CHED used only 18% of P8-billion budget for free tuition for SUCs — COA

The Commission on Audit has called out the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for using only P5.769 billion of its P16-billion budget meant for the government's implementation of the free tuition program, the K-12 transition of faculty members, and research initiatives.

According to the COA's 2017, only 18 percent, or P1.4 billion, of the P8-billion budget allotted to cover beneficiaries of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act was spent since the law took effect last year.

The COA said the disbursement rate remains low even if the budget was divided into two to P3.8 billion, less operation costs, to represent the semesters per academic year.

The P1.4-billion would only be 37 percent of the P3.8-billion allocation per semester, which COA said is "still far below the full realization rate of the CHED."

Budget allocations per state university and college (SUC) included the program is based on the estimated tuition income of each higher education institution (HEI), according to COA.

The COA said the 114 SUCs in the country will then bill CHED for the total tuition subsidies awarded to students subject to their budget ceiling per semester, which shall not exceed 50 percent of the allocation.

The CHED management blamed the SUCs' late submission of billing statements containing the details of each student who benefits from the free tuition law.

"According to the management, the low disbursement rate was due to the delayed/late submission by the SUCs of the Billing Statements supported with the required documents enumerated in the guidelines," the COA said.

The COA recommended that CHED revisit the existing policies of the free tuition program, but management emphasized due diligence must be done before payments are processed. The commission, however, said in its rejoinder that even the secretariat of the program had delays in processing claims.

K-12 transition

The COA further said CHED used only 44.55 percent, or P1.5 billion, of the K-12 transition program worth P3.4 billion. The fund also includes transferred funds for the financial assistance of faculty scholars.

The offices in the National Capital Region and Regions 5 and 11, nonetheless, said their respective allocations were already being utilized but the lack of supporting documents from scholars hindered its full potential.

"Management reasoned out that this was due to the delayed submission of required documents by the scholars and HEIs, inadequacy of documents and the deferment/termination of the grants for various reasons," the COA said.

The COA said CHED must review the privileges of its scholars. The CHED, in response, said it can only follow the recommendations until the next academic calendar.

The CHED NCR office said the low utilization was due to change in school calendar, few applicants, funds that cannot be transferred, and lack of absorptive capacity to process numerous applications.

On the other hand, the Region 5 office blamed the late submission of documentary requirements by scholars.

Research initiative

The COA also questioned the five-year implementation of the Philippine California Advanced Research Institutes (PCARI) that only used P2.8 billion of its P5-billion budget from 2013 to 2017.

CHED management had informed state auditors that the release of project funds was delayed due to the "rigorous process in evaluating research and development proposals which usually takes six to 10 months."

The COA directed CHED to timely process the research funds under the PCARI program. — BM, GMA News