The Medium-Term Development Plan for Higher Education, 2005-2010 (MTDPHE, 2005-2010) articulates how the higher education system could contribute to the attainment of the national development goals through its three main functions namely: human resources development (HRD), research, and extension.

The thrusts of MTDPHE are based on the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan: 2005-2010 (MTPDP, 2005-2010) and the Unifying Human Resources Development Framework of the Philippines (UHRDFP). The MTPDP outlines the government’s development goals, strategies and action plans in the next six years to reduce the incidence of poverty and spread the fruits of economic prosperity to the greatest number of Filipinos. The primary goal is to improve access to and success in higher education through improved quality of higher education institutions, stronger research and extension, and rationalized governance and financing of higher education.

The UHRDFP, on the other hand, defines the crucial mix played by the government and the private sector in the development of the country’s human resources. The MTDPHE draws upon the two elements of the UHRDFP: (a) the contribution of HRD to the process of development including alleviation of poverty, employment, universal access to education, and full participation in the fruits of economic growth; and (b) the impact of HRD on human development so that individuals may attain their potentials as human beings and become productive and versatile citizens.

A Vision for Higher Education in the Philippines

The higher education institutions (HEIs) shall be key players in advancing new knowledge for the improvement of academic instruction, productivity enhancement and job creation, and in addressing the key issues confronting the Philippine society.

The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) is envisioned to be the lead catalyst in transforming the country into a prime knowledge center in Southeast Asia by revitalizing HEIs and ensuring that their renewed roles in a dynamic environment are fulfilled.

As its direct input to poverty reduction, higher education shall supply, through its HRD function, competent basic service providers such as teachers, health and social workers to respond to the needs of the population. At the same time, higher education will produce globally competitive professionals, entrepreneurs and high-level technical manpower for the domestic and international market.

Higher education will generate, adapt and apply knowledge and technologies for generating jobs and income and improving productivity through its research and extension functions. Specifically, it shall promote and support transfer of technologies generated by HEIs for improving production particularly in agriculture and small and medium enterprises.

The higher education system further aims to contribute to the peace process, bureaucratic reforms and fiscal-strengthening goals through efficient and effective management of the higher education system and various programs that promote values formation, social integration, corporatization initiatives and entrepreneurship.

Mission of Higher Education in the Philippines

It is the mission of the higher education system of the Philippines to provide HEIs that are innovative, responsive, accessible, and effective towards the social transformation of the country.

These HEIs shall be dynamic and conscious in promoting the academic pillars of quality instruction, research and extension. Their programs and activities shall be relevant to the needs of their clientele, stakeholders, and the communities they serve. Access to quality higher education will be provided to capable Filipinos regardless of socio-economic status.

State of Higher Education in the Philippines

The higher education system in the Philippines consists of 1,619 colleges and universities, 1,443 of which are private HEIs and 176 public HEIs. The public institutions include 111 State Universities and Colleges (SUCs), 50 Local Colleges and Universities (LCUs) and 15 special government schools that include the Philippine Military Academy and the Local Government Academy.

These colleges and universities serve more than 2.4 million higher education students and produce more than 400,000 graduates each year. For Academic Year (AY) 2004-2005, the overall enrollment in various academic programs reached 2,402,315. About two-thirds (66%) of the total higher education enrollment is served by the private HEIs while the rest (34%) is absorbed by the SUCs, LCUs, other government schools and special higher education institutions.

The most popular programs in the undergraduate level are those related to business administration. These attract around 22 percent of the total number of students (AY 2004-2005). Business administration is followed by medical sciences (17%), education (16%), engineering (14%), mathematics and computer science (9%). Among graduate programs, teacher- training accounts for 43 percent and business administration draws 27 percent of the total enrollment in the master’s level. Teacher-training is still the leading program in the Ph.D. level with over 50 percent of the total enrolment, followed by programs in business administration (20%) and humanities (8%).

In terms of faculty qualification, the current proportion of faculty members with graduate degrees is 31 percent with master’s and nine percent with Ph.D. degrees. In comparison, the proportion of faculty members in HEIs with master’s degrees in 2000 was 26 percent, while the proportion of those with Ph.D. degrees was eight percent.

Over the years, access to higher education has been enhanced through the various financial assistance programs including the Private Education Student Financial Assistance, State Scholarship Program, student study grants and loans. In AY 2003-2004 alone, 52,013 students benefited from these scholarships and financial assistance programs. On the other hand, the number of graduates from the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEEAP) has increased to 501 from 39 of AY 2000-2001. The ETEEAP provides accreditation and equivalency of learning and competencies acquired outside of the formal education system.

In terms of targets of the previous plan, the accomplishments in quality and excellence were centered on faculty development, research, active role of technical panels, and accreditation. Under the thrust of relevance and responsiveness, the major accomplishments were focused on the recognition and dissemination of research outputs, development of employment planning and monitoring system, and review of curricular programs. On access and equity, the major accomplishment may be seen in the increase in the number of beneficiaries given scholarships and other forms of financial assistance. The thrust on effectiveness and efficiency has been addressed with the improvement of the information system of HEIs and implementation of various studies towards the rationalization of higher education institutions in the country.

Even with these accomplishments, a lot remains to be done such as: (a) massive retraining of faculty members for advanced degrees; (b) periodic accreditation and monitoring of HEIs; (c) making HEI programs internationally comparable; (d) strengthening graduate education to promote and enhance research culture in HEIs; (e) transfer and utilization of knowledge and technologies for job creation and productivity enhancement; and (f) better targeting of student financial assistance to benefit the really poor and deserving, among others.

In addition, there are several issues that have to be addressed in the new plan in order to improve the management of the system. These include: (a) determination of the optimal balance between the regulatory and developmental functions of CHED; (b) the role of CHED in the governance of SUCs; (c) rationalization of SUCs; (d) monitoring of programs of LCUs; and (e) coordination among CHED, TESDA and DepEd for the proper articulation of their distinct roles and complementary functions within the human resources development framework.

Key Challenges in Higher Education

The current MTDPHE recognizes the most pressing challenges faced by the higher education system in the next five years. These are:

• to respond critically and strategically to the human resources development challenges from both the domestic and international arena;
• to be more proactive in mobilizing knowledge to directly contribute to productivity by, for example, re-orienting university-based research and development towards systematic and purposive utilization of research outputs to generate employment and support poverty reduction; and
• to assist in the overall effort of the national government to attain social, bureaucratic and fiscal reforms through human resources development and effective and efficient management.

Challenges Anchored on the Three Functions of Higher Education

Human Resources Development

A mechanism for life-long learning in the human resources development framework is needed to address rapid developments in various fields and respond to the changes in the requirements of various occupations. Such mechanism is the Unified National Qualifications Framework (UNQF) that responds to the need of having a clear-cut recognition of qualifications and credentials across national borders. It can serve as a means for the establishment of equivalency pathways and access ramps for a ladderized system allowing for easier transition and progressions between technical and vocational education and higher education.

In line with the MTPDP thrust to reduce poverty through the provision of basic services, CHED identified as priority Teacher Education and Health-related disciplines to produce competent basic services providers. Equally considered priority are the disciplines that will produce the skills needed by the nine Key Employment Generators (KEGs) identified in the 2006 National Manpower Summit Report, namely: agri-business, cyberservices, ICT-related disciplines, science and math, engineering, maritime, agriculture, and entrepreneurship.

Research

In order to promote and enhance the research culture in higher education, there is a need to develop graduate education in the medium term. Higher-level fields must be identified to encourage graduate schools to really respond to national development needs. Likewise, there is need to train the faculty for these purposes. Grants for graduate studies in all fields should be given to qualified students.

Research activities and graduate programs, although important, are very expensive to undertake. In this light, consortium arrangements in the research and graduate programs can be established on a regional basis among various HEIs. This will reinforce the complementation and partnership between private and public HEIs as well as contribute towards the rationalization of graduate programs of public HEIs. Moreover, the CHED Higher Education Development Fund should be utilized to promote the culture of research in graduate programs.

Extension Services

Another avenue for enhancing relevance of higher education is through participation in addressing the needs of the community where the HEIs are located. In areas where SUCs are not present, LCUs serve as alternatives since they are created based on the needs of the communities. Aside from manpower training, HEIs can extend various services to uplift the social environment in the community. Their research activities can address the employment and economic needs of the community. Industries and products in the community can be improved and expanded to enhance their competitive edge through application of research outputs of HEIs. Based on the outputs of various research activities, HEIs can serve as advocates for certain issues.

Development Thrusts: Policies and Strategies

The MTDPHE outlines policies and strategies that focus on improving the functions of higher education and its contribution towards national development.

In order to improve higher education’s contribution to poverty reduction through HRD, the following strategies will be pursued: (a) broaden access to higher education by providing student assistance to poor but deserving students through grants and loans and by expanding alternative modes of delivery; (b) address quantitative mismatch by redirecting course preferences of students towards priority disciplines, improving capacity of colleges and universities for priority programs, and developing and implementing ladderized programs; and (c) address quality mismatch by improving quality of student inputs, promoting IT-enabled, market-driven and internationally-comparable programs, strengthening quality assurance systems, upgrading faculty qualifications, and establishment of international linkages.

The higher education sub-sector likewise aims to maximize its contributions to the mobilization of knowledge to improve productivity through human resources development, research and extension with the following strategies: (a) promote higher education research in aid of national-regional development; (b) strengthen graduate education particularly in the sciences, engineering and agriculture to produce scientists, researchers and extension workers and support upgrading of laboratories, libraries and other research facilities; (c) promote research output utilization by supporting extension programs of HEIs to facilitate transfer of technology to end-users, particularly in agriculture, fisheries, veterinary medicine and to support small and medium enterprises; and (d) promote, facilitate and sustain partnership between HEIs and industrial entities for joint research and extension projects, for application and commercialization of research outputs and for improving livelihood and entrepreneurship and quality of life of nearby communities.

Finally, the higher education system aims to support and contribute to anti-corruption, the peace process, bureaucratic reform and fiscal strengthening by improving effectiveness and efficiency of higher education management through: (a) integration of values formation in higher education programs, particularly in the National Service Training Program and other relevant subjects; (b) promoting integration of indigenous communities; (c) supporting integration of Madaris to mainstream higher education system; (d) rationalizing structure, programs and fees of HEIs; (e) strengthening income generating capacities of SUCs; (f) rationalizing public HEIs through the implementation of normative financing formula in allocating budget for SUCs; and (g) rationalizing the utilization of the Higher Education Development Fund.

Plan Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation

The CHED shall start the implementation of the MTDPHE by convening the Technical Working Group and task groups responsible for preparing the specific programs, projects and activities for each component listed in the sub-sectoral concerns, legislative and research agenda, with the active participation of its Regional Offices, the public and private HEIs, the accreditation agencies, and various government and non-government organizations involved in higher education. It is expected that all cooperating development institutions will respond favorably to the recommended measures and interventions contained in the Plan.

In order to monitor the achievement of the higher education development goals as articulated in the MTDPHE as well as in the MTPDP, there is a need to strengthen the management information system of the higher education sub-sector and individual HEIs in relation to the labor market. Enhanced collection, processing and dissemination of higher education and labor market data will play an important role in monitoring the progress of higher education in the country especially in terms of improvement in its internal efficiency and external productivity

The various key responses and objectives of the four development thrusts of higher education will be monitored in terms of the implementation of the various policies, strategies, programs and projects. There will be an annual monitoring of the various performance measures of these key responses and objectives in the Plan. Towards the end of the planning period, a summative evaluation will be undertaken to determine whether the plan targets were met and whether projects and programs were properly implemented. These programs and projects will be evaluated in terms of their impact in addressing specific problems, issues and concerns as well as their contribution towards the attainment of the objectives of this Plan.

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