http://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/business/2014/07/06/graduate-programs-should-address-dev-t-needs-study-352291

DESPITE a number of academic institutions offering post-graduate studies nationwide, a study recently released by state-owned think tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) said graduate studies must also cater to the country’s development needs. The study carried out through the PIDS-Commission on Higher Education research project was titled, "An Assessment of the State of Graduate Education Programs in the Philippines” and authored by PIDS Research Consultant Mira Alexis Ofreneo. Ofreneo said academic institutions must determine if the graduate education programs they offer contribute to the skills and competencies needed in the labor market. She added that these material and doctoral programs must also develop the competencies of students to manage schools, corporations and government organizations. "Graduate education also ensures the steady supply of graduates who can teach master’s and doctoral programs later on. But is the country producing them simply to meet this human resource need? While our graduate education programs are needed to produce good teachers and good managers, it is critical to analyze how the country’s graduate education system can best serve the needs of the country to meet its development goals,” Ofreneo said in a PIDS policy note. Ofreneo’s data showed that there are a total of 2,299 higher-education institutions (HEIs) in the Philippines. Around 656 of these are state universities and colleges (SUCs), while 1,643 are private HEIs. Only a total of 647 HEIs or 28 percent offer master’s programs and 313 or 14 percent offer doctoral programs. The master’s programs with the most number of graduates are Education at 27 percent; Nursing, 14 percent; and Business Administration, 11 percent. Education Management, Public Administration, Teaching, Management, Information Technology, Master of Arts programs, and Public Health were among the programs that landed in the top 10. Meanwhile, Ofreneo said the most widely offered doctoral programs are Educational Management at 45 percent; Education, 25 percent; and Public Administration, 19 percent. That landed in the top 10 are Business Administration, Philosophy, Management, Development Education, Science Education, Educational Administration and Business Management. "Given that the top doctoral programs, such as Educational Administration, Business Administration, and Public Administration are avenues for developing the leaders of the country’s schools, HEIs, and private and public sectors, it is important to ask if their current curricula are adequately preparing our future managers and administrators,” Ofreneo said. Recently, Dr. Tereso Tullao of the Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies of De La Salle University, said the country still has a lot of catching up to do to raise the competitiveness level of Philippine higher education. The Philippines is ranked 67th in higher education and training and 81st in tertiary enrollment in the 2013-2014 Global Competitiveness Report. The report assessed the competitiveness of 148 companies to provide insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. "In relation to this, only 21.5 percent of the more than 2,200 HEIs in the country have some form of accreditation,” Tullao said. Only 12.7 percent of 130,000 faculty members have doctoral degrees. In terms of the number of Scopus-listed articles for each Asean University Network (AUN) member-university, three universities in the Philippines are identified. The University of the Philippines - Diliman has produced 2,108; De La Salle University 1,028; and Ateneo de Manila University 440, Tullao said. Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database for academic journal articles. It covers nearly 21,000 titles from over 5,000 publishers. However, these figures are measly compared with the National University of Singapore (NUS) that has produced 74,560 documents and has the highest cumulative number of Scopus-listed documents in the Asean region, Tullao said. Leaders of the services sector agree that the graduate education programs in the country should advance Philippine services sectors in the Asia-Pacific region given that the country has vast potentials to be the heart of services trade in the Asia Pacific.//