As a follow-up to my previous post, I thought I'd qualify what I wrote by stating that I never went to college in the Philippines, so I lack a first hand perspective on the situation. When I graduated from high school in Manila back in 1976, I had two full scholarships to go to a local university, but I was also offered a scholarship to a technical university in the U.S. and so I opted to go abroad instead. I do recall, however, intensively comparing the course catalogues of several schools both in the Philippines and abroad, and drew my conclusions from that experience. I also spent one U.S. summer teaching half a semester at the Ateneo, and also touring different institutions in the university belt (including sitting in on various classes) together with two of my faculty colleagues. Over the years, I have continued to look with interest upon the Philippine education scene, with the help of the Internet.
An issue which I did not address in the original post of this discussion thread is the high cost of books in the Philippines relative to incomes, especially those not printed on cheap newsprint by local publishers. Perhaps this is a major obstacle to raising the quality of Filipino college curricula, as it may be very expensive for students to purchase large batches of reading material as is done at foreign universites, especially in intermediate courses in the humanities. Maybe this is why institutions would rather rely on more classes with lectures than fewer courses with more reading and small group discussion.
