GOV. EDGAR M. CHATTO sat with the Bohol Information and Communication Technology Council (BICTC) for a situationer briefing of Bohol’s digital landscape and to brainstorm on the immediate need for an ICT Education Summit for the province at the Governor’s Mansion Tuesday.
Lai Biliran updated the governor about Digital Bohol and presented the data on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) ranking in the Visayas across varied disciplines as it correlates to the long-haul development agenda of the province and the need for jobs by big industries.
Gov. Chatto and the BICTC members were made to understand how the HEI rankings reflect Boholano institutions’ status as regards to world-class quality education, as compared to that of other learning establishments in other areas in the country.
Ms. Biliran emphasized and explained about the importance of the terms “Center of Excellence” and “Center of Development” as reflected on the HEI rankings and how they reflect a learning institution’s capability and capacity in passing on world-class quality education to its students.
As defined under CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 16 Series of 2015, a Center of Excellence (COE) refers to a teacher education program under a college or department within a HEI, which continually demonstrates excellent performance in the areas of instruction, research and publication, extension and Linkages, institutional qualifications, and exhibit an excellent ability to produce quality pre-service teacher education to meet the needs of progressive teachers for elementary, secondary and special education programs in the Philippines.
To qualify for the selection of COE, the teacher education programs should have passed the initial screening, which includes Level II accreditation/international standing.
To be considered a COE, the total score for the different parameters in the criteria should at least be 75 points.
As to Center of Development (COD), it refers to a teacher education program under a college or department within a higher education institution which demonstrates the potential to become a COE in the future.
To qualify for this, an institution’s teacher education program should have also passed the initial screening, which includes the same level as that of the COD.
But in this case, to be considered a COD, the total score of the different parameters in the criteria should at least be 65 points.
Gov. Chatto studied the data presented to him by Ms. Biliran, where he became a bit concerned for in Region 7, only six from Cebu, one from Dumaguete, and one from Tacloban got the COE and COD designations.
Ms. Biliran then exhaustibly explained that despite the brilliance of students and the excellent education that Boholanos are getting from our very own learning institutions, the degrees that our graduates get from their college education either do not complement, are not related to, or not in parallel with, the job openings of the establishments here.
This is also the reason why our very own graduates look for job vacancies in other areas for Bohol lacks the job opportunities that job seekers could relate to, or in consonance with, what they have learned in school.
This is why Bohol needs to have an ICT Education Summit, Ms. Biliran said, “so we can guide our schools’ individual roadmaps to support industries.”
On February 23-24, a discussion of the Visayas ICT Organizations (VICTor) conference will be held here in Bohol, with a gathering of notable resource persons which, they hope she added, could be redesigned as the ICT Education Summit for the province.
Wrapping up the meeting, the next steps for Digital Bohol were thereafter also discussed.
Prior to the briefing, Gov. Chatto swore in the new set of officers for the BICTC. (JLV/PGBh/EDCom)
