SOME RADICAL THOUGHTS ON

PHILIPPINE HIGHER

EDUCATIONAndrew Gonzales, F.S.C.

THE RADICAL THOUGHTS

1. We have too many people in college creating the educated un-employed.

Cited Situations:

a. In the United States, there are eleven million tertiary level students in a population of over 200 million, or 20:1.

b. Japan has a population of over 100 million and has 2 million University students, or a proportion of over 50:1.

2. We should not overspecialize but attempt to keep the ideal of a liberal education alive.

CITED:

a. If you examine the basic or core curriculum of our colleges and universities, based on minimum requirements’ prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), more particular, these days recommended by the Bureau of Higher Education, you will find that the requirement on basic English (18 units), Pilipino (6), Philosophy and Social Science (6), Spanish (12), Science (with lab. 15), and required courses such as Rizal, Current Issues (including the new constitution, taxation and land reform, population Education), Philippine History and Government, are really what we call general education or basic education in the arts sciences or the liberal arts.

WHAT IS NEEDED IN THE PHILIPPINES?

1.Improvement of the teaching and content of the required subjects

2.More Specializations.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. To open new majors,2. To improve existing

ones,

THE RADICAL THOUGHTS

3. We have too many students in Commerce and Business Administration, Education, Liberal Arts and not enough in Technical and Vocational Education.

BREAKDOWN FROM MEC 1978

Number of Enrollees Rank

Commerce and

Business

294,049 1

Engineering and

Technology

168,155 2

Liberal Arts and

Sciences

105,965 3

Medical Sciences 103, 792 4

Agriculture 54, 651 5

Teacher Education 48, 884 6

Graduate Education 25, 630 7

Law and Foreign

Service

17, 723 8

THE RADICAL THOUGHTS

4. We shall improve Philippine higher Education by strengthening our undergraduate programs and not opening any more new graduate programs; otherwise we shall overtrain people.

QUESTION;

What will the country do with all these MA’s and Ph.D.’s?

ANSWER

If these MA’s and Ph.D.’s were MA’s and Ph.D.’s comparable to those in developed countries. In most cases, they are not. The title does not really matter.

THE RADICAL THOUGHTS

5. Those who are not fit for college work should be channeled into vocational and technical education.

Given the urgent need we have for skilled craftsmen and industrial technicians and engineering technologists, this downgrading of vocational and technical education, often expressed even by some of the highest authorities of our Ministry of Education and Culture, is truly discouraging.

CONCLUSION

To meet such necessities, we need development. And for development, we need excellent schools. And excellent schools will be bought forth, educed, only if our objectives are clear, our givens realistically assessed, and our plans and strategies examined with our own eyes and not those of the outside.