Is the University of the Philippines on Its Way to Self-Reliance?
The University of the Philippines (UP) Board of Regents has recently elected a new president, Alfredo E. Pascual. The incoming president is a retired executive from the Asian Development Bank, and is, at present, the univeristy’s Alumni regent. Coming from a finance and development, rather than an academic, background, the incoming UP president might be able to implement bold measures that can help overhaul the current UP administrative and financial setup, which would help lead it toward a of future self-reliance.
Recall that the UP community (of which my wife and I are alumni) is often critical of any change that might hint at “commercialism.” I would agree that UP has used its budget allocation as a crutch, and that the system might not exactly be administratively streamlined at this point. In a Philippine Star column, Boo Chanco describes the current ails of the state university, mostly due to ages-old charter — policies and regulations that limit it from being more forward-looking in terms of finances and efficiency.
Chanco cites a paper by Kalayaan Magno that details how the UP is simply be a huge and inefficient bureaucracy that’s tantamount to being an “ivory tower made from the tusks of a white elephant” in the Philippine educational system. “[I]f UP indeed is the best school in the country, it should have enough talent and skill to create and sustain its own wealth.”
Maybe with a new UP president, it’s time for UP to start turning around. It has more than enough human talent to make studies and implement efficiency. It has more than enough natural resources — particularly land — that it can take advantage of in profitable efforts. This way, a state university education will be more attuned with the times, and the university’s burgeoning bureaucracy will no longer be an added load to the dwindling national government resources. This way, the Philippine government can allocate more funds to primary and secondary education, in order to better prepare the youth for a quality higher education.
