“Nagdududa ako… kung paano nila nakikita kung natututo ba talaga ang mga estudyante nila. Sabi nila they are using state of the art technology, kaya maraming dagdag na bayarin. Pero kung titingnan mo, sa mga teacher, sobrang baba ng bayad nila. Wala nga silang maayos na library. Wala silang maayos na lesson plan. Wala talagang maayos na pagsinsin sa mga materyal ng mga guro. In short, wala silang pakialam. Gusto lang nilang kumita” (I doubt whether they are able to gauge if the students learned or not. They said they are using state of the art technology for this, thus the many fees being charged. But if you are going to look at it closely, the teachers are underpaid; there is no decent library; there is no organized lesson plan; there is no system of organizing the learning materials provided by the teachers. In short, they don’t really care. Their only concern is profits), Virgil concluded.
Corporate machinations
Rizza Ramirez, national president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), noted that the increasing participation of private entities in tertiary education reveals the profitability of the education sector. Currently, there are 1,231 private higher education institutions (HEIs) as opposed to 111 state universities and colleges (SUCs). During the last 14 years alone, 595 private HEIs have been established.
Ramirez declared, “Given how private school owners earn huge profits, private HEIs appear like mushrooms.”
Some of these schools even operate without government permits, meaning these institutions have not been evaluated or inspected to assess if their facilities and programs are sufficient or at least fall within standards in terms of quality. Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Executive Director Roger Perez himself revealed that 26 schools offer 49 programs without government permits.
ABE International has been deemed the most delinquent, with its branches in Las Pinas, Taft and Caloocan offering four programs without permits.
The absence of these permits may also imply the poor performance of their students and the flaws in their programs. To illustrate, 115 HEI ’s registered 0 to 5 percent passing rates in various licensure exams from 1997-2001.
Moreover, these institutions charge exorbitant fees and justify the prices by claiming that the cost of quality education is expensive.
The CHED’s Report on Tuition Increase for 2002-2003 revealed that a regular 21-unit semester’s tuition in these colleges costs an average of P22,930 ($501) excluding dubious miscellaneous fees such as postal fee, cultural fee, athletics fee, “Smart fee” and copier fee at the AMA Computer College, and many others.
In light of CHED’s memorandum 13 stating that no consultation is required to impose such increases, these HEI’s are given unrestrained and dangerous freedom in imposing fees. Combined with the fact that they operate without even being evaluated and permitted by the authorities and regulating bodies, these HEI’s are in the perfect position to bank on the profitability of private education without any real aim to provide quality education.
Enticingly dangerous
While the advertisements may be grandiose and the jingles catchy, the real score remains bland and trite.
The supposed advantages of computer-based education have been blurred by commercial interests.
In this sense, promoting technology as a catch-word to attract would-be students is nothing more than a marketing scheme, designed to lure prospective clients to a substandard education.
The presence of such educational institutions highlights the evident crisis facing the education sector instead of underlining the supposed technological advancement in education. Expediency often takes over quality and the primary thrust is profitability instead of accessibility. In this condition, the mushrooming of a multitude of computer colleges cannot be attributed to a healthy education sector, but to an ailing, commercialized educational system.Philippine Collegian/Posted by Bulatlat
