CHED unable to accept new applicants to education subsidy program due to lack of funds
After failing to win more financing under the 2023 budget, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) said on Friday that it could not fulfill the request of 205,584 students requesting financial support through one of its programs.
Prospero de Vera, chair of CHED, made the declaration while outlining the agency’s proposed P30 billion budget to the House Appropriations Committee.
According to De Vera, the students are first-time applicants for the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) program, which provides financial aid to students attending private schools in communities without public universities or colleges as well as those from families eligible for the Unconditional Cash Transfer Program.
“Our funds are just sufficient to cover continuing beneficiaries. Hindi po kami makakapagbukas for new applications kasi wala po kaming pondo para sa new application,” De Vera said.
According to CHED data, there are 364,743 TES recipients for the 2021–2022 school year.
“We can only commit to provide TES to continuing TES beneficiaries for the academic year 2022 to 2023,” De Vera added.
Raoul Manuel, a representative on the Kabataan party list, asked Congress to fix the funding shortfall.
“This trend of CHED not having enough funds for its financial assistance should be reversed,” he said.
“We cannot say here in Congress that we are prioritizing education if we are going to allow this,” he added.
In addition to the TES program’s lack of funding, CHED’s proposed 2023 budget listed zero allocations for seven research projects involving 21 state universities and colleges in the fields of artificial intelligence, medical education, semiconductor fabrication, food production, food safety, and food security (SUCs).
Additionally, no seed money was allocated in CHED’s projected 2023 budget for the establishment of medical schools at SUCs.
The P28.5 million five-year lease payment to the University of the Philippines Diliman, which owns the property where the CHED building is situated, was also not allocated any money.
