Tatty Licuanan was an acknowledged academic before she was plucked from the idyllic life of a professor and planted in the bureaucracy that is CHED. A CHED chairman is more than just primus inter pares. The chairman sets the tune, synchronizes the movements and promotes what she prioritizes in the same way that she consigns to the back burner whatever she may deem unimportant, if not impertinent. It is clear from her stewardship that she hailed from the private higher education institution sector. She all but smothered the autonomy that state universities and colleges used to enjoy under their respective charters. But even with her comrades in private education, she had run ins. Her spat with Fr. Joel Tabora, SJ will long be remembered by members of the Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines. This was over CMO 46 on outcomes-based education and I sided with Fr. Joel on some legal points, although I have always recognized the merits of OBE.
If there is anything I wish the next chairman of CHED would address, it is the issue of over-regulation. One aspect of this is the de-bureaucratizing of higher education. For starters, the practice of issuing “Standards and Policies” that eventually morph into inflexible rules should gradually fade into oblivion. Allow higher education institutions to structure curricula according to what they discern to be the demands of holistic human formation as well as the needs of society, industry and government. That is one reason that Article XIV of the Constitution confines the role of the State to “reasonable regulation,” studiously avoiding the word “control.” Higher education is never controlled, else it ceases to be higher education. After all, institutions that do a sloppy job at curriculum design and delivery of instruction pay the price: No thoughtful student will want her credentials from a college or a university that society does not recognize for excellence.
At the moment, the drive for recognition drives institutions into a chaotic web of criss-crossing, interlocking, confusing and conflicting demands. On the one hand, voluntary accreditation always earns an institution some points, but some accrediting institutions are notable, some are downright pathetic. Sometimes accreditors come from schools worse off than the schools they assess and evaluate. And what started off as a voluntary accreditation by peer institutions that had clustered themselves into organizations (PAASCU, PACU-COA, etc.) has been co-opted by the CHED, because of the control it has over the recognition of accreditors. Aside from that, several colleges and universities seek ISO certification—and many times, the agencies selected for certification purposes are ill-suited to certify educational systems, being designed principally for industrial or corporate settings. Then there is the CHED sponsored drive for Center of Excellence or Center of Development Status in connection with its typology. Some coherence must be brought into this mess—and once more, the principle should embody respect for subsidiarity: what institutions can do by themselves should be left to them.
One reason for the excellence of the University of the Philippines is that freedom that it enjoys. Precisely because it can choose its professors and rank them as it pleases, design its curricula, introduce innovations in methods of delivery, even create new programs without external restrictions, it is excellent. Should that not point in the direction higher education institutions should go? Intrinsic to the life of higher education is academic freedom, and overregulation always results in a bastardization of this precious freedom. Let every competent individual do the research he chooses to do. And when he is ready to announce and to teach, leave him free to do so. If is wisdom that he has, the wise will flock to him and hang on his every word. If it is garbage he has to offer, only fools will trail behind him.
Finally, there is the very challenging matter of implementing the Universal Access to Quality Higher Education Act. There is no doubt that its provisions are beneficial. And since IRRs can neither expand nor derogate from the law, even in the absence of definite IRRs, I can recognize what will be so difficult to deal with. Is the State prepared to absorb the costs that the law calls for? In state universities and colleges, students will not pay any fees at all, although these institutions are directed to devise schemes by which students may “opt out” of the no-fee scheme and contribute to their education. I do not see too many willing to “opt out.” A more practicable proposition would be socializing the collection of fees—for the simple and straightforward fact is that many who are enrolled in state institutions can very well afford the costs of their education and should therefore not be entitled to the benefits afforded those who are truly at the economic and social fringes of society.
The whole commission will have to put its act together—and the commissioners are all worthy people. Commissioner Lilian de las Llagas, who is chair-Designate of the Cagayan State University, has given us all at CSU some fresh and challenging perspectives from which our university officials can pick their cues and leads. And we do not have any right to expect the new chair to wave a wand and make all our troubles burst like bubbles. We do have a right though to expect leadership that does not kowtow to political interests, that is born of the loftiest of ideals and that springs for an educated and an educator’s heart.
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@outlook.com