A major issue raised during the CHED budget hearings was the closure of what politicians called “diploma mills.” This call is not new. Every education mission, from the Monroe Survey in 1925 to EDCOM 1 in the 1990s, has raised concerns about the quality of education, its impact on teacher quality, compliance with government standards and poor student performance.
Recently, political leaders and EDCOM 2 again called on CHED to address the proliferation of diploma mills that offer master’s and PhD programs in teacher education.
In response, CHED announced that it has closed 26 teacher education programs at 11 higher education institutions (HEIs) and promised to continue addressing noncompliant instructional courses and to strengthen quality assurance in teacher education.
The CHED, DepEd, PRC and the TEC also signed a Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) in November 2025 to regulate program quality and combat credential fraud across the Philippine higher education system.
These steps are laudable, but are they merely repetitions of what was done before? Can they make a serious dent in closing substandard degree programs that rob students of a better future?
Are there other workable reforms that can be undertaken to close diploma mills?
First, we must address serious structural and policy problems at CHED. The commission is severely understaffed to carry out its regulatory mandates. CHED was established as a policymaking and regulatory agency, not an implementation agency. Yet Congress has saddled CHED with numerous coordination responsibilities – it is a member of more than 30 interagency bodies – and numerous laws to implement, including the Free Higher Education law. These obligations severely limit its regulatory capacity.
CHED should also change its policies for opening and closing degree programs. Each new degree program offered by any of the more than 1,600 private HEIs (PHEIs) requires CHED approval. The commission reviews compliance with quality assurance requirements from the application stage through the issuance of an Initial Permit (IR) and the granting of Government Recognition (GR). However, once a GR is granted, there is no mechanism for continuous review of compliance with standards. HEIs are not required to report on their continued compliance, and GRs have no established renewal period.
When PHEIs open new degree programs, various accreditation bodies are expected to oversee their continued improvement. However, many PHEIs neither seek accreditation nor belong to any of COCOPEA’s five core associations: CEAP, PACU, ACSCU, PAPSCU and TEVSAPHIL/UniTVET.
For public universities, the requirement to obtain a Certificate of Program Compliance (COPC) was strictly enforced starting with the Duterte administration. A COPC certifies that minimum standards are met. However, many public universities still lack full COPC compliance yet continue to offer these degree programs.
Four steps are needed: 1. pass a new CHED charter to strengthen its regulatory powers; 2. revise CHED policies on opening and closing degree programs at private universities; 3. immediately close programs in public universities that do not comply with COPC requirements and 4. thoroughly review how to deal with HEIs that do not undergo accreditation.
Second, CHED officials are often reluctant to shut down non-compliant degree programs because doing so can trigger a deluge of cases. In 2011, CHED chair Patricia Licuanan ordered 32 nursing and maritime schools to phase out or close deficient degree programs following intensive monitoring and evaluation. CHED phased out 299 non-compliant academic degree programs and imposed a moratorium on new programs in five disciplines: business administration, nursing, teacher education, hotel and restaurant management and information technology.
So many cases were filed against the commission. Although CHED won most of them, some were still being resolved when I became CHED chairman in 2018. So, if a CHED chairman serves only briefly (some have stayed only six months) – or lacks the political will to face these cases or stand up to politicians – closing non-compliant programs will remain a slow and incremental process.
CHED regional directors face a similar dilemma: when they try to discipline errant HEIs, they are often threatened with ombudsman cases or pressured by local politicians who own those institutions.
Third, CHED should focus on problematic degree programs and deliver quick wins to demonstrate progress.
Although diploma mills at the graduate level have drawn criticism, their overall effect on the quality of education is less significant than that of problematic undergraduate degree programs. CHED CMO 15 (2019) already provides an improved regulatory framework for graduate education; it only needs to be implemented seriously.
Quick wins could include closing nearly 200 teacher education degree programs with LET passing rates below 50 percent and noncompliant faculty, deans or curriculum requirements. This includes more than 170 HEIs that EDCOM II reports had zero LET pass rates in recent years.
A thorough review should also cover other degree programs, including criminology and maritime education. All three programs share three characteristics: they are offered by many HEIs (more than 1,500 offer education), are oversubscribed and enroll large numbers of students. Closing non-compliant programs in these areas would benefit more students.
Finally, there should be greater transparency not only about the closure of non-compliant degree programs but also about complaints against HEIs. The TEC launched a useful online complaint portal (https://www.tec.govt.nz/contact-us/complain-about-an-education-provider), but it didn’t work when I tried to use it. Even when a complaint is accepted, there is no system for tracking it through to resolution.