Palace concerned over drop of PHL schools in world rankings

Malacañang on Tuesday expressed concern over the failure of Philippine universities to make it to the list of top 300 tertiary educational institutions worldwide, saying it should be a wake up call to the whole country. "Yes, it is a cause for concern. Remember that the President (Benigno Aquino III) ultimately wants to create an economic environment where people can have jobs; where jobs are available and they’re plentiful and they can be filled by our own people," Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang said at a press briefing. "The fact that our educational institutions have not ranked very well I think is, first of all, it’s not new. But certainly that’s a concern for the Department of Education and it’s something that we need to do something about," he added. Asked if President Aquino has issued any particular instruction to the concerned agencies, Carandang said he is not sure if such is necessary, but quickly stressed that the Department of Education and Commission on Higher Education have been addressing the problem ever since. "So two-pronged naman (ang programa ng DepEd) mula sa umpisa: improving access (to education) and improving quality. And I think the report really just emphasizes the need to improve quality of education that our universities provide," he said.

Top 300 list In the QS World University Rankings 2011 released Monday, no Philippine university made it to the top 300 list, which was once again topped by the United Kingdom’s Cambridge University. University of the Philippines (UP), which used to be ranked 314th in 2010, dropped to 332, according to the QS survey. Ateneo de Manila University (AdMU), meanwhile, fell to 360 from 307 last year, and De La Salle University (DLSU) went down from the 451-500 bracket to the 551-600 bracket this year. University of Santo Tomas (UST), on the other hand, fell out of the Top 600 universities from the 551-600 bracket in 2010. "If a university is not included in the top 600, it does not in any way imply that it is offering substandard service to students," clarified QS editor Danny Byrne in a phone interview aired on GMA Network's late evening news program "Saksi" Monday night. For his part, Commission on Higher Education (CHED) executive director Julito Vitriolo in a phone interview also on "Saksi" said: "Iyong rationalization strategies natin at quality assurance mechanisms ay pinagtutuunan ng pansin ngayon, kasi napakarami na rin ang mga kolehiyo at programa, kung kaya iyong mga substandard na programa o paaralan ay kailangan i-phase out na rin. The QS World University Rankings evaluates universities around the world based on indicators like academic peer review, citations per faculty member, number of international students and faculty, and student-faculty ratio. QS also evaluates the universities' performance in teaching five key subject areas, namely, Arts and Humanities; Engineering and IT; Life Sciences and Biomedicine; Natural Sciences; and Social Sciences. — RSJ, GMA News