THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION

JULIE ANN R. CANCINO

The quality of education today depends if you are asking from private or public education or from primary, secondary or tertiary education. This discussion is limited to contrasting private and public tertiary education.

The quality of private education is at its height. Leading colleges and universities continuously attract and add young and bright minds to their faculty complement directly benefitting students with fresh ideas and perspectives. Private educational institutions are known to have state of the art facilities. The combination of these allow certain private universities to emerge as centers for excellence in certain fields (e.g., engineering, management, advertising, fine arts)

Public education, on the other hand, are a cause of concern. The perennial problem of underpaid teachers is still an issue to this day. Most state university professors serve so not for monetary considerations but out of a sense of patriotism and an altruistic instinct to help those who cannot afford private tertiary education. Budget is also a problem with State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) relying heavily on revenue grants from Congress. Owing to their status as government entities, SUCs do not have the capacity to earn their own revenue unlike their private counterparts.

Regardless, a bright takeaway from this that the margin between private and public tertiary educational institutions is narrowing instead of widening. With notable SUCs like the University of the Philippines, Polytechnic University of the Philippines and the Mindanao State University, there is a continuous effort to bring SUCs at par, if not better, than their private counterparts. Ultimately, a strong and robust public tertiary educational system will help unlock a the potential of generations to come to face the challenges of an uncertain future.

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The author is Teacher II at Diosdado Macapagal Memorial High School