Legarda to SUC Accreditors: Help Elevate Quality of Tertiary Education

AS PHILIPPINE UNIVERSITIES FALL OFF FROM THE LIST OF TOP 300 TERTIARY EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS WORLDWIDE, SENATOR LOREN LEGARDA TODAY CALLED ON THE ASSESSORS OF STATE UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES’ PROGRAMS AND CURRICULA TO HELP IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION IN THE COUNTRY.
“Making the Philippine education system at par with its global counterparts is a gargantuan task, even more so today as the quality of education in our country leaves much to be desired, following the international rating our universities received last year,” said Legarda, who was Guest of Honor and Speaker at the Annual National Conference and Silver Anniversary Celebration of the Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines (AACCUP).
The Senator noted that in 2011, the country’s top universities have fallen from their previous ranks and are no longer in the world’s Top 300 universities based on rankings by international education company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).
“Our situation presents a challenge to rise from this daunting deterioration. We have to invest enough to create a pool of experts in our academic institutions. Our SUCs need significant support, especially from the government, in conducting researches and projects that can keep pace with the best in the world, and we must not hesitate in investing in institutions that can in fact lead research and development (RandD),” she said.
Legarda also supported the call of SUCs for increased funding assistance, stressing that the additional Php4.2-Billion budget would still be inadequate to make SUCs centers of excellence in Science and Technology, and to enable them to build up a world-class group of professors and researchers and to attract the brightest young minds.
“AACCUP plays a key role in monitoring the quality of programs offered by our SUCs and with the accreditors being members of SUCs too, the sharing of best practices and mutual cooperation in developing first-rate curriculum would be necessary; and the superior task of evaluating programs and institutions requires no less than the assessors’ impartiality, objectivity and integrity,” the Senator pointed out.
“We are confronted with the great task of elevating the quality of higher education in the country, and with our universities plummeting in the global rankings, our actions must be immediate and our efforts must be twice over for we are dealing with the future not only of our youth but of our nation,” Legarda concluded.