Angara: No to foreign investment in education
AS the Senate continued public hearings on the Resolution of Both Houses 6 (RBH 6) on Tuesday, Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara reiterated his firm stance on keeping basic education closed to foreign investments.
Angara emphasized the importance of preserving values formation and nationalism in the country’s basic education system.
“You can rest assured we will not open up basic education. That was touched on by several resource persons. Last week, many were saying that this should not be opened,” he said at the continuation of the hearing of the Senate subcommittee tackling RBH 6, which seeks to amend specific economic provisions in the 1987 Constitution concerning public services, educational institutions, and advertising.
He issued the statement after hearing the position of the Department of Education (DepEd) against the proposal to allow foreign ownership in education by amending Paragraph 2, Section 4, Article 14 of the Constitution.
Highlighting the significance of values and national identity, Angara said the intention from the beginning was never to open basic education to foreign investment.
“At the outset of the educational institutions’ session, we already said the intention was not to open up basic education [because of the] importance of values formation, nationalism, among others, exactly what you said,” Angara told DepEd Assistant Secretary Francis Cesar Bringas.
Bringas said that DepEd opposed the proposed amendment to allow foreign entities to control and administer educational institutions in the Philippines, citing its “far-reaching consequences and serious implications for the department’s mandate and functions.”
DepEd cautioned that the proposal to include the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” in the constitutional provision “could potentially serve as a gateway to expand the scope of control and administration over educational institutions, not solely by citizens of the Philippines, but by other entities as well.”
Safeguards
A senior lawmaker assured the public that safeguards would be in place if and when foreign schools and universities set up shop in the country amid continued concern over their operation once the amendment allowing them gets approved in a plebiscite.
The idea was raised after the DepEd and the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) offered differing views on the proposal to allow foreign schools, which is one of the key measures in the Resolution of Both Houses (RBH) 7 being heard in the House Committee of the Whole.
Education Undersecretary Omar Romero said the department opposed the idea of foreign entities owning schools in the country, as it poses a possible threat to student’s sense of nationality and the country’s national security.
He added that it could dilute the Filipino identity and culture once foreigners enter the country and own schools.
However, CHEd Chairman Prospero de Vera 3rd said that opening up the ownership of educational institutions will make them more competitive in their efforts to internationalize their schools.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, Assistant Majority Leader and Nueva Ecija 1st District Rep. Mikaela Angela Suansing said there would be standards to ensure that foreign institutions that may operate in the country would follow the rules of the country in terms of curriculum and teaching, like what Indonesia did when they liberalized their education system to foreign investment.
“We can use it as a model where there is still control and DepEd and CHEd have oversight before they can begin their curriculum,” he said.
Suansing, a graduate of Harvard University, believes that the entry of foreign institutions will allow the country’s top schools to “strive harder” to compete with overseas schools.