ANAKBAYAN decries the removal of the Senior High School (SHS) program from State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) and Local Universities and Colleges (LUCs) as an indictment of the Marcos-Duterte regime’s neglect of the education sector and an affront to students’ right to education.
According to Commission on Higher Education (CHED) chairman Popoy de Vera, there is no longer any legal basis to fund the program in SUCs and LUCs.
In a memo dated December 18, 2023, CHED ordered SUCs and LUCs to no longer offer SHS programs next school year, citing that the transition period for K-12 has passed. As a result of this, 17,000 students will be displaced starting next school year.
CHED’s decision to discontinue the SHS program from SUCs and LUCs, far from it being merely brought by the end of K-12 transition period, exposes the Marcos-Duterte regime’s neglect of the education sector as seen in the lack of adequate funding for education and the government’s overall misprioritization in the 2024 budget.
This move, which will no doubt force thousands of students to transfer to private institutions, furthers the commercialization of education. Rather than treating it as a public good, the state is turning education into a business by passing the responsibility of providing education to the hands of private institutions which put profit above all.
If the Marcos-Duterte regime wants to remove the SHS program from SUCs and LUCs, then they should abolish the K-12 program altogether. The K-12 program is nothing but an ill-intentioned educational reform meant to create cheap and docile workers, all in the name of satisfying the interest of capitalists for profit. We condemn this as yet another anti-people move of the Marcos-Duterte regime.
In the long term, we call on the youth to fight for the establishment of a nationalist, scientific, and mass-oriented education system.
Only through this can we secure our right to education and realize our full potential as youth. – LANCE ALBA, Anakbayan Media Officer
