Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) has found an unlikely ally in the militant Kabataan party-list group which issued a statement yesterday against the plan to “internationalize” the Philippine academic calendar by moving the school opening from June to August or September.
Kabataan party list Rep. Terry Ridon urged the Commission on Higher Education to stick to its recommendation not to change the academic calendar in order to align it with other schools in the region, saying this had a lot of disadvantages and could result in higher tuition fees.
Ridon urged CHEd not to approve any requests for changes in the dates of school openings.
The manual prescribes that the academic years of colleges and universities should be in June, and also says that “any change in the prescribed school calendar shall require the approval of the Commission.” The application must be filed in the regional office not later than 15 days before the school term begins, Ridon said.
Power to reject
CHEd has the power to reject any shift in the academic calendar, Ridon said.
“Disapproving the proposed calendar shift is the most logical thing to do, considering that even CHEd’s technical working group advised against it,” he said in a statement.
In opposing the academic calendar shift, Ridon said the proposed August to May school year was “incongruent with the climate, culture and orientation of our education system that it poses dire ramifications to our students and faculty.”
The CHEd issued a position paper last week advising against changing the school schedule. It said the shift would not necessarily “internationalize” colleges and universities. What must be focused on is checking the quality of students and seeing if this measures up to international standards, it said.
The top universities—University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila, University of Santo Tomas and De La Salle—have already announced their respective plans to change their academic calendars in preparation for the forthcoming integration of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations economies in 2015, since it would synchronize the school year with that of other countries in the region.
‘Education tourism’
Ridon argued that the academic calendar shift would just give rise to “education tourism,” where foreign students are enticed to get their degrees in the Philippines.
“Of course, if education becomes another tourist attraction, then we foresee that tuition rates would also come at tourist prices,” he said.
He also said the schedule change was linked to the government’s K-12 education program that adds two more years to high school education, and provides students with technical-vocational skills that would enable them to find jobs even without a college education.
“Putting two and two together, capitalist owners of private universities may be trying to offset the projected decrease in college enrollment due to K-12 by finding ways to boost foreign enrollment. The academic calendar shift can thus be seen as a way for capitalist college educators to recoup lost profits due to K-12,” he further argued.