The
Commission on Higher Education should
enforce “more vigorously” its policy of closing existing programs of state
colleges and universities (SUCs) that perform under par year after year in
Professional Board Examinations (PBEs).
This is one of the
recommendations of “Review and Assessment of Programs Offered by State Universities
and Colleges” co-written by Dr. Rosario Manasan and Danileen Kristel Parel,
senior research fellow and supervising research specialist, respectively, of
state think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS).
“It is worrisome that there
is a preponderance of universities and colleges with zero passing rate in many
professional board exams (PBEs) from 2004 to 2011,” the study noted.
“Furthermore, closer scrutiny of SUCs’ passing rate in PBEs indicate that a
good number of them post passing rates that are well below the national average
passing rate year after year.”
Degrees that have poor PBE
performance are agriculture, accountancy, criminology, electrical engineering,
electronics engineering, geodetic engineering, social work, elementary and
secondary education, library science, forestry, and environmental
planning. Data available show that the
median passing rate for 38 PBEs for 2004-2011ranged from 40 to 48 percent. Only
10 out of 38 PBEs had average passing rates above 60 percent and only 6 had
passing rates above 70 percent.
The study noted that the SUCs
offer “popular” courses even if these are beyond their core mandate. “Given the broad mandates of SUCs, it is not
surprising that there is substantial duplication in their program offerings
relative to those of private higher education institutions (PHEIs) and other
SUCs in the same region where they operate.”
Program duplication may be
considered a problem for a number of reasons. “One, the number of programs
offered by SUCs has been found empirically to tend to increase per student cost
of SUCs. Two, when SUCs offer programs that PHEIs traditionally offer, PHEIs
are effectively crowded out because the tuition fees charged by SUCs is
significantly lower than that of PHEIs.” PHEI officials note the seeming unfair
competition. While the CHED strictly
enforces its policies, standards and guidelines, some SUCs are allowed to offer
courses without the requisite facilities and qualified faculty.
While some SUC officials hold
that the poor PBE performance are currently being addressed by conducting
review classes and pre-board examinations, the study noted that these measures
will improve the passing rate but will not necessarily improve the quality of
instruction. Faculty development and upgrading of facilities are argued to be
more effective in improving overall performance.
The study also recommends the
following: (i) CHED should ensure that SUCs` program offerings comply with
policies, standards, and guidelines of the commission; (ii) CHED should weigh the advantages and
disadvantages of centralization over decentralization with respect to the
monitoring of SUCs; (iii) the CHED
regional director should become a regular member of the SUC Board; and (iv) the
normative funding formula should be adjusted so that SUCs do not get an
additional subsidy from the national government for the additional enrollment
resulting from their offering popular programs. SUCs may be allowed to offer
popular programs provided they meet CHED standards and shoulder the full cost
of offering those programs.
You may download the full
study from this link: http://dirp3.pids.gov.ph/webportal/CDN/PUBLICATIONS/pidsdps1429.pdf
(PIDS)
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