Saturday, December 20, 2008 Improvement in private schools’ facilities urged
TO ENSURE the delivery of quality higher education, the Commission on Higher Education (Ched) asked private colleges and universities to allocate more funds next year for the improvement of their facilities.
“Instead of thinking about profits, let us first allocate bigger funds for the further improvement of school facilities,” said Ched chairman Emmanuel Angeles.
Angeles suggested to school owners to limit the allotted percentage of profit derived from their operation.
He added that instead of pegging profit to 10 percent, it should be limited to five percent while the other five percent should instead be utilized for improving the facility to enhance the students’ learning capacity.
Under the current deregulation law, the mandated distribution of return of investment in private schools derived from tuition and other school fees collected by the school is as follows: 70 percent for salary and benefits of faculty and employees; 20 percent for facilities; and 10 percent as profit.
There are about 1,623 private colleges and universities nationwide.
Earlier, the commission urged state universities and colleges (SUCs) to formulate their business plan where they can derive additional source of income in cooperation with the private sector rather than increase tuitions.
Angeles said SUCs should look for alternative ways to come up with additional resources to augment the allocations given by the National Government.
“SUCs should prepare business plan where they can source their income aside from tuitions collected from their students. If they can’t do that, I am willing to do to them for free,” he said.
“Tertiary institutions in our neighbors have business plan, aside from their academic plan, so that they were able to plan and source additional resources,” he added.
Aside from drafting a business plan, Angeles said these higher education institutions (HEIs) should also forge more linkages with the private sector, including tapping corporate sponsorship to fund their programs.
He cited the agreement between the state-run University of the Philippines (UP) and Ayala Land Incorporated (ALI) for the development of idle lands in its Diliman campus for research and technology-collaborative projects.
The project dubbed the UP-Ayala Technohub is a 37.5 hectare development along Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, which upon completion will house companies in high-technology areas and high-value business process outsourcing (BPO) services as well as start-up and incubate companies.
The program is part of the overall development plan for the 98.5-hectare UP North Science and Technology Park, a center for science and technology research and development. (AH/Sunnex)
