THE COMMISSION on Higher Education has called on private higher education institutions that have not submitted their Tertiary Education Subsidy billing to immediately comply with the requirements of the Private Education Assistance Committee in order to hasten the release of TES stipends for the academic year 2019-2020.

The Private Education Assistance Committee is an organization that processes and endorses the TES billing claims of private HEIs to CHED and UniFAST for payment.

On June 9, 2020, the CHED released the list of 264 HEIs with no billing submissions to PEAC, thus affecting more than 6,000 TES grantees waiting for their educational government subsidy.

To date, the number is down to around 46 private HEIs out of more than a thousand private schools participating in the TES Program, according to the CHED.

The CHED added that a total of 759 student-beneficiaries have been affected by the failure of the 46 HEIs to comply with the TES billing requirements.

The PEAC has reported that at least ten of these schools are working on their billing documents while the 36 other HEIs have already been contacted but failed to reply, nor has given any reason for their delayed actions.

“While the qualified student-grantees are waiting for this government financial assistance especially that we’re starting a new academic year, the TES funds cannot just be given to them without their respective HEIs’ submission of the TES billing requirements,” said CHED and UniFAST Board chair Prospero de Vera III.

Reports have it that the CHED regional offices were able to download the TES grants to compliant private HEIs even during the community quarantine nationwide. However, some HEIs have expressed difficulties in complying with the requirement due to restrictions and disruptions in their normal work operations.

“The Commission is seriously concerned with the non-compliance of these HEIs. They signed a Memorandum of Agreement with CHED to ensure that their students could be assisted by the government through RA 10931. We are now reviewing possible violations of this MoA and these HEIs may be delisted from inclusion in the programs under RA 10931,” De Vera stressed.

The TES is a grant-in-aid program of the government to support the cost of tertiary education of Filipino students enrolled in public and private HEIs.

Students eligible for TES in private HEIs can receive P60,000 per academic year if they belong to the Listahanan 2.0 of the Department of Social Welfare and Development or if they reside and study in a city or municipality where there is no existing state university or college.