The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) was urged to impose “no tuition hike” on medical schools that will partially reopen their campuses for limited face-to-face learning.

Activist youth group Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (SPARK), in a statement on Saturday, Feb. 13, warned that the approval of Malacanang to partially resume face-to-face classes for medicine and allied health programs “might usher in a new round of tuition and miscellaneous fee increases.”

SPARK urged CHED to issue a memorandum order that “will temporarily prohibit university administrators to raise tuition and other fees until the pandemic induced economic slump is over.”

“Need we remind the CHEd that their mandate requires them to ensure accessibility of higher education?” said SPARK Spokesperson John Lazaro. “The issuance of a memorandum order to prohibit tuition hikes is required to ensure that financial incapability specially during this pandemic will not hinder anyone from acquiring a degree,” he added.

In order for medical and science schools to successfully transition to partial face-to-face classes without raising their fees, SPARK said that the national government must “subsidize the makeover of campus facilities” in line with the health protocols set by the inter-agency task force.

The retrofitting of classrooms and laboratories, the group added, could be “capital intensive and physical distancing protocols would require a wider space to hold classes and that lesser students than can be accommodated.”

Lazaro noted that to require schools to conform with health protocols must not “lead to the passing of the buck to students and their families in the form of tuition fee hikes.” Thus, the government must “align funds if it is truly serious in efficiently addressing the 78,400 national backlog of doctors.”

Meanwhile, the SPARK also called on the national government to prioritize the vaccination of medical and allied health students before the partial face-to-face classes commenced.

The group also urged local governments to ensure that the necessary retrofitting and health protocols will be “strictly enforced” at the schools surroundings which include spaces like dormitories, canteens, and computer shops.

“There is no point of going through all the pains of retrofitting campuses if other spaces where students converge don't follow suit,” Lazaro ended.