EU continues to advocate ‘quality, mobility, innovation’ in education

MANILA, Philippines - European Union continues to advocate quality education through their annual Higher Education fair.

On Saturday, 27 institutions from 12 European Union member states joined the fair which happened at Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City.

Students and different Philippine institution members were encouraged to attend and see the opportunities they could explore.

“We want Philippine institutions to meet with European institutions to see what can be done in terms of expanding cooperation between them,” said Mattias Lentz, delegate of European Union in the Philippines.

Lentz also encourages Filipino students to see education in Europe as a “good option” which could “provide possibilities and gain networks” for them.

“We organized this to provide platform for Filipino students to meet directly with different higher education institutions from EU member states,” he said. “So this is a platform to make that contact happened and for the students to understand better what it means to study in EU and what are the requirements if they want to.”

One of the participating countries in the fair is United Kingdom, which according to British Council Country Director Nicholas Thomas has about half a million international students.

They have five higher institutions participating this year namely Halt International Business School, Astrum Education, BPP University, University of Sunderland and University of West London.

Thomas said international students choose UK for three reasons.

“The first is quality. UK institutions are known quite well looking at the international ranking of universities. The UK has quite a number in top 10 and top 20. Quality is very good,” he said.

He also mentioned “employability” which pertains to “the links between employers and education system. So the universities make sure that when you study in UK, it’ll be closely in line with what employers would want not only now but also in the future.”

Lastly he said is “life experience.”

“It’s a great place to go, especially for Filipinos there’s no language barrier and that makes it easy,” he explained. “It’s also a very diverse country, very open country, very multi-cultural. So students there get to learn things about people from all over the world.”

In the end, Commission on Higher Education Commissioner Dr. Minella Alarcon said that Filipino students should take advantage of these higher education fairs since it’s a “venue to discover and explore opportunities offered by the European Union institutions.”

To get more information about studying in Europe visit www.EHEFPhilippines.org or check their Facebook page EU Delegation to the Philippines and EHEF Philippines.