Angara reveals 3-point agenda to revive
the quality of Philippine education

Reelectionist Senator Edgardo J. Angara (LDP) today revealed a 3-point agenda to revive the quality of education, as well as to address the problem of Filipino competitiveness in the global manpower industry.

"Higher education has now become international. Today, we train people not just for our manpower needs. We train them for the world. And when people from other countries come here, they will come here to look for the global-quality graduates," said Angara at the 20TH Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines (AACCUP).

Angara, a former University of the Philippines President, highlighted three areas of reformation: (1) upgrading academic standards in line with internationalization of higher education, (2) revisiting the mission and priorities of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), and (3) developing the quality of education in specific fields such as Science and Technology, Mathematics, and Engineering Research and Development.

"To meet international benchmarks, we need to consciously and systematically bring up our academic standards more than the ordinary. We must upgrade the skills and qualifications of students because they are a tribute to their institution and to the country," Angara said.

Angara also said that CHED was intended to be the vehicle to push the development of higher education rather than simply serve as a regulatory body.

"I noticed that several of CHED's programs are probably not priority at all, and should be relegated to the ordinary education support. Our original conception of CHED was that it should be developmental and that it should have a separate funding at its disposal to help develop priority programs," said Angara who wrote the law which created CHED in 1994.

In the approved 2007 national budget, Angara added a P65-million budget for more Science and Mathematics scholarships, especially for the training of teachers in these fields.

"Teachers are our primary nation-builders. We should strengthen the number of our teaching population in science and technology because these are wealth-generating fields to combat poverty," he said.

Angara also noted that the Philippines has slid down 29 places in the competitiveness ladder as announced by the World Bank's World Economic Forum.

"No country in the world has slipped that rapidly and swiftly within a period of less than 5 years," Angara explained.

In the previous Congress, Angara, together with Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., created the Competitiveness Commission to urgently review the science and technology, engineering research and development programs of both private and public sectors.

Angara was the prime mover behind the three congressional commissions that studied and effected major reforms in Philippine education, the health sector and agriculture sector.