School exec pushes measures as ASEAN 2015 nears

DAVAO CITY- A school official is pushing for measures that will enhance school’s attractiveness as ASEAN 2015 nears.

The ASEAN 2015 (Asean stands for Association of Southeast Asian Nations) is a regional economic integration which involves the freer movement of capital, goods and people among ASEAN member countries by 2015. Among these movement will be students from different countries in the region.

Rey Castro, Assistant Vice President for Business Development of the University of Mindanao, said that several measures must be enacted so that schools can take advantage of ASEAN 2015.

One is the change of school calendar. The Philippines is the only country in ASEAN where the month June is the opening of classes. Almost all countries have followed the schedule where August is the start of the classes.  Castro said that Vietnam and Thailand had changed their school calendar to adapt to other countries.

He said that UM will be following the new calendar this coming 2015 with August as the start of classes and also they will be be using the trimester calendar instead of the usual semestral classes.

“If you really want to internationalize you must change our school calendar because no students will enroll if our school calendar is different from their countries.” Castro said during an interview at the Kapehan sa Abreeza Media forum held today  (May 23) at Abreeza, Ayala Mall.

Another measure for schools to adapt is to ensure that curriculum must adhere to international standards.  And one of the steps is to harmonize the credit transferring system in Philippine schools.

Castro also noted the discrepancy of Philippine units with units from other ASEAN countries, for example one Malaysian college subject is equivalent to about three Philippine college subjects.

He said the country is noted for having so many subjects in college. In other countries one college semester has an average of 3 to 4 college subjects while in the Philippines a semester has a load of 8 to 9 college subjects.

He said this is the reason why foreign students only study English and other cultural subjects in the country instead of schooling here full-time.

UM he said has started to harmonize its curriculum and is widely accepted among ASEAN countries.

Another measure is for schools to have foreign professors and to offer foreign languages particularly Bahasa, Japanese, South Korean and Chinese as ASEAN integration will also include the three countries Japan,  South Korea and China.

One aspect looking into is fixing the peace and order problem particularly the country’s negative image. Castro cited the school University of Mindanao as hard to promote because of the negative connotation of Mindanao as a war-torn region.

Castro cited huge potentials in the education market in the coming ASEAN 2015, particularly as many students from ASEAN countries will be attracted to study in the country because of its English communication skills. (PIA/RG Alama)