THE Commission on Higher Education (CHED) claims to be “aggressive” in partnering with international universities to open opportunities for higher education institutions (HEIs) students abroad.
“Our office is very aggressive in connecting with universities abroad so the Philippine higher education institutions will have more opportunities to have more partnerships and participate in mobility programs,” Mabel A. Gutierrez, representative of CHED International Affairs Service (IAS), told BusinessWorld on Thursday.
CHED has educational partnerships currently with Cambodia, China, Japan, the United States of America (USA), Canada, Hungary, Poland, France, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and Israel.
“After the partnership, the opportunities for students are very wide,” Ms. Gutierrez said. “After their schooling, this can help with their career and their employment.”
In one of the testimonies shared at the 2024 European Higher Education Fair Press Conference, Jerald Montaner Apac, a scholar of the 2021 Philippine-France Fellowship Program, said that his master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering at the Université Paris-Saclay, France, helped his career flourish both locally and internationally.
After studying in France, which Mr. Apac described as “life changing,” he returned to the Philippines and helped develop the instrumentation and control manual of the only nuclear facility in the Philippines, the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). In addition, he works as an executive assistant in a French company.
“I had a lot of opportunities, especially in the French community here in the Philippines,” he added.
Ms. Gutierrez said the department aims to provide information and global opportunities not only for students but also for academic staff to be on par with international institutions. — Almira Louise S. Martinez