Parents generally want their children to have a college education so that they could have decent jobs after graduation. By and large, college education has become the great equalizer, especially among poor families. Unfortunately, more than two million college graduates are jobless as we write.College in the PhilippinesIn the Philippines, a college is a tertiary institution that offers specialized courses in the sciences, mathematics, liberal arts, social sciences or other specific professional areas. To be a university, an institution should meet certain requirements: six undergraduate degree programs and two graduate-level courses leading to doctoral degrees. Requirements for private higher education institutions (HEIs) are generally more stringent than for public universities.Public universities are non-sectarian and are either state universities or colleges (SUCs). The SUCs are created by laws passed by Congress. They are fully funded by the government. Among the 456 SUCs, the University of the Philippine system is the national university and gets the biggest chunk of the budget from the General Appropriations Act (GAA).These HEIs regulated by the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) are either colleges or universities, public or private, and secular or religious. Just before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, there were 1,963 HEIs, 242 of which are public and 1,721 are private institutions. For the School Year 2019-2020, there were 3,408,815 students enrolled in these HEIs.In an old publication on 'Higher Education in the Philippines: An Overview and Current Problems', Daniel H. Perlman (Peabody Journal of Education, Jan 1978) reported: 'Among current problems facing higher education in the Philippines are 1) bilingualism (English and Filipino), 2) accreditation, 3) government regulations, 4) overproduction of graduates, 5) mismatch between graduates and needed skills, 6) imbalance between public and private schools, 7) overconcentration of students in Manila, and 8) uncertain staff and physical plant standards.'Private schools' woesIt seems that Perlman's observations are still relevant today. I asked my friend and foremost educator Dr. Vince Fabella about his views about the problems faced by private HEIs. He is in the board of three national school associations and is the president of Jose Rizal University, a 102-year-old private nonsectarian, nonstock coeducational secondary and tertiary educational institution.On the imbalance of support from government to public and private schools, Dr. Fabella said: 'Government seems to operate under the framework that its role is to fund public education and regulate private education. That's quite an outdated framework, and one we've been in constant communication with government. At the core of this outdated framework is the fact that the Constitution talks about the complementarity of private and public education, but it has never attempted to define what complementarity means. That has resulted in some ad hoc framework of government funding private schools as much as it can, and the private sector handling the rest.'Dr. Fabella continues: 'The problem with this framework is that as its endpoint, it assumes that the best end state is for government to fund everything for public schools (or to get bigger and bigger) and the private sector to become marginalized. But as long as government takes these views, funding will continue to go to the state universities and colleges (SUCs).'I asked what's wrong with this approach. He said: 'This is really a problem on several fronts, and I will name three here: one, that public schools, colleges and universities, are on average not cheaper than private ones (from a total cost to the country); two, that international scores of the Philippines' students show marked differences between public and private school takers, with the private school students (once corrected for GDP per capita differences among countries) scoring at par with its cohort countries (by GDP per capita); and three, perhaps for me this approach dilutes or unconsciously conditions the views of government policymakers on the importance of private education, and makes them more willing to do policies that hurt the sector, as with the recent decision to increase taxes of private for-profits by 150 percent due to the Create law.'I asked for suggestions on how to improve college education for Filipinos. He quipped instantly: 'At this point in time, its online support. That comes in several forms: first, teacher development especially in terms of getting them to utilize the full range of online tools, and not rely on Zoom; second, assessment technologies, as online assessment (testing) is very different and a lot more challenging from the school's perspective (think of the ability to search answers real-time); and third, mental-health support for students and employees.'He concluded: 'I would add infrastructure support, on what we call 'last-mile/kilometer' links from the Internet to the home, since it is unstable in just too many localities. This is a conversation we've been having with the Internet providers, but even they rely a lot on government policies and infrastructure. What we haven't seen, and hope to see, is a plan from the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to alleviate this - there have not been calls for dialogue or planning for education, and we are at a loss here. The current discussions we've heard about are talking of plans, but only for public schools!'Unfortunately, it seems that most Filipino parents would rather send their kids to schools that charge cheap fees and are close to their residence. Quality education seems of no moment. Yet, they still expect their kids to have great jobs and careers.Malcom X once said, 'Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.' Ernie Cecilia is the chairman of the Human Capital Committee and the Publication Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (AmCham); co-chairman of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines' (ECOP's) TWG on Labor Policy and Social Issues; and past president of the People Management Association of the Philippines (PMAP). He can be reached at erniececilia@gmail.com
