tuition rate has risen by 118.53%. Other than tuition fees, ridiculous miscellaneous fees continues to be invented and collected by schools and universities. Examples of these include