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In the 2008 Times Higher Education Supplement-Quacquarelli Symonds (THES-QS) world university rankings, not one of the universities in Cebu made it. Not surprising. What is more telling is that only two of the 2000 universities in the country are on the top 500 and not at all near the top 100. University of the Philippines is at 398th, Ateneo de Manila University at 451st, while the rest who were “in” last year (De La Salle University and University of Santo Tomas) have dropped out altogether.
What is most depressing is that countries which used to look with envy at Philippine education, sending their students here some four decades ago, now have more on the list: Thailand and Malaysia have five each; Indonesia, three; Singapore, two (and only because if I recall correctly, they have only two higher education institutions anyway). Worse, our neighbors’ universities also rank higher than Ateneo or UP.
Academicians have assailed the methodology of THES-QS, especially because it tends to use a university’s level of internationalization and job recruiters’ choices as yardsticks. Some, however, defend the survey as reliable because the academic world in fact has standards that ought to be common to all and which are very measurable. The survey’s validity is seen, for example, in the fact that universities in such developing nations as Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines do make it to the top 500.
This was the reality as the first semester wound down last week with the University of San Carlos gathering its administrators and academic managers for a two-day assessment prelude to planning the next three years. This semi-annual exercise – this time led by a new president, Fr. Dionisio Miranda, SVD – has been going on for USC, and I suppose, for other universities, for a few years now in an attempt to beat the odds of an educational system trapped in dead calm these past two decades, like the proverbial sailor waiting for the winds to move his ship out of the doldrums.
Despite hundreds of millions of pesos invested in infrastructure and facilities over the last five years, USC faces the daunting task of sustaining its avowed reputation as the premier university south of Manila because government subsidies to higher education – especially those courses that traditionally do not have large enrollments – are but a trickle. That it has managed to produce topnotchers among its graduates (No. 1 in Civil Engineering; No. 4 in Architecture this year, for example) is no mean feat considering this near-absence of state-sponsored assistance. The same can be said of the other private educational institutions in Cebu that contribute the much-needed manpower for building the nation but receive a pittance from the State.
I always think, tough, that the task is doubly difficult on the part of USC because it is nearly a century ahead of the others in providing tertiary education in Cebu. Much is expected of it, not just in providing quality college education, but more so for its graduate programs which are in the business of knowledge production.
Just where is the State in all of these? The Commission on Higher Education is heavily saddled with attending to the needs of over 2000 universities, many of which were created by congressmen just to suit their constituents’ wants (not needs, mind you) even if these are barely able to pretend to be universities at all.
The time has come to take the plight of the Philippine educational system seriously. Instead of propping up moribund academic institutions, why not just offer comprehensive scholarships – the whole gamut, from tuition to cost of living – for students to attend a few but very highly reputable state-supported universities? This is what Singapore did 10 years ago, when it decided to pour its billions to support just one institution. Today, the National University of Singapore is ranked 30th in the world. It is never too late to follow this lead. Or, we can just wait till this proverbial creaking ship now trapped in the doldrums finally sinks to the bottom of the ocean of ignominy.
