THE Samahan ng Progresibong Kabataan on Thursday slammed Commission on Higher Education Chairman Prospero de Vera III’s claims that the Marcos administration’s proposed Charter change will make higher education in the Philippines more internationally “competitive” with other ASEAN countries.

The youth group pointed out that this desire for “international competitiveness” is rooted in the education sector’s increasing neoliberalism and the infatuation of politicians to blindly duplicate the development path of Singapore and other ASEAN countries.

“Foreign direct investment in higher education would lead to foreign-owned diploma mills, which will easily lead to state abandonment,” said John Lazaro, SPARK National Coordinator.

“This inherently threatens the right to accessible and quality education for a large number of Filipinos,” he added.

Moreover, SPARK asserted that the opening up of the country’s education sector to foreign capital will cement the Philippines’ role on the world market as a provider of cheap labor in the global value chain.

Lazaro stressed that “the future of work for Filipino workers under the Marcos-Romualdez Cha-cha (Charter change) only means more precarious conditions and the silencing of organized labor.”

SPARK maintains that the education system that the Marcos administration’s Charter change seeks to build is one founded on capitalist, elite, and foreign interests.