Tertiary Education Trials, and Challenges

by ERNESTO T. SOLIDUM

Once again the focus of attention revolved around the tertiary education, its problems and challenges. Kapehan guests at a weekly forum on September 5, 2009 were Aklan education stalwarts Atty. Allen S. Quimpo, President, Northwestern Visayan Colleges, and Dr. Benny A. Palma, President, Aklan State University.

In his opening statement, Atty. Ronquillo C. Tolentino cited the constitutional mandate that education is a public or state function. Careful evaluation shows that, years of government neglect in providing enough funds for education has resulted in tragic consequences. Philippines as poor as ever in the group of 77 nations.

Atty. Quimpo was one of the architects of the Congressional Committee trifocalizing education. He bewails that today, we are suffering from an identity crisis because of certain policies we do not understand ourselves. Quimpo stated that much of the rhetoric, teachings, and practices have been imposed on us by Western educators that our indigenous culture is inferior. Decidedly, our history started only with the discovery of Magellan in 1521. In reality, based on artifacts, our civilization started very much earlier. For a fact, our 9th century mercantile boats called balangay still exist in Surigao del Sur, according to Atty. Quimpo.

Turning to the present educational woes, the former Aklan solon enumerated major setbacks that need immediate action. These are high drop out incidence; poor teacher quality; poor student performance; inadequate support and linkages; great disparity between research and application; and defective, counter productive, and anti-developmental curriculum.

Quimpo advocated human capital theory stating that the more and better educated the people is, the greater the chance of economic development.
Dr. Palma cited the need of tertiary education to focus on international competitiveness since the Philippines is signatory to the World Trade Organization. He said that sunshine area for investment is on Information Com-munication Technology (ICT) which have far ranging applications in the field of agriculture, fisheries, computer chips, food processing, textile and garments manufac-turing, and others.

Considering the various researches undertaken by government agencies that are often irrelevant, repetitive, and expensive, Palma favors the recommendation of UP study that all basic and applied researches in the Philippines be undertaken by a lone agency – the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Dr. Palma disclosed ASU-NVC collaboration in charcoal making and briquetting machine project (P5 M), Biofuel plant (P15 M) and ICT (P5 M).
Issues and concerns are the present limited budget to education. The Philippines allots 2.1 percent only of her gross national product (GNP) where neighboring countries spend an average of 6 percent. This invariably resulted in congested classrooms, ill-equipped laboratory facilities, shortage of books, office supplies and equipment, and low salary scale of teachers that trigger low quality education.

Great disparity between researches and practical application is shown by empirical data that inbred rice and hybrid corn have potential yield of 5.0 metric tons per hectare. The average farmer’s yield is just 3.9 metric tons per hectare for rice and 3.7 metric tons per hectare for corn.

On global com-petitiveness, the Philippines seriously lags behind in research and development (R&D) with allocation of only one tenth (0.1) of one percent of GNP. Dr. Palma confirmed that 50 percent of this meager budget goes to personnel services, leaving practically nothing for meaningful research. The highest net gain is usually five times the original investment achieve by other countries. R&D is the foundation of creativity and innovativeness. Hence, its high premium particularly the race on micro word processing technology. UN recommendation is 6 percent investment of GNP for research. In the US, even if her R&D is at a minimum, private sector participation is phenomenal and generous.

Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) research and application is undertaken locally by transnational companies on rice, corn, soybean, potatoes, sugar cane, and other crops. Ironically, only very few farmers are adopting this technology despite passing safety regulations of US Food and Drug Administration. The question then is how can we be globally competitive if our agricultural products do not meet international quality standards?

Basically, the quality of our tertiary education does not meet international standards of the first world economies. Our engineers, physicians, and nurses are employed as assistants. Reason is that our education is limited to 10 years where minimum requirement is 12 years. While hot issue is being deliberated upon by the Commission on Higher Education, it would be best if an in-depth study about specific problem considering economic, social and educational implications, (including love of country and politics).
A looming controversial issue is vernacularization of language teaching in the elementary grades. Atty. Quimpo believes there would be a label of tongues since the Philippines has 80 ethnic dialects. How can we establish a common language in these 7,107 islands?, he asked.

Quality education also demands a high price. However, state owned colleges and universities must be adequately funded in order that poor but deserving students may be able to enroll and complete a degree. High drop out incidence of 16 percent at tertiary level is very significant. It needs to be acted upon through proper legislation. Furthermore, high investment cost in education must be offsetted by graduates whose chosen courses match with volatile and discriminating labor market. /MP