What’s the plan for the SCUs?

First of two parts

The protests and recrimination over the supposed cut in the budget of state colleges and universities may have been addressed by the Senate’s realignment of contraceptive funds from the Department of Health to the SCUs. The move should also help mollify two restive sectors: SCU students and educators, and Catholic Church bishops opposing the allocation of state funds for artificial birth control.

But the SCUs problem will be back year after year without formulating and implementing a well-thought-out plan for government-funded higher education to become largely self-funding while more effectively performing its major development functions: educate the expert professionals needed by industries and institutions, and provide students with employable knowledge.

Indeed, the big thing wrong about the SCUs budget cut is the lack of a comprehensive program for moving the sector toward greater financial independence while maintaining, if not enhancing, the performance and quality of higher education institutions (HEIs). While the government cannot do the planning for SCUs, in deference to their academic freedom, there are parameters and strategies to set out in a plan.

Crafting such a program is eminently within the competence of Commission on Higher Education Chair Patricia Licuanan, given her long experience in the two Katipunan Avenue learning institutions, including Miriam College’s transition from the control and backing of the Maryknoll religious order. Sec. Licuanan, who holds a PhD. in psychology, was Miriam president before her appointment to head CHED.

The country’s higher education needs were partly set out in the education roadmap drawn up by the past administration’s Presidential Task Force on Education (PTFE), created in 2007 and headed by Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, Ateneo de Manila University president since 1993, the longest to serve in that position.

Higher education planners would do well to bear in mind the PTFE vision: “Every Filipino child is assured of the opportunity to get high-quality education that will make him or her a whole person and lead him or her to [obtain] a productive, well-paying job or become a successful entrepreneur and a responsible citizen.”

The task force also included business leaders, and among its key recommendations is the establishment or strengthening of industry-academe linkages led by the private sector, to tailor higher education more closely to the economy’s needs. Championing the initiative were top people from business process outsourcing, tourism and hospitality services, electronics, engineering, construction, shipping, shipbuilding, health care, wholesale and retail.

Being clear about the overall strategic priorities is crucial to reform; otherwise, one could adopt measures that look good, but may actually be untimely or inappropriate for certain institutions. A blanket budget slash may force SCUs to reduce funding and enrollment even in courses serving knowledge-intensive industries.

Once the higher education strategies are clear, then CHED and the SCUs can explore options for improving the latter’s finances, and draw up an overall plan which would include not just budget cuts, but also schemes and incentives for cost management, quality improvement, and income generation.

Raising funds from alumni and corporate sponsors is one tried and tested method employed by countless universities here and abroad. SCUs should take the cue from the University of the Philippines, which succeeded immensely under outgoing president Emerlinda Roman to raise billions of pesos during UP’s centennial in 2008. Drawing up alumni lists should be very much easier now with social networking sites able to reach millions of people, including 18 million Filipinos on Facebook alone.

Corporate scholarships are another funding scheme which would be a win-win solution in the administration’s current mode of public-private partnerships. The industry-academe linkages set up under the PTFE could be revived to draw up scholarship programs for the educations of technical personnel needed by sponsoring sectors. Such a tie-up worked well for vocational-techical training under TESDA, which raised its employment rate to 60% of graduates, while raising income from training. Through corporate scholarships, SCUs can charge more without shutting out poor but bright students.

And if industry will fund instruction, they should also have money for research & development, especially if SCUs can offer market surveys, business reports, science and technology R&D, and other expert studies at costs lower than commercial outfits. Computer programming is one area of high demand, especially in services packaged and made affordable for small enterprises.

Even more lucrative are joint ventures with firms to set up high-tech parks like the information technology centers set up on U.P. property by Ayala Land. Such developmnts harness not only real estate, but also faculty and students for business. Besides IT hubs, there are joint ventures in farmland, which many SCUs in the provinces have in abundance. Besides raising cash crops, the plantations also give agriculture faculty and students vast croplands for research.

Another SCU money-maker right down the PPP alley is commercial property leasing and development. Many educational institutions are in prime areas downtown or once-suburban belts now swallowed up by urban sprawl. If local governments can rezone part of these land holdings for commercial or residential development, they can give SCUs huge windfalls, which can then be invested to generate income every year. Moreover, development contract provisions could include constructing and equipping new facilities to replace any buildings that may be taken down in areas for development. –Ricardo Saludo, Manila Times

Ricardo Saludo heads the Center for Strategy, Enterprise and Intelligence ( ric.saludo@censeisolutions.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).