Saturday, July 26, 2008 Local Think Tanks for Development By Roberto P. Alabado III Planning Perspectives
DURING the recent University of the Philippines Centennial lecture of former UP President Jose Abueva, he emphasized that one of the main roles of UP as The National University is to lead in the social transformation of the nation through research, teaching, and extension.
I realized that this role is not of UP alone but also of all universities and colleges. I have always advocated the partnership between local government units and its local colleges and universities.
Within the walls of our academic institutions lies a vast wealth of brain resource. We have faculty members who have dedicated time to earn their graduate degrees (MA, MS and PhD) and are in the position to provide expert opinion.
We have undergraduate and graduate students who are required to do a scholarly research (thesis) as part of their academic requirement and prove their mastery of their chosen discipline. On the lighter side, we have the freshmen students who are enrolled in the National Service Training Program (NSTP) who are required to do community service.
In short, we have thousands of people who are willing (or have to) wrack their brains to come up with studies, new knowledge, and volunteer service as part of their profession or earn their academic degrees.
The question now is the local government unit ready to tap this unused resource.
More often than not, LGUs are not in contact with their local colleges or maybe have only assigned the students to some manual work like reforestation or some clean and green project. While I do not mean to downgrade this assistance, I think that the academe should be given the task they do best - research and teaching.
To start, why can't the local government units draw up their own research agenda? List down the things that we want to know about the LGU: feasibility studies, policy studies, environmental studies, evaluation research, surveys, impact studies, community studies, etc. Set aside some budget for the logistics of these studies, as these can be too expensive for students and faculty to shoulder. (LGUs often do not have a budget for research activities; I wonder then how they can come up with appropriate program and projects.)
A joint team from the LGU and the academe can call for research proposals from the academe and then evaluate the proposals accordingly. After the conduct of the research, the researchers will be required to present the results and recommendations to the locality for validation and adoption.
With this partnership, the local government unit can be assured that its development plans and projects are based on scientific research and other researches can also serve as feedback mechanism of the need to know if the programs are working or not.
On the other hand, the students would have been granted a degree while faculty members can have research material for journal publication.
Should this happen in the near future, I see economics and management students doing their theses based on the needs of the local economy and the business sector's strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. I see engineering students studying and building better designs and technology for local industries. I see social sciences students conducting various researches to help us understand our local society better. I see natural sciences students undertaking various environmental studies. I see faculty members working with the councilors and local development agencies in conducting policy studies. I see faculty researchers undertaking highly specialized researches with the local business sector and government that can later be published in academic journals.
All of their researches and academic activities are focused on understanding local reality and discovering new approaches to develop the region. These will not remain as academic requirements that will rot in libraries or shelves but will serve as inputs for relevant policies, programs, and projects of the government and business sector.
If you think that this is just a crazy dream of mine, think again--these are now becoming a reality.
For the past years, small collaborative researches have been by four universities (UP Mindanao, University of Mindanao, University of Immaculate Concepcion and University of Southeastern Philippines) and the Metro Davao LGUs composed of the Municipality of Sta. Cruz, Panabo City, IGACOS, and Davao City or SANPASADA for short.
Faculty researchers and local experts from the LGUS formed teams and conducted studies on communities within mangrove areas, on local housing issues, and on the material recovery facilities (MRFs) of the solid waste management programs.
They have come up with relevant data and policy recommendations that will help the four LGUs in understanding their situation and the policy options that they can implement within Metro Davao area.
It took an NGO, the Philippine Center for Population and Development (PCPD) to realize that collaboration between universities and LGUS is needed if we are to learn how to work together as a future metropolis. It is now up to the SANPASADA to continue these initial efforts so we can really become a true Metro Davao.
We have already shown that collaboration is possible and will be beneficial to all. Now is the time for the LGU, Business sector and Civil Society groups to form partnerships with the academe so that we can put the much-needed software into our development process. We can then put into reality of making the academe a potent force for the social transformation of the nation. (rpalabado@gmail.com)
