Those qualified students who plan to take entrance examinations need not to worry about paying college entrance examination fees anymore as a bill that waives it has lapsed into law.
The Republic Act (RA) 12006, or the Free College Entrance Examinations Act became a law on June 14, consecutively, a copy of it was published on June 28 and shall take effect immediately.
In essence, college entrance examination is one of the important stage of the college admissions process.
College entrance examination usually comprised of standardized tests that help schools course applicants from a variety of educational backgrounds.
However, the college entrance examination fees often gets in the way of takers, but through the new law, it will now be free of charges.
The Free College Entrance Examination Act emphasizes the necessity to help disadvantaged students who possess potential for academic excellence by waiving qualified graduates and graduating students from payment of entrance examination fees.
Under the Free College Entrance Examinations Act, private universities and colleges are now banned from collecting college entrance examination fees from takers.
However, there are five certain eligibility criteria that must be met by prospective graduates and graduating students in order to avail the free college entrance examination fees which are bulleted below:
- must be a natural-born Filipino citizen;
- must belong to the top 10 percent of the graduating class;
- must belong to a family whose combined household income falls below the poverty threshold as defined by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), or cannot afford in a sustained manner to provide for their minimum basic needs of food, health, education, housing, and other essential amenities of life as certified by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD);
- qualified students are required to apply for college entrance exams to any private higher schools within the country;
- must satisfy all the requirements of the private school.
The Free College Entrance Examination Act mandated the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to sanction private schools if ever they violated the law.
CHED is also tasked in promulgating the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the law within 60 days from its effectivity through the help of the Department of Education (DepEd).
Also, the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations of the Philippines, or its equivalent institution, shall also be consulted for drafting the IRR.
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