“What we truly need in our school curricula is more technology and science. How do we compete in the world when many of our engineering professors are still into pre-world war II science,”
by Ducky Paredes
When an American actress is a soap opera derided a diploma in a doctor’s office by asking if it came from a Philippine medical school, the whole country protested. A year later, some Pinoys still are indignant at the memory.
The truth, of course, is that a Philippine diploma has to be suspect anywhere outside this country, The word is that only four Philippine universities out of the country’s more than 2,000 higher education institutions are even rated along with the world’s leading educational institutions.
These are the University of the Philippines (UP) and three Catholic schools: Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, and the University of Santo Tomas (UST).
The latest global Top 500 ranking, however only have two of them: UP, which fell to 398th in 2007 from 299th in 2006, and Jesuit-run Ateneo, which rose to 451st from 484th. La Salle and UST have dropped out of the Top 500, ranking 519th and 535th, respectively.
How do we compare to other Asian countries? Thailand and Malaysia have five universities in the Top 500. India has eight on the list. Indonesia has three, all of them higher than UP: Gadjah Mada University (360th), Bandung Institute of Technology (369th), and the University of Indonesia (395th). Thailand’s prestigious Chulalongkorn is way up at 299th.
In measuring quality, the yearly survey relies on ratings by “peers” and job recruiters as well as indicators like student-to-faculty ratio, the presence of foreign faculty and students, and whether university researchers have been cited internationally.
Much importance is placed on ratings given by peers (who are not allowed to vote for their own universities), which have a weight of 40%, followed by student-to-faculty ratio (20%), citations per faculty (20%), “graduate employability” through the recruiter review (10%), and international faculty and students (5% each).
In a field where number one Harvard University scored 100 and Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale universities were almost perfect, UP scored 34.7 and Ateneo, 30.8. La Salle and UST tallied 23.9 and 20.8, respectively.
Where do our schools fail? How do Philippine schools react to the fact that they are not doing as well as their Asian neighbors? Most will come up with excuses. Hardly any will take a hard look at themselves and resolve to change for the better. That, in a kernel, is why our schools will continue to deteriorate.
Still, it is good business. The entire UP system - which has more than 50,000 students in 246 undergraduate and 362 graduate programs. The total expenditure is at P7.2 billion, some P135,000 per student.
Compare that to Far Eastern University (FEU), with some 24,000 students in 50 academic programs, spent around P1 billion last year, or about P43,000 per student or Centro Escolar University (CEU) which has around 20,000 students, and spent P883 million last year or P44,000 per student.
Clearly, UP does more for its students but is in the red. It relies on a government subsidy for its continued existence. On the other hand, FEU booked P628 million in profits and CEU reported P238 million in profits for the fiscal year ending March 2007.
What we truly need in our school curricula is more technology and science. How do we compete in the world when many of our engineering professors are still into pre-world war II science. Besides, as told by a young Physics professor: “As one advances to the third and fourth years, more and more experiments on higher Physics subjects are left to ‘chalk and talk’ discussions as no equipment was available. The students move on even without exposure and familiarity with standard physics laboratory equipment.
“In my own field, acoustics, there were no oscilloscopes for experiments that are vital in visualizing sound waves.
“Advanced experimental physics courses become a gedanken or thought (imagined) experiment. One discusses the concepts and the procedure; and the instructor just provides the data for the students to analyze since no setup could be used.
“Although students had been paying laboratory fees, there are no computers for our numerical analysis subject. Programs on paper cannot be tested to compile since there is no space to type it in. Some students are able to test theirs on their home computers but those without one found it hard to grasp computer programming and were uncertain if their program will run correctly. Even the professors use the computers and projectors at their
expense to be able to teach the class.”
How will one produce world-beaters under those conditions?
So, if Teri Hatcher looks askance at a Pinoy diploma, can we blame her or whoever wrote those lines for her to speak?
* * *
The air car that we wrote about yesterday gives you a choice of a two, four or six-cylinders because each cylinder is actually an individual engine that can operate independently. The designer is a former Formula One engine designer.
The exhaust is cool air that can actually be pumped into the car in lieu of air-conditioning. How’s that for a real cheapie treat?
Discussing this with my barber, he commented that a Pinoy had created a car that runs on water. That would actually be even better. If only it were true.
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hvp 06.20.08)
One Comment
Lest, I would sound unreasonably disagreeable and defiant about school rankings be cause my alma mater, New Era University, has not been hailed as one of the top schools (localy or globaly), I am inclined to say that such rankings are utterly aimless and nonsensical in nature. These rankings are winnowed out from surveys and are far from being objective. The quality of education, which these rakings attempt to measure, is immeasurable. This leads people behind these rankings to create self-imposed criteria. This criteria, along with its results, will conversely vary from one study (or survey) to another, from one period of time to another. These variations and other subjective factorsare poor determinants of who should the top sxchools be. This is then the central reason why I describe school rankings to be pointless and aimless. To put it buntly, these rankings are being disclosed for the sheer glorification of certain institutions.
To a large extyent, school rankings could be a potential antecedent for school bashing. Institutions, regardless of their perceived academic superiority, were established to promote learning. If we continue to be fanatics of school rankings, this would just create a broader gap between the so-caled top schools and the lesser-fancied schools. This gap would mean a monopoly of quality education, which should not be the case. I am a firm believer that knowledge is universal. And the so-called quality education largely depends on the learner himself.
I am from New Era University. I am not from any of those top schools, but I have learned what I’m suppose to learn.
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