Transformation of RP education

Chairman Emmanuel Y. Angeles of the Commission on Higher Education in a follow-up orientation met on April 15 60 chairmen and members of the Technical Panels for Health Related Programs, Information Technology Education and Science and Mathematics. Chairman Angeles presented his plan for Philippine Education for the next 6 years (2010 to 2016) and labeled this as “Transformation of Philippine Education in the Next Decade.”

This plan highlights the following:

1. Faculty Development

The action plan for the next 6 years targets to train 10,000 faculty to earn Masters and Ph.D. with a total budget of P2B. The HEIs concerned shall be required to support another 10,000 faculty as counterpart. The strategy includes consortium, off-shore delivery, bringing in of faculty into the country.
It is also part of the plan to work with the Professional Regulation Commission )PRC) on the possibility of requiring 36 hours of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) training for all professionals before licenses are renewed.

2. Student Scholarship

The target for the next 6 years is to provide scholarships to 260,000 poor, bright and deserving student per year. Again, the higher education institutions (HEIs) shall be required to support the equivalent number (260,000 as counterpart). For the past nine years, CHED has provided scholarships to 636,580 college students with a total cost of P6.5B.

3. Research and Development

The Action Plan includes establishment of 17 Zonal Research Centers (ZRC). One ZRC per region and establish 5 sub-ZRCs per region which is institution-based. This will result in a total budget of:
17 ZRCs    = P300M
85 sub0ZRCs    = P700M
————    ————         102     P1.0B per year
This will encourage and strengthen R&D capabilities of 102 HEIs.

4. Facilities Improvement

For 9 years, CHED provided assistance to 247 HEIs (132 private HEIs and 115 state colleges & universities) to improve their laboratory, library and other facilities with a total cost of P2.0 billion. The plan for the next 6 years is to upgrade facilities of at least 50% of total HEIs (871+) thru ODA soft loans. Target is as follows:
Phase 1     : $ 200M
Phase 2     : $ 300M

5. Quality Assurance

In promoting quality assurance, CHED for the last 6 years have identified 72 Centers of Excellence (COEs) and 122 Centers of Development (CODs); 45 autonomous and 15 deregulated HEIs (2009); 51 HEIs were evaluated/assessed using IQuAME instruments and; only 8.4 percent of the total programs offered by HEIs in the 17 regions of the country are accredited.

One hundred ten (110) policies, standards and guidelines were approved and implemented; gave accreditation financial assistance to 194 HEIs and; training of 1,629 HEIs administrators under the Administrators Executive Leadership Program. Curriculum reform is another area of focus in promoting quality assurance. At present, 20 programs with 5-8 years duration are already compliant with Bologna Process. These are the engineering and health related courses plus of course Law and Medicine. The other areas that most be revisited/developed are:
5.1. Content of 2-year Pre-university curriculum
5.2. Full implementation of 10+2+3
5.3. Adopting and implementing international practices in admitting college students by assessing them using:
a. Cambridge “O” level/IGCSE examinations
b. “A” level exam after pre-university to determine readiness fro admission to university. Those who will not qualify will have to shift to polytechnic courses which is competency or skill-based for industry work. They may take exam after a certain period and earn equivalency with regards to subjects taken or units earned while in the polytechnic stream
c. Other curricular reforms are directed towards the development of outcomes-based policies, standards and guidelines including the preparation of monitoring and evaluation tool. Identification of and development of skill-based or polytechnic course
d. Creation of Philippine Accreditation Board for Engineering, Computing and Technology (PABECT) in compliance with the Washington Accord and APEC Registry

Local accrediting bodies must be recognized by international accrediting bodies inclusive of IQuAME, COEs and CODs in the meantime work for the alternatives or equivalency to program accreditation.

The next clusters of Technical Panels that will be given orientation by the Chairman on April 26 from 9 a.m.12 noon are the TPs for Agriculture, Maritime, Engineering, and Architecture Education and TPs under Alternative Learning Systems while the TPs for Social Sciences shall have their orientation also on April 26 from 1:30 p.m. 5 p.m.

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