Education should be more widely accessible to children irrespective of their parents’ financial resources – but more particularly to the children of the poor.

This must be the rationale behind the government move to make education more available to the youth by addressing the present requirements of colleges and universities which it considers oppressive to poor families.

In issuing Executive Order 792, President Gloria M. Arroyo called on the heads of colleges and universities to find ways to relax their rigid tuition fee preconditions to open up opportunities to more students seeking to pursue their studies.

What the President is asking is a “flexible, socially-sensitive tuition fee payment plan” to ease the burden of families struggling to provide education for their children.

The President’s order which was addressed to state colleges and universities particularly pointed out that the “no-payment, no periodic examination policy is one of the main reason young students from poor families drop out from school.”

This has to change to ensure a decent graduation rates from state universities and colleges, the President emphasized.

Under the Constitution, the State should protect and promote the right of all citizens to quality education at all levels and to take every means to make possible that education is available to all.

It also enjoins the State to “Establish, maintain, and support a complete, adequate, and integrated system of education relevant to the needs of the people and society.”

The fact is that the constitutional instructions on matters of education is both broad and specific including a whole gamut of directives and marching orders all for the promotion of the citizens’ rights to education and the advancement and well-being of society.

It calls for the establishment and maintenance of a system of scholarship grants, student loan programs, subsidies, and other incentives which should be made available to deserving students in both public and private schools, especially the underprivileged.

For that, and more, it mandates that the State must “assign the highest budgetary priority to education and ensure that teaching will attract and retain its rightful share of the best available talents through adequate remunerations and other means of job satisfaction and fulfillment.”

In her executive order, President Arroyo authorized the expansion of the Student Assistance Fund which provides help in terms of tuition fees to poor students, in response to the pleas of parents. Included in the financial assistance is a monthly stipend for transportation fares, laboratory requirements, and allowances for books.

Meanwhile, Malacañang announced the other day a package of benefits for government workers, including scholarship grants for their children.

While true that education is an affair of persons we must also see to it that the resources at its disposal are not only strong but sufficient.

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)