Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Business education on top of courses in W. Visayas
ABOUT 45,248 or 22 percent of the 190,000 college enrollees in Western Visayas, are into the Business Education related courses which posted the highest number followed by 38,900 (21 percent) in Medical related courses, and 27,800 (15 percent) in Teacher Education.
The Academic year officially opened last June 5, in 134 higher education institutions (HEIs) in the region, with the private schools dominating the enrollment data with 116,677 or 61 percent.
Education Supervisor II and Planning Officer Rex Casiple of the Commission on Higher Education (Ched), said that Iloilo City had the highest share in the enrollment, with 59,360, followed by Bacolod City with 40,938.
There is, however, a 6.77 percent decrease in enrolment in Iloilo City and a 6.5 percent increase in the province. In Negros Occidental, enrolment in Bacolod City decreased by 2.4 percent, while enrolment in the province decreased by 3 percent.
In Capiz, enrolment in Roxas City increased by six percent while enrolment in the province decreased by 8.8 percent. In antique, enrolment in the capital town of San Jose decreased by 10.5 percent, while the total enrolment of the other towns of the province increased by 16.5 percent.
Iloilo City, which is the seat of 23 State colleges and universities (SUCs) main and external campuses, enrolment decreased to 31 percent from 39 percent of the total enrolment in the region eight years ago.
Casiple said that the decrease is caused by the preference of many of the college students in Iloilo to continue their studies in public schools or in state colleges and universities situated in the rural areas rather than in public and private schools in the city.
He added that public schools are charging very low tuition and miscellaneous fees, which are three to five times lower than that of the private schools.
Ched has issued a memorandum to the SUCs and public schools that there should be no increases in tuition and miscellaneous fees for School Year 2006-2007, to make higher education more accessible to a greater number of Filipino college students.
As part of the Arroyo administration's pump-priming thrusts, CHED continues to expand its financial programs for SUCs so that the latter can accommodate poor but deserving students. (Press release)
(July 26, 2006 issue)
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