The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) mulls to source cheap money totaling $500 million from the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) fund to improve the quality of tertiary education in the country.

CHED Chairman Emmanuel Y. Angeles plans to negotiate ODA soft loans from financial institutions and/or donor countries which shall be disbursed in phases. Phase 1 will require US$200 million and Phase 2, US$300 million to upgrade the facilities of 50% or 871 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).

Angeles said he has to act fast to arrest the alarming decline of higher education here. “At the rate, we’re going, we’d be overtaken by Vietnam in a few years time,’’ he said, lamenting that the Philippines education system, from its lofty position in the 1950s to 1960s, is now ranked among the lowest.

“Tapping the ODA can jumpstart our guest to regain our lofty stature,’’ Angeles said.

Aat the moment, CHED is making do of its meager funds to implement various projects and programs to meet its objectives. The total appropriations for higher education in the last nine years were P168.3 billion – CHED and State Universities and Colleges (SUC) budget combined. Under the Arroyo administration, it has been used to focus on five major programs: Faculty development;  Student scholarships; Research and Development; Facilities improvement and Quality assurance.

Under the program, 3,128 faculty scholars were trained with a total cost of P1.16B. In order to have a greater impact on quality, CHED plans to train 20,000 faculty staff with masters and Ph.Ds in three years. Of these, 10,000 will be supported by CHED with funding requirement of P2.0 billion. The other 10,000 will be HE1-supported as counterpart. Strategies such as consortium, offshore delivers, bringing in of faculoty into the country shall be explored for faculty training.

The government has likewise extended scholarships to 636,581 college students with a total expenditure of P6.5 billion. To provide greater access to poor but bright students, CHED aims to implement a massive scholarships program targeting 20% of the college enrollment. To do this, 1.56 million students will be given scholarships by CHED for the next six years. On the other hand, the HEIs will also support 1.56 million students as HEIs counterpart. This strategy translated to educating 520,000 poor but deserves scholars per year supported by the government and HEIs.

CHED also plans to establish 17 Zonal Research Centers (1.ZRC per region and five sub-ZRCs per region to develop and strengthen R&D capabilities of 102 HEIs. The 6-year R&D plan requires a total budget of P6.9B with P1.0B budget per year.

CHED has likewise assisted 247 HEIs (132 private, 115 SUCs) in upgrading their laboratory, library and other school facilities for a total cost of P2.2B.

Angeles hopes that the implementation of the proposed action plans will make the country at par with the rest of the Asia-Pacific countries in terms of human resource development through enhanced and up-to-date instructions, research and extension programs by the HEIs.