THE SAMAHAN ng Progresibong Kabataan slammed Commission on Higher Education Chairperson Prospero de Vera III for his alleged failure to issue decisive policies on learning delivery modes for the upcoming academic year.

It criticized De Vera for allowing school administrators to decide whether to hold face-to-face classes or not.

“We have said this time and time again over the pandemic, and even before: leaving major decisions to individual schools hurts literally everyone, except the school administrators themselves,” John Lazaro, the group’s national coordinator, said.

“Especially in the case of private colleges and universities, they can only be expected to choose the option that rakes in the most money and the least investments in achieving quality education rather than the most sense,” he added.

Lazaro noted that this was not the first time that CHEd failed to step in to decisively resolve issues.

“Even when many students were under meters of floodwater thanks to Typhoons Rolly and Ulysses in 2020, CHEd still left the decision of suspending classes to school administrators,” he lamented.

At the height of the pandemic, De Vera gave university officials a free hand on whether they will refund tuition and miscellaneous fees they charged, the group said.

“De Vera leaves behind a legacy of hundreds of thousands of dropouts, failing education quality, unemployed graduates, and needless student deaths,” Lazaro said.

“He stood idly by and watched the wealthy elites that own schools squeeze students and their parents dry of their money,” he added.