The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and the Unified Student Financial Assistance System for Tertiary Education (UniFAST) have started disbursing the Tertiary Education Subsidy (TES) stipends to qualified grantees from St. Vincent de Ferrer College of Camarin, Inc. (SVDFCCI) after a year-long investigation on the institution’s reported violations of the tripartite memorandum of agreement to implement the TES program.
SVDFCCI is a private higher education institution (HEI) in Caloocan City and belongs to one of the cities in the National Capital Region (NCR) where there is no existing state university and college (SUC) or a CHED-recognized local college and university (LUC).
Thus, an enrolled student in their school and in a program that is in the CHED Registry is eligible to receive a TES grant worth P60,000.00 per year as long as that same student resides and studies in a private school within the city.
In July last year, UniFAST asked SVDFCCI to explain why the TES stipends for Academic Year 2019-2020 should be released to the institution after CHED and UniFAST found violations in reports submitted by the CHED National Capital Region Office during their monitoring visits to the school.
The report noticed a sudden spike in the number of its TES student-grantees which brought out other questions on the students’ residence information, the school’s carrying capacity, increase in tuition and other school fees, and faculty qualifications, among others. A CHED investigating team was constituted to investigate these possible violations.
“The UNIFAST Board had issued Board Resolution No. 2020-067 approving the release of TES to qualified students of the private HEI, subject to certain conditions. We must not delay this financial assistance that is considered a lifeline of our grantees and their families during this health crisis. For the requirements of the CHEDRO NCR, SVDFCCI must comply with what is requested so that payments of the TES grants will continue for the revalidated students,” said CHED and UniFAST Board Chairman Popoy De Vera.
To facilitate the revalidation process of CHEDRO NCR, CHED and UniFAST required SVDFCCI to submit the updated and active directory of the 763 students who do not have any contact information on their profile. It is only after the conduct of revalidation that the Commission can determine compliance of said students. If compliant, they would be recommended to the UNIFAST Board for inclusion in the certified TES Masterlist of grantees.
To date, there are 2,622 students who were submitted by the school for the TES grant. The following is the status of validation and payment:
- 992 grantees already paid
- 24 grantees have deficiencies, for submission of required documents
- 18 were delisted (faculty and staff of the said HEI)
- 688 students (confirmed as already graduated from another bachelor’s degree) and therefore were delisted
- 3 students (non-Caloocan residents) and are delisted
- 3 students (Course not in registry and modular since AY 2019-2020) are delisted
- 85 students dropped during the 1st semester AY 2019-2020
- 46 are included in Batch 13 (for revalidation and orientation)
- 763 students are ongoing revalidation
Only those who have complied with all the requirements and remedied their deficiencies will be included in the processing of payment.
