Government policies limit foreign students' market growth

Government policies coupled with liberal policies of sending teachers abroad have hampered the Philippines to position itself as a global educational hub.

According to Ma. Andrea Santiago of De La Salle University-Manila, the government's "unfriendly" regulations have kept the Philippines from attracting good number of foreign students to study in the Philippines.

She said there are guidelines from the Professional Regulatory Commission (PRC) that does not allow universities and colleges in the country to accept large number of foreign students.

There is a cap of 10 percent required by the government, for enrolling foreign students.

Currently, there are only about 4,000 foreigners studying in the Philippines, compared to other countries with figures ranging from 30,000 to 40,000.

Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) senior research fellow Gloria Pasadilla said that in Cebu, there are good universities that are capable of attracting foreign students, especially in the medical field but the potential cannot be exploited because of the strict regulations from the government.

Positioning the Philippines as a global educational hub, especially for medical fields, has a huge advantage, as Filipinos are now getting positive impressions from the international market as good medical professionals, Pasadilla said.

The government, she said should consider reviewing some of the regulations in order to start a new promising industry in attracting foreign students, and schools will be forced to improve their facilities and standard to get the international student market.

The "impression" of declining quality of education in the Philippines is also one of the problems that have to be addressed, to effectively brand the Philippines as an international education hub.

Santiago, and members of the PIDS, and other academicians were here in Cebu recently to conduct the Regional Discussion Forum on Services Industry: Growth Driver for Economic Competitiveness.

They said education should be a banner priority for the Philippines, as this is the carrier of the services industry being considered as the hope for the country's economic recovery.

Santiago said the Philippines should start marketing in its niche expertise in medical and health services, "then we can start from there."

She said because of liberal government policies in sending teachers to other countries, the quality of education in the Philippines has also suffered, and schools will just have keep on re-training teachers.

Other countries have aggressive programs of keeping their teachers from working abroad, but our country has not adopted the same strategy, Santiago said.

He said the Philippines should focus on its resources in specific areas like in medical and health services niche, "before we lose it."

Filipino teachers are now in demand in the United States, and other countries, there must be a program from the government to keep these teachers home, and attract foreign students to study here instead.

Although the Philippines has the potential to export educational services, it has to go a long way, as competition for quality education is very stiff.