Global university standards pushed

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines—People behind the world’s top universities in Europe will apply a uniform training and grading standard for higher education this year, which is expected to contribute to an improved global economy.

And they have invited the Philippines along for the crusade.

European Union Ambassador Alistair MacDonald and university professors from Belgium, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines gathered here last Feb. 3 for a two-day International Conference on University Development through International Cooperation.

The conference was hosted by the Saint Louis University and the Benguet State University, which have a 10-year cooperation program inspired by the European education initiatives.

Growing concern

“A growing concern of policymakers in Europe and around the world is to ensure that our higher education institutions and systems are ‘fit for purpose’ for the 21st century,” MacDonald said.

“This is as much a concern in Asia in general, and the Philippines in particular, as it is in Europe. Globalization makes it essential for universities to open up to international cooperation, to send and receive more students from abroad, and to ensure that the quality of their teaching and research meets domestic needs and international standards,” he said.

He said globalizing the European academe “protects and promotes European competitiveness, ensuring that our young people would be able to find their place in a caring, sharing and dynamic society.”

Philippine universities provide insight as to how schools help improve local economies and social development, according to the conference papers.

Dr. Edmund Benavidez of SLU said his institution helped empower residents of a Benguet village known for growing marijuana by introducing them to beekeeping in 2004. The residents earned from the 31 tons of honey they harvested.

International partnership

“I don’t need to convince you just how important higher education is to the future of any country… International partnerships are becoming increasingly important in the context of globalization and EU sees higher education as a strategic sector or strengthening our partnership and our cooperation with Asia,” said MacDonald.

The EU is enforcing a European Higher Education Area in 2010 based on an international accord among 46 European countries called the Bologna Declaration (or the Bologna Process).

This initiative, MacDonald said, makes “academic degree standards and quality assurance standards comparable and compatible across Europe” and would therefore facilitate student movement “from one country to other (within the European Higher Education Area)—for the purpose of further study or employment.”

Asia is already developing its own education area initiative beginning with Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand or the MIT, which is “a reflection of the Bologna Process,” said Dr. Supachai Yavaprabhas, director of Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization’s Regional Center for Higher Education and Development.

The Philippines was not included in the pilot educational region because of its distance from the three countries, he said.

Yavaprabhas also said local educators may also have to contend with the fact that “a basic problem is the cost of basic education in the Philippines.”

Establishing an Asian version of the Bologna Process will take time, he said, because Asia is “a region of diversity” compared to Europe.

Yavaprabhas said Europe’s Bologna Process unites 4,000 universities across a continent.

Pan-Asian standard

Southeast Asia, on the other hand, would need to find a formula that would provide a pan-Asian academic standard for 2,860 Indonesian universities, 1,647 Philippine campuses, 488 Malaysian universities and the 20 universities located in Singapore and Brunei, he said.

But growing populations and global trade have resulted in an increase in enrollment figures which would make mobility around Asian universities a reasonable justification for regional cooperation, Yavaprabhas said.

Malaysian universities have been prepared for an increase of 73,000 foreign students in their campuses, and the government there expects this number to grow to 100,000 students by 2010, he said.

Taiwan is also looking at a surge in enrollment with the birth of 400,000 babies in 2009 who universities must eventually serve, said Dr. Shih-Shiung Chen, president of the Association of Taiwan Organic Agriculture Promotion.

Philippine campuses are not jumping into this bandwagon blindly, however.

Bro. Armin Luistro, FSC, president and chancellor of the De La Salle University, said schools must still draw up terms in their cooperation or research sharing contracts to prevent Filipino talents from being pirated abroad. –Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon