A couple of lawmakers want the country’s top colleges and universities to get more funding and become globally competitive to attract foreign students and the establishment of international schools here.
Quezon City 2nd District Rep. Ralph Tulfo said that the latest 2023 Times Higher Education (THE) World Rankings should make Congress and the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) assess the quality of education in the country’s colleges and universities.
“That will be a long process that Congress and CHEd must work on. The universities must gain better access to funds aside from allocations in the national and local budgets. Access to and affordability of loans for operations and capital outlays of universities must be improved,” the lawmaker, a member of the House Committee on Higher and Technical Education, added.
This remark also came as Barangay Health Workers (BHW) Party-list Rep. Angelica Natasha Co celebrated her alma mater’s, the Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU), latest 2023 THE World Rankings.
The Katipunan-based university debuted in the 351-400 bracket, overtaking the University of the Philippines (UP) which placed at 801-1,000. UP had led the Philippine universities in THE rankings in previous years. Last year, UP was at 601-800 bracket.
“Ateneo is a smaller institution but it is able to maximize its faculty, income, and other resources better in some ways than UP. Ateneo has mastered the art, strategies, and techniques of gaining more citations than any other Philippine university include those not in the THE World Rankings,” Co, who earned her Bachelor of Science in Psychology degree at AdMU in 2011, said in a separate statement.
Among the four Philippine universities ranked, AdMU led in teaching (32.4) and citations (97). AdMU earned 9.5 for research, 37.6 for industry income, and 31.8 for international outlook.
READ: Ateneo is top PH university based on 2023 THE World University Rankings
She, however, expressed concern that the staff-to-student ratio in UP weighed heavily against the state university’s THE ranking.
Co said that UP has over 46,000 students, while AdMU only has over 13,000 students.
There is a “need to give UP more budget and to prod it more to source more income from other income streams aside from the national budget,” the lawmaker added.
“UP and Ateneo have widely different missions, purposes, and clientele. As a state university, UP must admit more students than Ateneo does, especially now given the free college education legal mandate,” she said.
“Most Ateneans pay full tuition and most come from upper income and rich households. UP’s program offerings are designed to meet national development objectives. Ateneo program offerings are designed to meet Jesuit missionary objectives,” Co furthered.
Meanwhile, Tulfo also underscored the importance for the Philippines to open up to foreign schools, noting how millions of Filipinos seek higher education abroad.
READ: UP reviews indicators, data from 2023 THE World University Rankings
“The Philippines should be a global education hub for leading higher education institutions. The establishment of international schools and foreign schools in the Philippines should be less cumbersome and be liberalized,” he said.
The lawmaker described as “isolationist nationalism” the view that the Philippines’ higher education should be off-limits to foreign schools.
“The millions of Filipinos who migrated to other countries in search of international education and overseas jobs are clear proof Filipinos are not isolationist,” he added.
Tulfo dreamed of the day when “some of the best universities in the world have joint programs, facilities, campuses, and research institutes here in the Philippines” and foreign students would come to the country to pursue their degrees, which would be fully recognized in their home countries.
The establishment of these “government-recognized and properly accredited foreign schools” should need not go through Congress for a special law because “the same principle used to allow foreign banks and Islamic banks to establish branches in our country” can be applied on this case.