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Citing a year of 'gross negligence', group demands for CHED Chair's resignation
Citing a year of 'gross negligence', group demands for CHED Chair's resignation
Out of touch.
This is how an activist youth group described Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Chairman Popoy De Vera as it called for his resignation.
Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan (SPARK), on Monday, May 24, asked De Vera to to “step down from office” following after his announcement last week that the conduct of flexible learning will be the “norm” until the next school.
READ:
https://mb.com.ph/2021/05/21/there-is-no-going-back-ched-says-flexible-learning-is-here-to-stay/
SPARK said that this statement from De Vera “angered students, parents and netizens alike” - thus, he needs to resign from his post.
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For the group, De Vera’s announcement exposed how “out of touch” he was with the conditions of the students and professors.
“For a year, millions of students were unable to cope up with distance learning, mostly due to lack of access to proper gadgets, unreliability of an internet connection and electricity supply especially in the countryside which resulted in inaccessible education,” said SPARK National Coordinator and Spokesperson John Lazaro.
SPARK also pointed out demands for gadget and internet subsidy to the inclusion of internet access to the “list of basic human rights” to the nationalization of the telecommunication industry and electricity. It also called for “mass vaccination to facilitate the safe return to school.”
Lazaro then slammed CHED for pushing for a new normal educational set up “down our throats when clearly it is not feasible in this time of pandemic.”
Aside from his pronouncement regarding flexible learning, SPARK is also calling for De Vera’s resignation alleging that “he let universities increase tuition fees even if the students are just studying at home for the reason that the former are already losing money.”
De Vera, SPARK claimed, “did not even order universities to refund tuition fees” from the academic year (AY) 2019-2020 after the pandemic abruptly ended classes in 2020.
“A year is long enough for you to take action but you failed miserably in your mandate to make education accessible to all,” Lazaro told De Vera. “Your mix-and-match proposal reeks with insensitivity and will only lead to the systematic exclusion of millions of students from stepping foot in a university,” he added.
Given this, SPARK also called on student councils and campus organizations nationwide to push for “accessible and quality education” which - according to the group - is "threatened by the CHED."
On Monday morning, De Vera, in a virtual press conference, defended CHED's flexible learning policy - noting that this concept may not be fully understood by the critics.
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He also asked those "who are spreading fake news and misinformation" to stop because these will only make students who are already struggling under flexible learning more agitated.
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