Door of opportunity

Maybe no one in the school administration expected the size of the crowd that descended on the campus of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City the other day.

Still, UP is associated with brains, and surely some resident genius could have introduced order into the system of accepting student applications to take the state university’s College Admission Test. The UPCAT applications can be sent by courier or deposited in drop boxes, but perhaps the students wanted to make sure their documents would not be lost.

All UP alumni in The STAR newsroom were stunned by that chaos. None of us went through that ordeal; all we remember was taking the UPCAT and then receiving at home a letter of acceptance and instructions for enrollment.

This, of course, was before tuition in all state colleges and universities became free starting this school year. UP tuition rates of the past, still considerable after being socialized, combined with the miscellaneous expenses for tertiary education, deterred many students from trying their luck in the UPCAT.

With the start of free tuition, I guess more students were encouraged to make a stab at entering the country’s most prestigious university (as rated by Quacquarelli Symonds or SQ). But obviously, no one expected that kind of surge in the number of UPCAT applicants.

The surge highlights a strong demand for top-quality but affordable education, and the need to boost the state’s capability to meet the demand. Many of the country’s best and brightest, plus a smattering of the worst and vilest, are products of UP.

Yesterday, it was the turn of students from public schools to file their UPCAT applications. The lines were still long but order had been instituted. A UP official lamented that their admonition to leave the applications in a drop box were ignored. But again, many of the students probably didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

It’s good that there’s a strong interest among millennials in getting a UP education. But UP facilities have barely expanded over the years, and only a tiny fraction of that crowd of UPCAT applicants will be accepted. Last year, 100,000 students applied for the UPCAT; this year the number has ballooned to 160,000.

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The wealthy can afford world-class education overseas. It would be interesting to find out how many government officials and politicians have children currently studying abroad or are graduates of the world’s top colleges and universities. Top quality also means premium rates, and it’s the same in Philippine private schools. Our private colleges and universities offer scholarships, but these are hardly enough.

Among lesser mortals, UP offers the best hope for affordable quality education. For someone like me who grew up in Manila’s rough Tondo district, paying tuition of less than P400 per semester (this was before socialized tuition) was a godsend.

The UP system has campuses outside Metro Manila, but clearly the facilities aren’t enough. With additional funding and other resources, UP could place higher in the QS World University Rankings. UP has questioned the methodology for the annual QS report, in which the university, at 384th place, was the only one in the Philippines that managed to enter the world’s 500 best in the latest rankings.

Universities in advanced economies dominated the QS list: the top six are Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Harvard University and California Institute of Technology, all in the US; and the UK’s Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The levels of economic development tend to track the rankings. Until about six decades ago when the Philippines was Asia’s No. 2 economic performer after Japan, our country was also Asia’s center of education. In the latest QS rankings, two Singapore schools led the pack in this part of Asia, placing 11th and 12th. Universities in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China also ranked high.

In Southeast Asia, UP was ranked below several universities in Malaysia, two universities in Thailand (271st and 380th), one in Indonesia (292nd) and two in Brunei (323rd and 359th).

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Education plays a crucial role in making growth inclusive and boosting national competitiveness. China, as it gained prosperity, poured resources into educating its people and promoting innovation. Singapore, during an economic slowdown a few years ago, boosted government spending on education.

Maybe the quality of Philippine education is not getting the official attention that it deserves because many of our policy makers prefer to send their children overseas for university education.

The importance of education in advancing in life is also diluted by the sad fact that in our society, what matters is often not what but who you know.

Foreigners have asked why many Filipinos do so well in certain other countries. Among the reasons has to be the enabling environment – a relatively stronger chance than in the Philippines that they can get ahead in life on their own merit rather than on the basis of their surname, membership in a religious group or political patronage.

In such environments, education opens opportunities for liberating people from poverty and advancing in life, of realizing one’s dream.

Those dreams can germinate at an early age. Before high school graduation, the dream would have taken a more solid form; a rough path would have been laid out for its attainment.

For a number of students, entering UP is a significant first step in realizing their dream.

With greater resources, this door of opportunity can be opened to more people.