Senator Sherwin Gatchalian on Sunday urged the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to crack down on diploma mills and substandard graduate programs that exploit educators seeking to improve their qualifications.
“It is our learners who ultimately suffer from this cycle of mediocrity,” he said in a social media post.
Gatchalian said such institutions undermine the quality of education by offering programs that fail to enhance teaching competence.
According to the senator, schools must uphold high academic standards to ensure that graduate programs genuinely support professional development among educators.
“Teachers play the most important role in the education of our youth. We must ensure that they receive quality education and training,” he said.
The lawmaker also pressed the government to expedite the repair of classrooms damaged by natural disasters between June and October this year.
Delays in rehabilitation efforts, he warned, could worsen the classroom shortage, which currently stands at around 165,000.
Gatchalian proposed partnerships with local government units and the private sector to speed up the rebuilding process.
“Moving forward, we will ensure that the 2026 national budget empowers the Department of Education to adopt flexible and faster approaches in classroom construction, including partnerships with local government units and the private sector,” he said.
Following findings that lax regulation has allowed “diploma mills” offering poor-quality master’s and doctoral degrees to thrive in the country, the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM 2) also urged CHED to intensify its oversight of graduate programs in teacher education.
In a statement issued on October 31, EDCOM 2 called on CHED to tighten quality regulations on graduate programs after finding widespread low-quality offerings and the rise of so-called diploma mills.
In its latest study, Investigating the State of Graduate Education in the Philippines: Challenges, Opportunities, and Policy Implications, EDCOM 2 found that government policies on hiring and promotions, particularly in the Department of Education (DepEd), have unintentionally fueled the demand for poor-quality graduate degrees.
Conducted through a research fellowship with the Ateneo de Manila University and authored by Anne Lan K. Candelaria, Eric Arthur N. Dio, and Jovelyn G.
Delosa, the study revealed that more than half of total graduate school enrollment in the country from School Year (SY) 2012–2013 to SY 2023–2024 is concentrated in the field of education.
This demand, the study said, is largely driven by DepEd’s vertical qualification requirements and point-based promotion system.
The authors warned that these policies have created a “diploma-for-promotion” cycle, incentivizing educators to pursue degrees primarily for career advancement rather than academic excellence or professional growth.
“Data from CHED show that in the last 10 school years, more than half of our country’s total enrollment in graduate programs is in the field of education,” the authors said in a separate article.
“Yet our elementary and secondary students in the basic education sector have been lagging based on Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and Programme for International Student Assessment results in the last 20 years. In some of these years, the Philippines ranked at the bottom,” they added.
The study also pointed out that this trend has created an imbalance in producing graduates with specialized knowledge in fields such as mathematics and the sciences, which public schools urgently need.
This imbalance, the study said, has deprived schools of graduates with specialized training in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)—fields essential to national competitiveness.
EDCOM 2 Executive Director Dr. Karol Mark Yee said the findings reflect public frustration with a system that rewards credentials over competence.
“There is a strong public perception that the pursuit of advanced degrees has at times become transactional—a means to gain promotion points rather than to enhance teaching competence,” Yee said.
“This sentiment is fueled by a perceived failure to properly regulate institutions, leading to a situation where, as many have pointed out, low-quality or ‘fly-by-night’ schools provide the same career benefits as high-quality universities,” he added. “This reality undermines the very purpose of professional development and points to an urgent need for systemic reform.”
