A House bill (HB) creating governance standards for local universities and colleges or LUCs has hurdled the committee level.
During the Monday, Sept. 19 hearing of the House Committee on Higher & Technical Education, lawmakers passed House Bill (HB) No. 1581 or the Local Universities and Colleges (LUCs) Governance Act.
This proposed measure was principally authored by Tingog Party-list Reps. Yedda Marie Romualdez and Jude Avorque Acidre.
In his sponsorship speech, Acidre emphasized the need to provide mandatory guidelines to LUCs in order to achieve quality and excellence in the areas of school administration, facilities, library and laboratories, curriculum and instruction, research and community service, and faculty and non-teaching personnel development programs.
“The creation of LUCs within Local Government Units (LGUs) provide the Filipinos an access to quality higher education. However, there is a need to rationalize the establishment of these LUCs,” he said.
Among the salient provisions of the bill is the compliance to the requirements by the LUCs.
Under the bill, the LUCs shall submit the following:
1) Feasibility study
2) A certification of availability of funds by the treasurer of the LGU
3) A project development plan showing that the LGU allocated a school site with appropriate size and location pursuant to the Building Code of the Philippines
4) A five-year institutional development plan duly approved by the Sanggunian, among others, to the Commisson on Higher Education (CHED) for its establishment.
The proposed statute allows existing LUCs to comply with the requirements and continue its operations within a non-extendible period of three years from the effectivity of the proposed measure.
It stated that non-compliance with the requirements within this period shall result in the phase out or closure of the programs being offered by the concerned local university and college.
The bill also imposes a fine of P500,000 on the violators of the provisions of the measure.