DESPITE recognition as a premiere Philippine university, UST still needs to improve its curriculum and offer niche programs to attain international standards for quality education.
Office of International Relations and Programs Director Lilian Sison said upgrades and changes in the curriculum as well as additional scholarship programs were needed to maximize opportunities for students.
“There should be something done in the curriculum for global learning so other students get exposed,” Sison said.
Early this year, UST received a four-star rating in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) “Stars University Rating” system. The University recorded a perfect five-star rating in four of the eight criteria, namely: employability, facilities, engagement, and access, and four stars in the teaching category. It received a three-star rating in the internationalization criteria and one star for specialist criteria and research.
Sison defined internationalization as “mobility of students and mobility of professors.”
“Student representatives sent abroad are just small in number compared to the whole population of students in UST,” Sison said.
According to UST data sent to the QS, 73 percent of 790 international students were taking undergraduate degrees while 27 percent were in the graduate school.
According to Sison, teaching strategies, content of the curriculum, assessment, extracurricular activities and leadership should be considered in developing UST’s global competitiveness.
The latest annual report released by Sison’s office showed that the number of inbound students went up to 241 from 88 during the academic years 2012-2013 and 2014-2015, equivalent to a 174-percent increase in the total number of visiting foreign students. South Korea, Thailand and Australia were the top countries.
The office also recorded a 318-percent increase in the number of outbound students, from 55 to 230 in the past three years. A total of 190 students represented UST in international conferences and leadership camps last academic year.
UST also signed 93 memoranda of understanding last year to boost its internationalization program.
Globalization with localization
Sison said UST was on equal footing with the rest of the “big four universities” when it comes to internationalization.
“With the other [top three universities], I do not think we have any edge over them. We are more comprehensive in terms of programs,” Sison said.
In terms of local competency, Sison said UST must offer niche programs to showcase its strengths, and to “really identify” what UST is as an academic institution.
Sison said globalized learning was about “cross-cultural understanding,” and UST’s approach was to combine localization and global competitiveness.
Sison also said the University was expected to improve services to international students through the mobility of programs and research, international collaboration, dual degree programs and outcomes-based activities.
Cornelia Soto, chairwoman of the Ateneo de Manila University Department of Education, said interns from their institution receive good feedback from their partner universities abroad.
One of the internationalization programs of the Ateneo is the Junior Team Abroad, where third-year students, mostly from the business management program, are encouraged to train in partner-universities.
Ateneo also focuses on research, which involves a reward system from the school administration. This is because some teachers believe that they come to school to teach and not to do research, Soto said.
“[Internationalization] must be a two-pronged approach because if we do not attend to this, we will be really left behind,” Soto added.
The official newsletter of the De La Salle University External Relations Office showed that its total number of international and exchange students in AY 2014-2015 were dominated by Asian countries like South Korea and China.
Of the 714 foreign students in La Salle, 258 were from South Korea and 119 were from China. Most of the international students took business, education and liberal arts courses.
Improved quality
The ranking of Philippine higher education zoomed to 29th place last year from 69th in 2010, the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report showed.
The country’s higher educational system got 4.5 points, higher than the 3.8 average of 144 countries surveyed. Switzerland ranked first with 6 points out of the maximum 7.
The ranking of Philippine business schools meanwhile slid one place to 40th in 2014, but local schools kept an advantage over those in other Asian countries such as Japan and China, which ranked 72nd and 85th respectively.
The availability of specialized research and training services also improved, with the ranking going up to 49th last year from 77th in 2010. Internet accessibility among private and public academic institutions went up 10 places to 66th in the same period. J.P.P. Corpuz and Monica M. Hernandez
