Higher Education in the Philippines

This chapter presents an overview of the current state of the higher education sector in the Philippines. It also highlights key challenges, including access, inclusion and equity, and quality of higher education. Inequitable and inadequate household income issues bring about the abovementioned challenges, the lack and poor implementation of laws and policies for inclusion and equity, the profit-seeking nature of nonsectarian private higher education institutions, and the varying quality of higher education institutions and programs. Recent developments in the sector include the Universal Tertiary Education Act of 2017 (granting free tuition and miscellaneous fees for first-degree students studying at public higher education institutions), ongoing international benchmarking (with the shift to outcomes-based competency standards), and multistakeholder participation in developing minimum curriculum standards. Such initiatives have partly addressed access, quality, and relevance issues in Philippine higher education. The Government’s role through the Commission on Higher Education and the alignment of the higher education sector with the Philippine Development Goals and international commitments, including the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, are presented. The key trends in Philippine higher education include an increased focus on the internationalization of higher education, enhancing global and regional partnerships, and the shift to outcomes-based competency standards. The utilization of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), which the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated, is also discussed.