House finds P40 billion for free education, says appropriations chairman

September 22, 2017

Rep. Karlo Alexei Nograles of Davao, chairman of House committee on appropriations, announced on Thursday the committee has found P40 billion to finance free higher education for 2018.

In a press conference, Nograles said two-thirds of the fund for free tertiary education was raised from the Department of Education.

“We got P30 billion from the Department of Education for their school building program. Particularly, those with problems on site—no buildable space, no vacant lot,” Nograles said.

The committee also channeled P6 billion from various scholarship programs of state universities and colleges (SUCs) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

The rest was sourced from projects of other agencies.

“From the Department of Transportation, there are two projects there at the detailed engineering planning..the EDSA BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) project and Quezon Avenue BRT project,” said Nograles. “Both of them combined, we were able to get P3 billion to add to the free higher education [fund].”

Reductions for information and communications technology systems and infrastructure projects of the Department of Information and Communications Technology contributed to the P40 billion fund as well.

The P40 billion will cover free tuition and miscellaneous expenses for all SUCs as well as local colleges and universities accredited by the CHED. It will also cover free technical and vocational education offered by tech-voc institutions under the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority. The free tertiary education subsidy will also be used for private institutions, and student loan programs.

The House of Representatives last Sept. 12 approved on second reading House Bill 6215 or the 2018 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) after the committee on appropriations successfully defended on the floor the proposed P3.76 trillion national budget for next year.

The education sector will receive the largest chunk of the budget with a funding of P691.1 billion. Of this amount, P64.6 was earmarked for SUCs.

Nograles said the national budget will be submitted to the plenary by Tuesday or Wednesday next week, barring any delays on printing. DMS