CHED apologizes to 2 Cebu schools

CEBU CITY — The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) has admitted that it has not been monitoring the performance of colleges and universities in licensure examinations.

The CHED’s admission came amid protests raised by two Cebu universities which were included in its list of schools ordered to drop certain academic programs because of poor performance in board exams.

CHED executive director Roger Perez admitted the other day that the University of Southern Philippines (USP) and Southwestern University (SWU) were erroneously listed among the 136 schools that were ordered to phase out certain courses because only five percent of their graduates had passed licensure exams from 1997 to 2001.

"We have not checked with the concerned schools before we released the list," Perez said in a long-distance phone interview with The Freeman.

"I apologize to these schools for our oversight. I am taking full responsibility for the commission’s error," he said.

The USP was ordered to stop offering its nutrition and dietetics course, and the SWU, its chemical engineering course.

Both USP and SWU, however, protested, saying they had stopped offering the courses that CHED wanted them to drop as early as 1985.

USP president Ronald Duterte said they dropped the nutrition course in 1985 because only a few students were taking it, not because CHED, which was non-existent then (it was established in 1994), told them to do so.

Meanwhile, SWU presidential assistant for academic affairs Catalino Abos said they stopped the chemical engineering course in 1986 also because of low enrollment.

Abos criticized the CHED central office, saying the list that it sent for publication was unfair to the school.

But CHED’s Perez, however, blamed the Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) for the error.

"The list was given by the PRC," he said. He, however, admitted that the CHED failed to double-check the data with the schools concerned.

Perez said he told his staff to double-check the data before releasing the list.

"But as it turned out, my staff only checked with the PRC and not with the schools themselves. I express my apologies to the schools. We will be more careful next time," he said.

Perez said the CHED’s lapses were limited to just a few schools in the list. He, however, did not say how many were listed erroneously. — Freeman News Service