Nine centers for excellence in IT education named

Only nine out of more than a hundred colleges and universities that vied to be "centers of excellence in information technology education" were chosen by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED).

Several of the nine schools are based outside Metro Manila, like the Angeles University Foundation (AUF) in Angeles City, Pampanga, Cebu Institute of Technology in Cebu City, the University of the Cordilleras in Baguio City, UP Cebu and UP Los Baños in Laguna, CHED said yesterday.

In Metro Manila, the educational centers recognized in IT are the Henry Sy-owned Asia Pacific College located along South Superhighway in Parañaque City; the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City; De La Salle University-Manila; University of the Philippines-Diliman, Quezon City.

CHED also identified 31 educational centers for development in IT education. This classification is described as a notch lower than the centers for excellence.

CHED chairman Carlito Puno congratulated the nine schools for meeting the qualifications of a strict technical screening committee, which audited over a hundred colleges and universities as well as "computer education institutes" that applied for the recognition with CHED.

"These are the honest-to-goodness top IT schools in the country today," Puno said.

He said that to get the recognition, the schools were screened by a technical committee formed by CHED to identify IT centers of excellence and development as provided under Republic Act 7722, which mandates CHED to conduct such a search.

RA 7722 provides a search for centers for educational excellence and development to provide a benchmark of quality education among the country’s higher educational institutes.

Puno admitted that some of the nine schools are not popular, but he said he was confident that these were the real best schools in IT education.

"They had passed the rigorous screening," he pointed out.

Dr. Eliezer Albacea, chairman of the committee that conducted the search, said schools had to apply to be considered being given this recognition.

After this, Albacea said the schools were evaluated with regards to the quality of its faculty, facilities and equipment as well as the research work conducted by its past students.

"It was almost an eight-month process," he said.